Otherwise, there is nothing much to note in the British Legation, for here the storm and stress of the outer lines come back oddly enough quite faintly, excepting during a general attack.  The dozens of walls account for that.  In the evenings the missionaries now gather and sing hymns ... sometimes Madame P——­, the wife of the great Russian Bank Director, takes compassion, and gives an aria from some opera.  She used to be a diva in the St. Petersburg Opera House, they say, years ago, and her voice comes like a sweet dream in such surroundings.  A week ago a strange thing happened when she was giving an impromptu concert.  She was singing the Jewel song from Faust so ringingly that the Chinese snipers must have heard it, for immediately they opened a heavy “fire,” which grew to a perfect tornado, and sent the listeners flying in terror.  Perhaps the enemy thought it was a new war-cry, which meant their sudden damnation!

Yet we have had so much time to rectify all our mistakes that things are in much better working order.  Public opinion has made the commander-in-chief distribute the British marines in many of the exposed positions and thus allow inferior fighting forces to garrison the interior lines.  Twice last week, before this redistribution had been completed, there was trouble with both the Italian and the Austrian sailors and some volunteers.  Posts of them retreated during the night....  They gave as their excuse that they knew that the loose organisation would cause them to be sacrificed if the enemy began rushing.  There is much to be said for them; the general command had been disgraceful, especially during the night, when only good fortune saves us from annihilation.  One single determined rush is all that is needed to end this farce....

These retreats, which have not been confined to the sailors, have ended by causing great commotion and alarm among the non-combatants, and reserve trenches and barricades are being improved and manned in growing numbers.  Still, the distribution is unequal.  There is a force of nearly sixty rifles in what is the northern front of the British Legation—­the sole front exposed to direct attack on this side of the square.  With difficulty can the command be induced to withdraw a single man from here.  They say it is so close to all those who have sought the shelter of the British Legation, so close to the women and children and those who are afraid, that it would be a crime to weaken this front.  And yet there has been hardly a casualty among those sixty men during four weeks’ siege, while elsewhere about one hundred and twenty have been killed and wounded....