The position is therefore unchanged.  We have had a week’s quiet, and some letters from the Tsung-li Yamen, which assures us of their distinguished consideration, yet we are just as isolated and as uneasy as we were before.  This solitude is becoming killing.

XVIII

THE UNREST GROWS AND DIPLOMACY CONTINUES

27th July, 1900.

* * * * *

It is not so peaceful as it was.  Trumpet calls have been blaring outside; troops have been seen moving in big bodies with great banners in their van; the Imperial world of Peking is in great tumult; the soldier-spy alleges new storms must be brewing.

In spite of this, however, the Tsung-li Yamen messengers now come and go with a certain regularity.  This curious diplomatic correspondence must be piling up.  Even the messengers, who at first suffered such agonies of doubt as they approached our lines, frantically waving their flags of truce and fearing our rifles, are now quite accustomed to their work, and are becoming communicative in a cautious, curious Chinese way which hints at rather than boldly states.  They tell us that our barricades can only be approached with some sense of safety from the eastern side—­that is, the Franco-German quarter; in other quarters they may be fired on and killed by their own people.  The Peking troops, who can be still controlled by Prince Ching and the Tsung-li Yamen, are on the eastern side of the enclosing squares of barricades; elsewhere there are field forces from other provinces—­men who cannot be trusted, and who would massacre the messengers as soon as they would us, although they are clad in official dress and represent the highest authority in the Empire.  This position is very strange.

But more ominous than all the trumpet calls and the large movements of troops which have been spied from the top of the lofty Tartar Wall, are the tappings and curious little noises underground.  Everywhere these little noises are being heard, always along the outskirts of our defence.  It must be that the mining of the French Legation is looked upon as so successful, that the Chinese feel that could they but reach every point of our outworks with black powder placed in narrow subterranean passages, they would speedily blow us into an ever narrower ring, until there was only that left of us which could be calmly destroyed by shells.  We now occupy such an extended area, and are so well entrenched, that shelling, although nerve-wracking, has lost almost all its power and terror.  Were Chinese commanders united in their purpose and their men faithful to them, a few determined rushes would pierce our loose formation.  As it is, it is our salvation.  In the quiet of the night all the outposts hear this curious tapping.  It is heard along the French lines, along the German lines, along the Japanese lines, and all round the north of the British Legation.  Were we to remain quiescent the armistice might be suddenly broken some day by all our fighting men being hoisted into the air.  Our counter-action has, however, already commenced.