cats and dogs are hunted down and rudely beaten to death with stones, so that their carcases may be devoured.  Many of the men and women cling to life with a desperation which seems wonderful, for some are getting hardly any food at all, and their ribs are cracking through their skin.  There is something wrong somewhere, for while so many are half starving, the crowds of able-bodied converts used in the fortification work are fairly well fed.  Nobody seems to wish to pay much attention to the question, although many reports have been sent in.  Perhaps, from one point of view, it is without significance whether these useless people die or not.  Hardly any of the many non-combatant Europeans stir beyond the limits of the British Legation, even with this lull.  All sit there talking—­talking eternally and praying for relief, calculating our chances of holding out for another two or three weeks, but never acting.  A roll, indeed, has been made at last, with every able-bodied man’s name set down, and a distribution table drawn up.  But beyond that no action has been taken, and the hundred and more men who might be added to our active forces are allowed to do nothing.

This might be all right were there not certain ominous signs around us, which show that a change must soon come.  For the enemy has planted new banners on all sides of us, bearing the names of new Chinese generals unknown to us.  Audaciously driven into the ground but twenty or thirty feet from our outposts, these gaudy flags of black and yellow, and many other colours, flaunt us and mock us with the protection assured by the Tsung-li Yamen.  Still, those despatches continue to come in, but the first interpreter of the French Legation, who sees some of them in the original, says that their tone is becoming more surly and imperative.

It is ominous, too, that the Chinese commands, which have been so reinforced and are now of great strength, are so close to our outer line that they heave over heavy stones in order to maim and hurt our outposts without firing.  All the outer barricades and trenches are being hurriedly roofed in to protect us from this new danger.  One of our men, struck on the head with a twenty-pound stone, has been unconscious ever since, and a great many many others are badly hurt in other ways.  The Chinese can be very ingenious devils if they wish, and the score against them is piling up more and more.

XXVI

MORE MESSENGERS

10th August, 1900.

* * * * *

At last some great news!  Messengers from the relief columns have actually arrived, and the columns themselves are only a few days’ march from Peking.  What excitement there has been among the non-combatant community; what handshaking; what embracing; what fervent delight!  This unique life is to end; we are to become reasonably clean and quite ordinary mortals again, lost among the world’s population of fifteen hundred millions—­undistinguished, unknown—­that is, if the relief gets in....