Suddenly above the clamour of rifle-fire a distant boom to the far east broke on my ears, as I was shouting madly at my men.  I held my breath and tried to think, but before I could decide, boom! came an answering big gun miles away.  I dug my teeth into my lips to keep myself calm, but icy shivers ran down my back.  They came faster and faster, those shivers....  You will never know that feeling.  Then, boom! before I had calmed myself came a third shock; and then ten seconds afterwards, three booms, one, two, three, properly spaced.  I understood, although the sounds only shivered in the air.  It was a battery of six guns coming into action somewhere very far off.  It must be true!  I rose to my feet and shook myself.  Then, in answer to the heavy guns, came such an immense rolling of machine-gun fire, that it sounded faintly, but distinctly, above the storm around us.  Great forces must be engaged in the open....

I had been so ardently listening to these sounds that the enemy’s fire had imperceptibly faded away in front of me unnoticed, until it had become almost completely stilled.  Single rifles now alone cracked off; all the other men must be listening too—­listening and wondering what this distant rumble meant.  Far away the Chinese fire still continued to rage as fiercely—­but near us, by some strange chance, these distant echoes had claimed attention.

Again the booming dully shook the air.  Again the machine-guns beat their replying rataplan.  Now every rifle near by suddenly was stilled, and a Chinese stretcher-party behind me murmured, “Ta ping lai tao liao”—­“the armies arrived.”  Somebody took this up, and then we began shouting it across in Chinese to our enemy, shouting it louder and louder in a sort of ecstasy, and heaving heavy stones to attract their attention.  We must have become quite crazy, for my throat suddenly gave out, and I could only speak in an absurd whisper....  Oh, what a night!...

Behind the barricades facing us we could now distinctly hear the Chinese soldiery moving uneasily and muttering excitedly to one another.  They had understood that it must be the last night of Boxerism, so we threw more stones and shouted more taunts.  Then, as if accepting the challenge, a rifle cracked off, a second one joined it, a third, a fourth, and soon the long lines blazed flames and ear-splitting sounds again.  But it was the last night—­this did not matter—­assuredly it was the last night, and from our posts we despatched the first news to headquarters to report that heavy guns had been heard to the east....

Presently, going back during a lull to see ammunition brought up, I found that inside our lines the women and children had all risen, and were craning their necks to catch the distant sounds which had been so long in coming.  All night long the buildings in the Su wang-fu, which are packed with native Christians, had been filled with the sound of praying.  The elders appointed to watch over this vast flock had