Alongside the whole post of ten men was still peacefully slumbering—­regulars and volunteers heaped impartially together.  Poor devils!  Each one, after the enormous excitement of the relief, had come back mechanically to his accustomed place, because this strange life of ours, imposed by the discipline of events, has become a second nature, which we scarcely know how to shake off.  Like tired dogs, we still creep into our holes.  The youngest were moaning and tossing, as they have done every night for weeks past—­shaking off sleep like a harmful narcotic, because the poison of fighting is too strong for most blood in these degenerate days.  What sounds have I not heard during the past two months—­what sighs, what gasps, what groans, what muttered protests!  When men lie asleep, their imaginations betray their secret thoughts....

Day had not broken properly before the murmur and movements of the night before rose again.  This time, as I looked around me, they were more marked—­as if the relieving forces had become half accustomed to their strange surroundings, and were acting with the freedom of familiarity.  There were bugle-calls and trumpet-calls, the neighing and whinnying of horses, the rumble of heavy waggons, calls and cries....  But hidden by the high walls and the barricades, nothing could be seen.  We got something to eat, and, wishing to explore, I marched down to the dry canal-bed, jumped in, and made for the Water-Gate, through which the first men had come.  In a few steps I was outside the Tartar Wall, for the first time for nearly three long months.  At last there was something to be seen.  Far along here, there were nothing but bivouacs of soldiery moving uneasily like ants suddenly disturbed, and as I tramped through the sand towards the great Ch’ien Men Gate I could see columns of other men, already in movement, though day had just come, winding in and out from the outer Chinese city.  Thick pillars of smoke, that hung dully in the morning air, were rising in the distance as if fire had been set to many buildings; but apart from these marching troops there was not a living soul to be seen.  The ruins and the houses had become mere landmarks and the city a veritable desert.

I wandered about listlessly and exchanged small talk disconsolately with numbers of people.  Nobody knew what was going to happen, but everybody was trying to learn from somebody else.  The wildest rumours were circulating.  The Russians and Japanese had disappeared through the Eastern Gates of the city, and the gossip was that each, in trying to steal a march on the other, had knocked up against large bodies of Chinese troops, who, still retaining their discipline, had stood their ground and inflicted heavy losses on the rivals.  But whether this was true or not, there was, for the time being, no means of knowing.  I thought of my last rifle-shots of the siege at those endless white and black dots, which had suddenly debouched on that long, dusty street, and held my tongue.  Idly we waited to see what was going to happen.  After so many climaxes one’s imagination totally failed.