Up there I found a mass of people, mostly comprising those who had been spectators rather than actors in the siege.  I remember being seized with strange feelings when I saw their little air of derision and their sneers as they looked down towards the Palace in pleasurable anticipation.  They imagined, these self-satisfied people who had done so little to defend themselves, that a day of reckoning had at last come when they would be able to do as they liked towards this detestable Palace, which had given them so many unhappy hours.  It would all be destroyed, burned.  Little did they know!

Soon enough these small French batteries of light guns came into action, and sent a stream of little shells into the Palace enclosures a couple of thousand yards away.  The majority pitched on the gaudy roofs of Imperial pavilions far inside the Palace grounds, bursting into pretty little fleecy clouds, and starting small smouldering fires that suddenly died down before they had done much damage.  But a number fell short, and swept enclosures where I knew American soldiery had already penetrated.  I drew my breath, but said nothing....

The view from here was perfect.  The sun had risen and was shining brightly.  Directly below lay the ruined Legations, with their rude fortifications and thousands of surrounding native houses levelled flat to the ground; but beyond, for many miles, stretched the vast city of Peking, dead silent, excepting for these now accustomed sounds of war, and half hidden by myriads of trees, which did not allow one to see clearly what was taking place.  The Palace, with its immense walls, its yellow roofs, and its vast open places, lay mysteriously quiet, too, while this punishment was meted out on it.  You could not understand what was going on.  To the very far north a heavy cloud, which had already attracted my attention, now rose blacker and blacker, until it spread like a pall on the bright sky.  Cossacks or Japanese, who by this time had swept over the entire ground, must have met with resistance; they were burning and sacking, and a huge conflagration had been started.

For a quarter of an hour and more I watched in an idle, tired curiosity, which I could not explain, those little French shells bursting far away and falling short, and presently, as I expected, the inevitable happened.  A young American officer rode up and began shouting angrily up to the Wall.  I knew exactly what he meant, but everybody was so interested that he remained unnoticed.  And so, presently, more furious than ever, he dismounted and rushed up red with rage.  He Was so angry that he was funny.  He wanted to know if the commander of these d——­ pop-guns knew what he was firing at, and whether he could not see the United States army in full occupation of the bombarded points.  He swore and he cursed and he gesticulated, until finally cease fire was sounded and the guns were ordered down.  All the Frenchmen were furious, and I saw P——­,