to smash his idols into a thousand pieces, to destroy everything.  But the man, resolute even in captivity, sullenly refused.  Then, with a movement of uncontrollable rage, one man seized a long pole, and in a dozen blows had broken everything to atoms.  Idols, red cloth, incense sticks, bowls of sacrificial rice and swords lay in a shapeless heap.  And with ugly kicks my men ground the ruin into yet smaller pieces.  Somehow it made me wince.  It was a brutal sight; to treat gods, even if they be false, in this wise....

As I looked and wondered, scarcely daring to interfere, the Shantung man had pushed his face, after the native manner, close into that of his enemy and was muttering taunts at him, which were hissed like the fury of a snake in anger.  This could not last—­my man was carrying it too far.  It was so.  With a cry his victim suddenly closed on him, seized him insanely by the throat and hair, tried to tear him to the ground.  I remember I had just a vision of those brown wrestling bodies half-bared by the fury of their clutches, and I could hear the quickly drawn pants which came at a supreme moment, when there was a sharp report, which sounded a little muffled, a piece of plaster flew out of the wall behind the two, and some biting smoke bit one’s nostrils.  Before I realised what had been done, the giant Boxer was staggering back; then he tottered and fell on his knees, talking strangely to himself, with his voice sliding up and down as if it now refused control.  Some blood welled up to his lips and trickled out; he shook a bit, and then he crashed finally down.  There he lay among the ruins of his faith—­dead, stone-dead, killed outright.  The Shantung man stood over him with a smoking revolver in his hand.  I remembered then that he had never taken his hand from the weapon.  He had been waiting for this—­it was an old score, properly paid....

I had had enough, however, of this mode of settling up under cover of my protection, and angrily I intimated that if there was any more shooting I should draw too, and pistol every man.  I was proceeding to add to these remarks, and was even becoming eloquent as my righteous feelings welled up, when a thunder of blows suddenly resounded on the outer gates, and made me realise with a start that this was no place for abstract morality.  Strayed so far from safety, we had taken our lives into our own hands; at any moment we might have to fight once more desperately against superior numbers.  Perhaps in the end we would totter over in the same way as the unfortunate who had strayed across our path....  Indeed, it was no time for morality....