A little inspection showed the newcomers that the pawn-shop was too difficult to capture by direct assault unless special means were adopted, for such places being constructed with a view to resisting the attacks of robbers even in peaceful times, are nearly always little citadels in themselves.  They are the people’s banks.  For some time the two new arrivals walked stealthily around, with their carbines in their hands, peering here and there, and trying to find a weak spot.  Then one man said something to the other, and they disappeared into a neighbouring house, only to emerge almost immediately with some bundles of straw and some wood.  To their minds it was evidently the only thing to be done; they were going to set fire!  Before there was time to protest, the Cossacks had piled their fuel against an angle of the gate-house, just where they could not be shot at, and with a puff the whole thing was soon ablaze.  The scattered groups of native rapscallions on the street, when they saw what had been done, gave a subdued howl of despair, and cried aloud that the whole block of buildings would catch fire, and that everything in them would be destroyed.  These confident looters had already imagined that the pawn-shop was theirs to dispose of—­after the honourable foreign soldiery had had their fill!

The Cossacks, however, were men of many ideas, and paid not the slightest attention to all this tumult beyond striking two or three of the nearest men.  They watched the blaze with cunning little eyes, and as the short flames shot across the gate, driven by the wind, and raised blinding clouds of smoke, one of them said it was all right and that we would be soon inside.  On the roofs the French soldiers and their companions lay silently watching in amazement the antics of the two dismounted horsemen, and from the shouts and curses which now came from the pawn-shop compound itself, it was plain that this method of attack would be productive of some result.  It was becoming more and more interesting.

My attention was distracted for an instant by seeing one of the Cossacks climb up beside two French soldiers and explain to them gravely, with a violent pantomime of his hands, what they should do in a moment or two.  When I turned, it was to find that the second had driven with boot-kicks and some swinging blows from his loaded carbine a number of the street people towards some of those long poles which can always be found stacked on the Peking main streets.  My own men, understanding now what was to be done, ran forward, too, to help, and in the twinkling of an eye two long poles had been borne forward and laid in position across the highway.  In spite of all modern progress, much the same ways of attack have still to be adopted in siege work.  Then, with some further pantomine explaining how it would be impossible to see or hurt them under cover of that smoke, the Cossacks induced the crowd to raise the poles again.  This time everybody’s blood was up, and, urging one another