From the outer courtyards came the same roar of excitement as the street crowd fought with one another for possession of all that wealth in cash; separated from one another by only a few yards, European marauders and Chinese vagabonds, I reflected, were acting in much the same way.  I followed the Frenchmen and their companions into the last great rooms, all dust-laden and filled with boxes without number, which were carefully ticketed and stacked one upon another.  Some were prized open with bayonets; some had their pigskin covers beaten through by butt-end blows; but whatever their treatment, there were always the same furs and silks.  There was no treasure.

My men had now fought their way through the outer crowd, and rapidly flinging out coat after coat, suggested that sables were at least worth the taking and the keeping.  They selected two or three score of these coats of precious skins, beautiful long Chinese robes reaching to the feet, and tumbling them into emptied trunks, we went out as soon as possible.  We had had enough.  The explanation of why the crowd had not rushed through was in front of us.  The remaining Cossack had seated himself, carbine in hand, on the stone ledge at the entrance to the inner courtyards and held everyone in check; just beyond hundreds and hundreds of men stripped to the waist, glistening in their sweat and trembling in their excitement, were waiting for the signal which would let them go.  I noticed that now there were old women, too.  The whole quarter was coming as fast as it could....

The Cossack grinned when he saw me appear, and looked with a shrug of his shoulders at the sables.  To him these were not priceless.  Then he explained his unconcerned attitude in a single gesture.  He pushed a hand down into his rough riding boots and pulled out one of those Chinese gold bars which look for all the world like the conventional yellow finger-biscuits which one eats with ice-cream.  The rascal had elsewhere come across some rich preserve and had his feet loaded with gold—­for he pulled out other bars to show me—­and he did not care for this petty pilfering.  Then the Frenchmen began coming out, with the Annamites and the Indians, each man with a bundle on his back, and the Cossack, esteeming his watch ended, got up and stepped back.  Once again, like bloodhounds, the crowd rushed in, an endless stream of men, women, and even children, all summoned by the news that the pawn-shop, which was their natural enemy, had fallen.  They roared past us, striking and tearing at one another with insane gestures as if each one feared that he would be too late.  Inside the scene must have baffled description, for a clamour soon rose which showed that it was a battle to the death to secure loot at any price.  Shrill cries and awful groans rose high above the storm of sound, as the desperadoes of the city, who were mixed with the more innocent common people, struck out with choppers and bar iron and mercilessly felled to the ground all who stood