in their way.  With conflicting feelings we struggled outside, and as I mounted my pony, a wretched man covered with blood rushed forward, and flinging himself at my feet, cried to me sobbingly to save him.  He was the last of the pawn-shop defenders and was bleeding in a dozen places.  Him, too, we roughly tied up and saved, and telling him to mount a cart and to lie concealed inside, at last we moved on again.  We were gathering odd cargo.

The day was now waning, for the time had flown swiftly with such strange scenes, and people began to slink out from side alleys more and more frequently, as if they had been waiting for this dusk.  Several times we passed bands of men armed with swords and knives—­Boxers, without a doubt—­who calmly watched us approach, as if they were debating whether they should attack us or not.  Once, too, a roll of musketry suddenly rang out sharp and clear but a few hundred feet away from the high road, only to be succeeded by an icy silence—­more speaking than any sound.  We did not dare to stray away to inquire what it might be; the high road was our only safety.  Even that was doubtful.  Curious isolated encounters were taking place all over the vast city of Peking; it was now everyone for himself, and not even the devil taking care of the hindmost.  It was no place for innocents.

At last, by vigorous riding and driving, which caused a great clatter and drew forth many leering faces from darkened doorways, we debouched into that long main street down which I had shot so few days before in such an agony of doubt.  Hurrying homeward in the same direction, we now met bands of our siege converts in groups of forty and fifty strong.  These men, who had come so near to starving during the siege, were having their own revenge.  They had sallied forth with such arms as they could lay their hands on, and had been plundering all day within easy reach of the Legations.  They had done what they could, and had gathered every manner of thing in which they stood most in need.  Each man had immense bundles tied to his back—­it was the revenge for all they had suffered.  They had given no quarter either, and before many more hours had gone by they would have made up for those long weeks....  We soon left these groups behind, and with the whole cavalcade now going at a hand-gallop, it dawned on our companions and beasts which we had so curiously gathered during the day that we were nearing our destination.

But here the roadway was absolutely deserted, and in the dusk I realised that had we been farther from home we would almost certainly be ambuscaded by some of the many ruffians Boxerism had unloosed on the city.  Here was a sort of neutral belt.  At every turning I half expected a volley to greet us; at every door-creak I thought there would be some rush of armed men which would have been impossible for us to meet without losing half the convoy.  Yet these fancies were not justified, for to my immense