I thought of these things as I saw K——­ trifle with that watch and scrutinise it more and more closely.  He looked at it for a last time longingly, and then, without a word, suddenly placed it in his pocket.  That was cool.  But at once the Russian officer started forward protesting; we were breaking our words; we had begun looting; he would be forced to arrest us.  As he spoke, the man became so red and excited, that K——­, who pretended at first merely to smile indulgently, became more and more alarmed, and finally replaced the watch without a word.  But still he continued this curious search, and coming across other things, I noticed vaguely that he seemed to be placing them all together in little collections, so that he could easily get at them again....

Then we wandered away to other great buildings, and we came on a beautiful set of princely rooms, full of ticking clocks and rich tapestries, and with such things as solid gold bonbonnieres, studded with coarse, uncut stones, lying on the secretaires and small tables.  These, I believe, were the Emperor’s apartments in normal times.  There were lots of beautiful things here—­vases, enamels, jade, cloisonne, and much wondrous porcelain; and although everyone had been saying that Peking was not as rich as in 1860, when those strings of beautiful black pearls had been brought home for the Empress Eugenie, still it was clear that these Palaces contained a wealth undreamed of outside.  Indeed, there were magnificent things....

Round the corners, as we walked, we saw the eunuchs looking and lurking, and finally disappearing whenever they thought that they were seen.  There were more of them now, too, and, seeing us quite alone, they were beginning to pluck up courage and wished once more to interfere.  I thought for an instant as I looked at their evil faces of tearing down some rich embroidery and fashioning from it a sack just as I had seen those Indian troopers do so few days before; then of setting to work and piling everything I fancied into it and making as if I intended to go off.

Yet such a comedy would not be worth the candle; the officer and the sergeant would have to go through the formality of arresting me, and the eunuchs would not even be noticed....

Engrossed with such thoughts, and no longer amused by my surroundings, I must have forgotten myself for a moment in a brown study; for when I came to, I was surprised to find that we four had drifted some distance apart, and that K——­ was now whispering rapidly to the Russian officer alone, and that the sergeant was standing far away, with his back turned to them, slily fingering the things on the tables.  Then the sergeant allowed his hand to linger longer than was necessary, and, throwing a sharp look round out of the corners of his eyes, he suddenly thrust some object into his pocket.  He, too, had succumbed!  I paid not the slightest attention to these curious developments, but pretended to be gazing idly at nothing.  Still, I kept my eyes on the alert.  K——­ was manifestly plotting for those watches; it was not my business—­what did it matter to me if he took everything there was?