Faithful to my theory, and trusting to this strange ally, I merely opened my revolver-pocket; then it was with a sense that I was irretrievably lost that I saw that two of the opponents were armed in the same way.  My theories and preparations were all falling to the ground.  I would probably follow them in person in a very few minutes.  Nobody would be the wiser....

I stood there waiting while these men muttered at me, as if they now hated me bitterly, and yet did not know how to commence, and with the women behind me chattering affrighted.  In vain I tried to work out how many eunuchs there really were in this vast Palace; whether a great number had gone away with the Court, or whether these four men would summon four more, or perhaps fourteen, and possibly even forty or four hundred.  They always say the Palace contains three thousand....

It was all no good, however, for it was my turn to play, and without I played we might remain standing there in this manner until it became dark.  Then I could be beaten to the ground and thrown down a well without any one being the wiser.  No search could be made for me, and if one was made, nothing would be found.  Men were continually missing in Peking, and no one knew how they met their fate....

I advanced now with my hands empty and my mind fairly made up.  Everything depended on a new theory, which I was about to test, a mere Chinese theory concerning eunuchs—­that their mutilation makes them bestial, but also downtrodden and quite spiritless and peculiarly weak.  That is why the old Empress could thrash them to death whenever they displeased her, without their daring to raise their hands or make one single struggle.  Now, as I walked forward, I could see my old Chinese teacher, who had taught me these strange theories concerning eunuchs, sitting in front of me and slowly waving his fan, and showing by an analysis of things I did not clearly understand, how Nature had laws and decrees which cannot be violated without bringing heavy and immediate punishment in their train.  As I walked forward I could not help seeing that old figure of a Chinese teacher in front of me, and prayed that he was correct.  If he was not ... then I stopped thinking and acted.

I did it neatly, with some brutality, because I had been absolutely surprised, and had not yet recovered, and, also, because I was more than a little afraid.  Six paces off I threw myself in two savage bounds against the tall man; caught him with my right hand by the outstretched right arm, hurled him round once by the force of my own impetus and the strength of my grasp; and then, as he swiftly swung with loosened legs, stopped him suddenly short with a mighty up-driven blow of my right knee, which sang so deep and cruelly into his soft flesh, that it grated harshly against his spinal column.  Nobody can resist that blow—­according to the old man’s theory, least of all a eunuch—­nobody, nobody.  It should be certain as death, once you