This was the 11th.  On the 12th, the day was still more startling, for somehow the shadow which has been lurking so near us seems to have been thrown more forward and become more intense.  The hero of the affair is the one really brave man among our chiefs, of course—­the Baron von K——­, the Kaiser’s Minister to the Court of Peking.

The Baron is no stranger in Peking, although he has been here but a twelvemonth in his new capacity as Minister.  Fifteen years ago his handsome face charmed more than one fair lady in the old pre-political situation days, when there was plenty of time for picnics and love-making.  Then he was only an irresponsible attache; now he is here as a very full-blooded plenipotentiary, with the burden of a special German political mission in China, bequeathed him by his pompous and mannerless predecessor, Baron von H——­, to support.  But a man is the present German Minister if there was ever one, and it was in the newly macadamised Legation Street that the incident I am about to relate occurred.

Walking out in the morning, the German Minister saw one of the ordinary hooded Peking carts trotting carelessly along, with the mule all ears, because the carter was urging him along with many digs near the tail.  But it was not the cart, nor the carter, nor yet the mule, which attracted His Excellency’s immediate attention, but the passenger seated on the customary place of the off-shaft.  For a moment Baron von K——­ could not believe his eyes.  It was nothing less than a full-fledged Boxer with his hair tied up in red cloth, red ribbons round his wrists and ankles, and a flaming red girdle tightening his loose white tunic; and, to cap all, the man was audaciously and calmly sharpening a big carver knife on his boots!  It was sublime insolence, riding down Legation Street like this in the full glare of day, with a knife and regalia proclaiming the dawn of Boxerism in the Capital of Capitals, and withal, was a very ugly sign.  What did K——­ do—­go home and invite some one to write a despatch for him to his government deprecating the growth of the Boxer movement, and the impossibility of carrying out conciliatory instructions, as some of his colleagues, including my own chief, would have done?  Not a bit of it!  He tilted full at the man with his walking stick, and before he could escape had beaten a regular roll of kettledrums on his hide.  Then the Boxer, after a short struggle, abandoned his knife, and ran with some fleetness of foot into a neighbouring lane.  The gallant German Minister raised the hue and cry, and then discovered yet another Boxer inside the cart, whom he duly secured by falling on top of him; and this last one was handed over to his own Legation Guards.  The fugitive was followed into Prince Su’s grounds, which run right through the Legation area, and there cornered in a house.  The mysterious Dr. M——­ then suddenly appeared on the scenes and insisted upon searching the Manchu Prince’s entire grounds and most private apartments.  But time was wasted in pourparlers, and in spite of a minute inspection, which extended even to the concubine apartments, the Boxer vanished in some mysterious way like a breath, and is even now untraced.  This shows us conclusively that there are accomplices right in our midst.