We had now time to breathe, and to run round making inquiries.  We found the Italian picquet at the Ha-ta end of Legation Street nearly mad with excitement; the men were crimson and shouting at one another.  But there was nothing new to learn.  Bands of Boxers had passed the Italian line only eighty or a hundred yards off, and a number of dark spots on the ground testified to some slaughter by small-bore Mausers.  They had been given a taste of our guns, that was all; and, fearing the worst, every able-bodied man in the Legations fell in at the prearranged posts and waited for fresh developments.

At eight o’clock, while we were hurriedly eating some food, word was passed that fires to the north and east were recommencing with renewed vigour.  The Boxers, having passed two miles of neutral territory, had reached the belt of abandoned foreign houses and grounds belonging to the foreign Customs, to missionaries, and to some other people.  Pillaging and burning and unopposed, they were spreading everywhere.  Flames were now leaping up from a dozen different quarters, ever higher and higher.  The night was inky black, and these points of fire, gathering strength as their progress was unchecked, soon met and formed a vast line of flame half a mile long.  There is nothing which can make such a splendid but fearful spectacle as fire at night.  The wind, which had been blowing gently from the north, veered to the east, as if the god’s wished us to realise our plight; and on the breeze leading towards the Legations, some sound of the vast tumult and excitement was wafted to us.  The whole city seemed now to be alive with hoarse noises, which spoke of the force of disorder unloosed.  Orders for every man to stand by and for reinforcements to be massed near the Austrian quarter were issued, and impatient, yet impotent, we waited the upshot of it all.  Chinese officialdom gave no sign; not a single word did or could the Chinese Government dare to send us.  We were abandoned to our own resources, as was inevitable.

Suddenly a tremor passed over all who were watching the brilliant scene.  The flames, which till then had been confined to a broad belt at least three thousand yards from our eastern picquets, began leaping up a mile nearer.  The Boxers, having destroyed all the foreign houses in the Tsung-li Yamen quarter, were advancing up rapidly on the Tung T’ang—­the Roman Catholic Eastern Cathedral, which was but fifteen minutes’ walk from our lines.  We knew that hundreds of native Christians lived around the cathedral, and that as soon as their lives were threatened they would at once seek refuge in their church, and we knew, also, what that would mean.