Italian barricades, but had been sternly ordered back, and his house placed under watch.  Somehow, through the foolishness of an interpreter of the French Legation, he got his safe-conduct pass, and started out bold as brass in the morning, seated in his official chair and accompanied by his official outriders.  He passed a first French barricade and reached an outer second barrier manned by volunteers, who challenged him roughly and then refused to let him pass.

The outriders then tried to ride our men down, and it needed a rifle-shot to bring them to their senses.  Fortunately nobody was hurt, and presently the youthful volunteers had Hsu Tung himself out of the chair, and kept him seated on the ground while they debated whether they should respect the French pass or strap the great man up and send him to their own quarters as a prisoner of war.

In the end, however, one of the secretaries came up and inquired what it all meant, and then, of course, weak counsels prevailed, and Hsu Tung was allowed to sneak off unmolested down a side lane.

This incident is typical as showing the stamp of men who have commanding voices in our beleagued quarter.

God help us if any considerable force is sent against us, for we can never help ourselves.  Every proper-minded young man is a natural soldier methinks, even in Anno Domini 1900, but every elderly person in the same year of grace is quite valueless—­that is what we have already discovered.

And yet even to-day all the senior people in our Legation area—­those who are our guides and mentors—­though they be secretly much alarmed, are comforting themselves with a great deal of garrulous talk because a letter has arrived from Tientsin—­in fact, several letters have arrived.  This is the first reliable news we have had for many days, and everybody seems now to imagine that we are safe.  The chief item in these fateful missives seems to be that the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Tientsin has also been burned; that this was accompanied by massacres of native converts; and that the riverine port is swarming with Boxers.  And there is no news of S——­, no news of anything good.  What has become of him we cannot imagine.  Yet Ministers, secretaries, and elderly nondescripts are somewhat relieved, and go about nervously smiling in a very ridiculous way.  No one can quite make out why they are relieved, excepting perhaps, that they are delighted to find that the visible world still exists elsewhere, and goes on revolving on its own axis in spite of our dilemma.  Why should the obvious be so often discovered?