Meanwhile the outriders had reached the German Legation and had flung themselves, disordered, from their sweating ponies.  The men of the Legation Guard were swarming round them and questioning them roughly when I came up, but there was nothing further to be learned about Von K——.  A shot had passed through his chair and he had never moved again, while other shots struck all round.  C——­, the dragonman, dripping with blood, had run round a corner closely pursued by Chinese riflemen.  What happened to him they cannot say, for they, too, would have been shot had they not fled.  The tragedy was so simple, but so crushing, that we all stood dazed.  Our one man of character and decision was dead—­lost beyond recall!

A quarter of an hour after this half the German detachment was marching rapidly down Customs Street, with fixed bayonets and an air of desperation on their harsh Teutonic faces.  They were determined to try and at least save the body.  I thought of going with them, too, but a moment’s thought told me there were other things which were now more pressing.  I went and gave some attention to the contents of despatch-boxes which no one else had a right to see....

The detachment reached the scene of the murder led by a trembling outrider.  Drops of blood were found on the ground; the Peking dust was scraped this way and that, as if it had only been made an accomplice unwillingly and with a violent struggle too; but the sedan-chairs, the bearers, the murderous soldiers, and every other trace had vanished completely.  To question people was impossible, since everyone was keeping closely indoors and barred entrances everywhere met the eye.  The Peking streets have become so lonely and deserted that not even a dog allows himself to be entrapped in the open.  Later I heard that C——­ had escaped, although terribly wounded.

The detachment tramped back stolidly, and would not answer a word when spoken to, for German despair is very gloomy.  The remaining Plenipotentiaries at last understood the nature of the game that was being played, and realised that we were down to the naked and crude facts of life and death.  Their confounded vacillation has alone brought us to this pass.  They do realise it now, and they are made to realise it more and more by the savage looks everyone has been giving them....

The departure for Tientsin half-acquiesced in but fifteen short hours ago is no longer thought of, for what the Ministers propose to do now interests no one.  After impotently attempting to deal with questions for which they were in no wise fitted they have resigned themselves to the inevitable, and have become mere pawns like the rest of us.  Fortunately the men who are men begin to work with frenzied energy, rushing about collecting food and materials.  S——­, the first Secretary of the American Legation, began it, and soon stood out with some insistence.  He guesses with no one contradicting him that rice