collected together all broke loose, frightened by some stray shots, and went careering madly around us.  It was pitch dark and most gloomy before they had been all tied up again, and although firing became heavier and heavier as Chinese snipers found they could approach our outer lines in safety, I finally sought out a spot for myself and fell asleep with my rifle on my chest—­cursing everybody.  It is a sign of the times—­my nerves are becoming Ministerial!

II

THE RETREAT AND THE RETURN

23rd June, 1900.

* * * * *

Yesterday the inevitable happened, and only Heaven and the foolishness of the attacking forces, who are only playing with us, and do not seem to have settled down to their work, saved us from complete annihilation.  Without a word of explanation, Captain T——­, the Austrian commander, suddenly ordered all the French, Italians and Austrians to fall back on the British Legation, sending word meanwhile to the Japanese and the Germans to follow his example.  This meant that the whole vast semicircle to the northeast and the southeast was being thrown up.  The result was that for ten minutes armed men of all nationalities poured into the British Legation, until every rifle-bearing effective was standing there, all jabbering in a mass, and not knowing what it was all about.  The Americans, who had established themselves on the Tartar Wall as the main point in the western defence, guessed they were not going to be left there cut off from salvation by a failure to remember their existence; and presently they, too, ran in, openly swearing at their officers.  These American marines have never quite liked this idea of being planted on the Tartar Wall; for with that smartness for which their race is distinguished, they see it is quite on the cards that they are forgotten up there if a rush occurs while the others are sitting safe in the main base.  And the Americans are not going to be forgotten—­we soon found that out.  They are the people of the future.

Depict to yourself, if you can, the blind fear of all the Plenipotentiaries, of all the missionaries and their lamb-faced converts, on seeing the gallant defenders of the outer lines rushing in on them at a fast trot, and then falling into line and standing very much at ease awaiting the next move.  I may be brutal, but I relished that scene a little; it was a lesson that was sadly needed.  It was the British Minister who remained the most calm; perhaps he immediately understood that the game was now in his hands.  But the other Ministers, I wish you could have but seen them!  They crowded round his British Excellency in an adoring and trembling ring, and without subterfuge offered him the supreme command; that was exactly what we had been expecting.  Underneath their manner you could easily see they meant to say that they knew it was the British Legation