antage of every piece of cover.
A few stray shots pecked at us, but in this quarter, so strange that
it appeared unreal, the enemy gave hardly a sign of life. Behind us,
on our left, a tremendous fusillade was in progress, and the cracking
of the rifles came back to us in one high-pitched roar. But the
intervening trees and the ruins did not allow us to see or understand
what was the cause. We had completely lost touch with the others.

Rushing round a corner, we suddenly came on the gun we had been sent
to capture; it was perched high on a long, loopholed barricade, and
stood quite silent and alone. We gave a shout and pitched forward in a
momentary ecstasy of delight, but like a flash the scene around us
changed. Dozens of soldiers jumped up around us, looking every bit
like startled pheasants in their bright uniforms, and retired, firing
rapidly. This, as if a preconcerted plan, was the signal for a
tremendous fire on all sides, which absolutely surprised us. From
every adjacent ruin and roof the enemy appeared by magic, and fired at
us with ever-increasing vigour. Now just above us the selfsame gun
which had demolished my outpost house a few days before loomed
invitingly, and determined to have our revenge and stick the gunners
like pigs if we could only get to grips, a knot of us ran on. The
bugler blew a few sharp notes to rally some of those who were hanging
back in confusion, and finally, riflemen in advance and the converts
herded tremblingly behind by a brave Japanese Secretary of Legation
in spectacles, we succeeded in climbing up on to the gun platform. The
gunners, who had been lying beside their weapon, fled precipitately as
soon as they saw our heads come over the barricade, but to our right
and left the enemy was now swarming forward with frantic yells. The
converts, who were to drag off the gun while we covered them with our
rifles and bayonets, could not be made to advance, but clung to the
wall screaming piteously. We beat some of them over the head with our
rifle-butts and kicked them savagely in a fever of anxiety to put some
spirit in them, but nothing could move them forward. It must be always
so; the Christian Chinaman face to face with his fierce, heathen
countrymen is as a lamb; he cannot fight. Then before we knew it the
little Japanese captain was on the ground, two or three Japanese
sailors fell too, a _sauve qui peut_ began, and everything was in
inextricable disorder. The Chinese commander