confirmation of the news that the Empress Dowager and the
Court had fled concerned them less than the dread possibilities which
the field telegraphs bring. The wires have already been stretched into
Peking, and messages would have to come through soon....

That evening, as dusk fell, and I was idly watching some English
sappers blowing an entrance from the canal street through the pink
Palace walls, so that a private right of way into this precious area
could be had right where the twin-cannon were fired at us for so many
weeks, a sound of a rude French song being chanted made me turn round.
I saw then that it was a soldier of the Infanterie Coloniale in his
faded blue suit of Nankeen, staggering along with his rifle slung
across his back and a big gunny-sack on his shoulder. He approached,
singing lustily in a drunken sort of way, and reeling more and more,
until, as he tried to step over the ruins of a brick barricade, he at
last tripped and fell heavily to the ground. The English sappers
watched him curiously for a few moments as he lay moving drunkenly on
the ground, unable to rise, but no one offered to help him, or even
stepped forward, until one soldier, who had been looking fixedly at
something on the ground, said suddenly to his mates in a hoarse
whisper, "Silver! Silver!" He spoke in an extraordinary way.

I stepped forward at these words to see. It was true. The sack had
been split open by the fall, and on the ground now scattered about lay
big half-moons of silver-_sycee_, as it is called. The sappers took
a cautious look around, saw that all was quiet and only myself there;
and then the six of them, seized with the same idea, went quietly
forward and plundered the fallen Frenchman of his loot as he lay. Each
man stuffed as many of those lumps as he could carry into his shirt or
tunic. Then they helped the fallen drunkard to his feet, handed him
the fraction of his treasure which remained, and pushed him roughly
away. The last I noticed of this curious scene was this marauder
staggering into the night, and calling faintly at intervals, as he
realised his loss, "_Sacres voleurs! Sacres voleurs anglais_!" Then I
made off too. It was the first open looting I had seen. I shall always
remember absolutely how curiously it impressed me. It seemed very
strange.

II

THE SACK

18th August, 1900.

* * * * *

After these events and the curious entry of our relieving troop