e stood; but the intervening houses
and trees, the din and the excitement, coupled with the stern order of
an Austrian officer, shouted from the top of an outhouse, not to move
as their machine-gun was coming into action over our heads, made it
impossible for us to understand or move forward. What was it?

Presently somebody trotted up from behind us on a pony, and, waiting
his opportunity, rode into the open, and with considerable skill
seized a fleeing Chinaman by the neck. This prisoner was dragged in
more dead than alive with fear, and he told us that all he knew was
that as he had passed into the Tartar city through the Ha-ta Gate a
quarter of an hour before, myriads of Boxers--those were his
words--armed with swords and spears, and with their red sashes and
insignia openly worn, had rushed into the Tartar city from the Chinese
city, slashing and stabbing at everyone indiscriminately. The
foreigners' guns had caught them, he said, and dusted them badly, and
they were now running towards the north, setting fire to chapels and
churches, and any evidences of the European they could find. He knew
nothing more. We let our prisoner go, and no sooner had he disappeared
than fresh waves of fugitives appeared sobbing and weeping with
excitement. The Boxers, deflected from the Legation quarter, were
spreading rapidly down the Ha-ta Great Street which runs due north,
and everybody was fleeing west past our quarter. Never have I seen
such fast galloping and driving in the Peking streets; never would I
have believed that small-footed women, of whom there are a goodly
number even in the large-footed Manchu city, could get so nimbly over
the ground. Everybody was panic-stricken and distraught, and we could
do nothing but look on. They went on running, running, running. Then
the waves of men, women and animals disappeared as suddenly as they
had come, and the roads became once again silent and deserted. Far
away the din of the Boxers could still be heard, and flames shooting
up to the skies now marked their track; but of the dreaded men
themselves we had not seen a single one.

We had now time to breathe, and to run round making inquiries. We
found the Italian picquet at the Ha-ta end of Legation Street nearly
mad with excitement; the men were crimson and shouting at one another.
But there was nothing new to learn. Bands of Boxers had passed the
Italian line only eighty or a hundred yards off, and a number of dark
spots on the g