il they could safely cut us off. It was very
uncanny.

In front of us the flames of the burning Roman Catholic Cathedral rose
higher and higher, and the shouts and roars, becoming ever fiercer and
fiercer, could be plainly heard. Just then a Frenchman stumbled with a
muttered oath, and, bending down, jumped back with a cry of alarm. At
his feet lay a native woman trussed tightly with ropes, with her body
already half-charred and reeking with kerosene, but still alive and
moaning faintly. The Boxers, inhuman brutes, had caught her, set fire
to her, and then flung her on the road to light their way. She was the
first victim of their rage we had as yet come across. That made us
feel like savages. We were now not more than three hundred yards from
the cathedral, and in the light of the flames, which were now burning
more brightly than ever, we could see hundreds of figures dancing
about busily. We had just halted to prepare for a final charge when
something moved in front of us. "Halt," we all cried, marking our
different nationalities by our different intonations of the word. A
sobbing Chinese voice called back to us: "_Wo pu shih; wo pu shih_,"
which merely means, "I am not," leaving us to infer that he was
referring to the Boxers; and then without waiting for an answer the
night wanderer, whoever he might be, scampered away hurriedly. The
immediate result was that we opened a terrible fusillade in the
direction he had fled, our men firing at least a hundred shots. Many
mocking voices then called back to us from the shadows. There was
laughter, too. It was obviously hopeless trying to do anything in this
dark; so when a bugler trotted up from our lines with stern orders
from the French commandant for his men to retire, we all stumbled back
more than willingly We had gone out of our depth.

Meanwhile the flames spread farther and farther, until half the Tartar
city seemed on fire. All Peking awoke, and from every part confused
noises and a vast barking of dogs was borne down on us. What course
should we take, if the attack was suddenly carried all round our area?

The French Minister was by this time officially informed that native
Catholics were being butchered wholesale; that there were plenty of
men who were willing to go and rescue them, but that no one seemed to
have any orders, and that everyone was swearing at the general
incompetence. Absolute confusion reigned within our lines; the
picquets broke away from thei