mething to his companions, who perhaps were his sons. Chung at once
interposed, and talked with them rapidly for a few moments, and
naturally his explanation sufficed and we proceeded. I asked Chung
what the man had said:--"There is one of the Japanese devils; let us
rip him up."

But it would only be needlessly harrowing to dwell on the sights of
horror we encountered at every turn. We pressed on, rapidly yet
cautiously, our feet dabbling in blood wherever we trod. As we
proceeded down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds
as of voices shouting and singing. The avenue we were in took a turn
about fifteen yards in advance of us, and as we hesitated and finally
stopped, there appeared round it a body of men in whom we at once
recognized the Japanese soldiers. There was a low but wide doorway on
our right, and into it we at once slipped with no trifling celerity.
It was intensely dark and offered a good concealment. We could not
afford to extinguish our lantern, and I placed it behind an angle of
the inner wall where it was impossible that its glimmer could be seen
from the street. Crouching in the deep shadow, we anxiously awaited
the passing of the soldiers, whose voices we heard momentarily
approaching, shouting at their full pitch a discordant song,
accompanied by a loud ringing sound which at first I mistook for that
of some instrument. They were soon abreast of us, some twenty or
thirty in number. I scarcely breathed as the ferocious band went
trooping past. Their appearance was ghastly and terrible beyond
conception. They were literally reeking from the shambles of inhuman
butchery; their clothes and weapons were smeared and clotted with
blood; some held human heads aloft on their bayonets; the lanterns
which most of them carried, and swung to and fro as they marched,
threw on their repulsive figures and savage Oriental faces, their
white teeth, oblique eyes, and sallow countenances, a weird, wavering
light, appropriate to their infernal aspect; they looked more like
demons than like men. The foremost, who appeared to be dismounted
dragoons, were clashing their sabres together in a kind of
accompaniment to the yelling chant in which they all joined. On they
went, trampling the dead with whom their bestial ferocity had strewn
the devoted town, the sound of their high shrill voices and the ring
of the clashing steel being audible for some time after they had
passed out of sight. At length it died a