igners twenty-four hours to
leave Peking, and offering to convoy them with Chinese troops as
far as Tientsin. The Ministers held meeting after meeting; they were
somewhat shaken, but, still trustful, determined to accept the Chinese
Government's offer of an escort as far as the sea. Against this
proposal, however, the non-diplomatic community threw the whole weight
of its disapproval, fortunately--as things turned out--overbearing it,
since the Chinese Government, with the best will in the world, was not
at that moment in a position to assure the safety of any one. The very
best proof of this, if further proof were needed, was the murder of
Baron von Ketteler, the German Minister, on the morning of June 20th.

The shock of that news filled the community with horror and
consternation. The suddenness of the tragedy, the treachery of it,
were appalling. Plainly no protection could be hoped for, and the same
afternoon all non-combatants were ordered into the British Legation,
as that was the largest compound in Peking, and the one most suitable
for a last stand should the worst come to the worst. The I.G., of
course, went with the rest. If it cost him anything to calmly walk
out of the house he had occupied for years, leaving all behind him--he
took a last look around the rooms, I remember, as though to impress
their picture on his mind--he gave no sign, just as he showed none
of the natural alarm which, with his responsibility for a large staff
with wives and children, he must have felt.

[Illustration: By the courtesy of "The Pall Mall Magazine"

SIR ROBERT HART IN HIS PRIVATE OFFICE.]

The history of the Siege proper, like the history of the Taiping
Rebellion, has been written a hundred times. Praise and blame have
been variously distributed; flaws picked in one another's behaviour
by a dozen eye-witnesses, but it is not my purpose to attempt to
arbitrate over details which each man naturally sees through his own
glasses. Only so far as the I.G. was personally concerned with the
events of those two unhappy months need they be touched upon here.

At first the wildest confusion prevailed in the Legation.
Misunderstandings about where a final stand should be made, doubts
whether it should be made in Peking at all, had delayed very necessary
preparations. There was not shelter for all the refugees, and some
literally camped under the big _ting-erhs_ (open pavilions with roofs
but no side walls), their hastily collected