inn, to which I was now quite close. I kept boldly on, and my disguise
answered admirably, not one of the soldiers seeming to suspect that I
was anything but a comrade. Now and then I would be greeted by wild
cries in their high, shrill voices, or one, waving his rifle, would
shout something as he passed. I returned the greetings in dumb show,
and hurried on. I do not know how it would have fared with me in broad
daylight; probably not nearly so well; but it was now nearly dark.
Most of the soldiers had provided themselves, to light the work of
slaughter and pillage, with one of those coloured lanterns which are
to be found in such profusion in Chinese towns, and their demoniac
aspect was greatly heightened by the illuminations they carried as
they flitted to and fro. The butchery was proceeding without the
least sign of abatement; shots, shouts, shrieks, and groans resounded
on every side; the streets presented a fearful spectacle; the ground
was saturated with blood, and everywhere strewn with horribly
mutilated corpses; some of the narrower avenues were positively choked
with carnage. The dead were mostly the townspeople; their valiant
defenders seemed to have been able to make themselves scarce; where
they all got to is a mystery to me; perhaps owing to the fact that
they got rid of their uniforms early in the proceedings in order not
to be identified as combatants, a dodge that must have served them
very little, as the conquerors killed everyone they came across.

At length I reached Sen's house, only to find that the destroyer had
been there. The place was in darkness; I took down the lantern from
over the outer gate, with the name of the inn and its proprietor's
written on it in the Chinese character, lit it, and began an
inspection. The first thing I saw was the corpse of my landlord
himself, lying in the covered court. His head was almost severed, and
he had been disembowelled. Most of the lower storey rooms had doors