I wandered about listlessly and exchanged small talk disconsolately
with numbers of people. Nobody knew what was going to happen, but
everybody was trying to learn from somebody else. The wildest rumours
were circulating. The Russians and Japanese had disappeared through
the Eastern Gates of the city, and the gossip was that each, in trying
to steal a march on the other, had knocked up against large bodies of
Chinese troops, who, still retaining their discipline, had stood their
ground and inflicted heavy losses on the rivals. But whether this was
true or not, there was, for the time being, no means of knowing. I
thought of my last rifle-shots of the siege at those endless white and
black dots, which had suddenly debouched on that long, dusty street,
and held my tongue. Idly we waited to see what was going to happen.
After so many climaxes one's imagination totally failed.

It was still very early in the morning when, without any warning,
gallopers came suddenly from the American headquarters and set all the
soldiery in motion. I remember that it seemed only a few minutes
before the American infantry had become massed all round the southern
entrances to the Palace, while with a quickness which came as an odd
surprise to me after the deliberation of the siege field-guns suddenly
opened on the Imperial Gates. A number of shells were pitched against
the huge iron-clamped entrances at a range of a few hundred yards with
a horrid coughing, and presently, yielding to this bombardment, with a
crash the first line had been beaten to the ground. I understood then
why the powerful American Gatlings had been kept playing on the fringe
of walls and roofs beyond; for as the infantry charged forward in some
confusion, with their cheering and bugling filling the air, the
dusting Chinese fire, which we knew so well, rang out with an unending
rattle and hissing. Thousands of riflemen had been silently lying
inside the Palace enclosures ever since the previous afternoon waiting