The Shantung man, for reasons I could not yet unravel and did not care
to learn, had become absolutely livid with rage now, and the others,
who were all Catholics, shared his fury. They said that here converts
had been tortured to death--killed by being slit into small pieces and
then burned. Everybody knew it. With spasmodic gestures they called on
the captive to fling to the ground the whole altar, to smash his idols
into a thousand pieces, to destroy everything. But the man, resolute
even in captivity, sullenly refused. Then, with a movement of
uncontrollable rage, one man seized a long pole, and in a dozen blows
had broken everything to atoms. Idols, red cloth, incense sticks,
bowls of sacrificial rice and swords lay in a shapeless heap. And with
ugly kicks my men ground the ruin into yet smaller pieces. Somehow it
made me wince. It was a brutal sight; to treat gods, even if they be
false, in this wise....

As I looked and wondered, scarcely daring to interfere, the Shantung
man had pushed his face, after the native manner, close into that of
his enemy and was muttering taunts at him, which were hissed like the
fury of a snake in anger. This could not last--my man was carrying it
too far. It was so. With a cry his victim suddenly closed on him,
seized him insanely by the throat and hair, tried to tear him to the
ground. I remember I had just a vision of those brown wrestling bodies
half-bared by the fury of their clutches, and I could hear the quickly
drawn pants which came at a supreme moment, when there was a sharp
report, which sounded a little muffled, a piece of plaster flew out of
the wall behind the two, and some biting smoke bit one's nostrils.
Before I realised what had been done, the giant Boxer was staggering
back; then he tottered and fell on his knees, talking strangely to
himself, with his voice sliding up and down as if it now refused