control. Some blood welled up to his lips and trickled out; he shook a
bit, and then he crashed finally down. There he lay among the ruins of
his faith--dead, stone-dead, killed outright. The Shantung man stood
over him with a smoking revolver in his hand. I remembered then that
he had never taken his hand from the weapon. He had been waiting for
this--it was an old score, properly paid....

I had had enough, however, of this mode of settling up under cover of
my protection, and angrily I intimated that if there was any more
shooting I should draw too, and pistol every man. I was proceeding to
add to these remarks, and was even becoming eloquent as my righteous
feelings welled up, when a thunder of blows suddenly resounded on the
outer gates, and made me realise with a start that this was no place
for abstract morality. Strayed so far from safety, we had taken our
lives into our own hands; at any moment we might have to fight once
more desperately against superior numbers. Perhaps in the end we would
totter over in the same way as the unfortunate who had strayed across
our path.... Indeed, it was no time for morality....

The thunder on the gates continued, and then with a crash they came
open suddenly, and a party of French soldiers, with fixed bayonets and
their uniforms in great disorder, rushed in on us. They did not see me
at first, and, charging down on our captured carters, merely yelled
violently to them, "_Rendez-vous! Rendez-vous!_" Before we could move
or disclose ourselves, they had seized some of the carts and were
making preparations to drive them off without a second's delay. But
then I made up my mind in a flash, too, and becoming desperate, I
threw down the gauntlet. The contagion had caught me. Running at them
with my drawn revolver, I, too, shouted, "_Rendez-vous! Rendez-vous!_"
and with my men following me, we interposed ourselves between the