Part 4 (2/2)
A few minutes before midnight the sounds became more sullen, and beneath the general uproar another note, one of those in distress, began, as it were, like an undercurrent to this pandemonium. The cause we had not long to seek, for presently flames began to shoot up, a sight we were by now well accustomed to, though not in this purely trading quarter of the city. The fire, started with savage disregard in the very centre of the most densely populated street of the Chinese city, spread with terrible rapidity. Soon both sides of Ch'ien Men great street, just on the other side of the Tartar Wall, were enveloped in raging flames, and a lurid light, growing ever brighter and brighter, turned the dark night into an unnatural day.
Between the incendiaries and ourselves the great Tartar Wall stood firm, but though this ancient defence against other barbarians was an effective protection for us, it could not long remain immune itself.
The _lou_, or square paG.o.da-like tower facing the Chinese city side, caught some of the thousands and tens of thousands of sparks flying skywards, and it was not long before the vast pile was burning as fiercely as the rest. The great rafters of Burmese teak, brought by Mongol Khans six centuries before to Peking, were as dry as tinder with the dryness of ages; and thus almost before we had noted that the bottom of the tower was well alight the flames were shooting through the roof and out through the hundreds of little square windows which in olden days were lined by archers. Higher and higher the flames leaped, until the top of the longest tongues of fire, pouring out through a funnel of brick, was hundreds of feet above the ground level. Only Vereschagin could have done justice to this holocaust; I have never seen anything so barbarically splendid.
Meanwhile below this in the Chinese city all had become quiet, except for the increasing and growing roar of the all-devouring flames. The Boxers, as if appalled by their own handiwork and the mournful sight of the capital in flames, had retreated into their haunts and had left the unfortunate townfolk to battle with this disaster as they could.
From the top of the wall, which I hastily climbed as soon as I obtained permission to leave my post, thousands and tens of thousands of figures could be seen moving hurriedly about laden with merchandise, which they were attempting to save. Busy as ants, these wonderful Chinese traders were rescuing as much of their invested capital from the very embrace of the flames as they could at a moment when the Boxer patriots, menacing and killing them with sword and spears as _san mao-tzu,_ or third-cla.s.s barbarians who sold the cursed foreigners' stuffs and products, had hardly disappeared.
Yet it seemed vain, indeed, to talk of salvage with half the city in flames, for other fires now began mysteriously in other places, which ”lighted” the horizon. ”_Tout Pekin brule_,” muttered a French sailor to me as I pa.s.sed back to my post, and his careless remark made me think that this was the Commune and Sansculottism intermixed--the ends of two centuries tumbled together--because we foreigners had upset the equilibrium of the Far East with our importunities and our covetousness of the Yellow Man's possessions....
And what of S----, what of the Peking Government--what is everybody in the outside world doing--the distant world of which we have so suddenly lost all trace, while we are pa.s.sing through such times? We do not know; we have no idea; we have almost forgotten to think about it. S---- was heard of twice some days ago from Langfang, a station only forty miles from Peking, but why he does not advance, why there is this intolerable delay, we do not know. The Peking Government is still decreeing and counter-decreeing night and day according to the Government Gazettes. The Ministers of our eleven Legations are meeting one another almost hourly, and are eternally discussing, but are doing nothing else. We have blocked our roads with barricades and provided our servants and dependents with pa.s.ses written in English, French, German, Italian, Russian and Chinese--so that everyone can understand. We are now sick of such a mult.i.tude of languages and wish all the world spoken Volapuk.
Thus with our rescued native Christians, our few butchered Boxers, our score and more of fires lighting the whole of the horizon, here in the middle of the night of the 16th of June we are no further forward in our political situation than we were two and a half weeks ago, when our Legation Guards arrived, and we esteemed ourselves so secure. Two and a half weeks ago! It seems at least two and a half months; but that is merely the direct fault of having to live nearly twice the proper number of hours in twenty-four.
XIII
A FEW CRUMBS
18th June, 1900.
It has just transpired that Hsu Tung, an infamous Manchu high official, who has been the Emperor's tutor, and whose house is actually on Legation Street some fifty yards inside the lines of the Italian Legation, has been allowed to pa.s.s out of our barricaded quarter, going quite openly in his blue and red official chair. This is a terrible mistake which we may pay for dearly.
Hsu Tung is a scoundrel who is at least thorough in his convictions as far as we are concerned. It is he who has long been boasting--and all Peking has been repeating his boast--that in the near future he is going to line his sedan chair with the hides of foreign devils and fill his harem with their women; and it is he, above all other men, who should have been seized by us, held as hostage, and shot out of hand the very moment the Chinese Government gives its open official sanction to this insane Boxer policy. Had we acted in this way and taken charge of a number of other high officials who live just around us, we might have shown the trembling government that a day of retribution is certain to come. And yet listen what happened. Either on the 15th or 16th Hsu Tung sent the majordomo of his household cringing to the French Legation for a _pa.s.separtout_. He had already tried once to escape by way of the Italian barricades, but had been sternly ordered back, and his house placed under watch. Somehow, through the foolishness of an interpreter of the French Legation, he got his safe-conduct pa.s.s, and started out bold as bra.s.s in the morning, seated in his official chair and accompanied by his official outriders. He pa.s.sed a first French barricade and reached an outer second barrier manned by volunteers, who challenged him roughly and then refused to let him pa.s.s.
The outriders then tried to ride our men down, and it needed a rifle-shot to bring them to their senses. Fortunately n.o.body was hurt, and presently the youthful volunteers had Hsu Tung himself out of the chair, and kept him seated on the ground while they debated whether they should respect the French pa.s.s or strap the great man up and send him to their own quarters as a prisoner of war.
In the end, however, one of the secretaries came up and inquired what it all meant, and then, of course, weak counsels prevailed, and Hsu Tung was allowed to sneak off unmolested down a side lane.
This incident is typical as showing the stamp of men who have commanding voices in our beleagued quarter.
G.o.d help us if any considerable force is sent against us, for we can never help ourselves. Every proper-minded young man is a natural soldier methinks, even in Anno Domini 1900, but every elderly person in the same year of grace is quite valueless--that is what we have already discovered.
And yet even to-day all the senior people in our Legation area--those who are our guides and mentors--though they be secretly much alarmed, are comforting themselves with a great deal of garrulous talk because a letter has arrived from Tientsin--in fact, several letters have arrived. This is the first reliable news we have had for many days, and everybody seems now to imagine that we are safe. The chief item in these fateful missives seems to be that the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Tientsin has also been burned; that this was accompanied by ma.s.sacres of native converts; and that the riverine port is swarming with Boxers. And there is no news of S----, no news of anything good.
What has become of him we cannot imagine. Yet Ministers, secretaries, and elderly nondescripts are somewhat relieved, and go about nervously smiling in a very ridiculous way. No one can quite make out why they are relieved, excepting perhaps, that they are delighted to find that the visible world still exists elsewhere, and goes on revolving on its own axis in spite of our dilemma. Why should the obvious be so often discovered?
Our poor Legation Guards and their commanding officers, with whom we were so pleased a fortnight ago, are quite as crushed as everyone else now--perhaps even more. You see the rank and file are merely a crowd of uneducated sailors, who have not yet made head or tail of what all this Peking _boulevers.e.m.e.nt_ means. They were suddenly entrained and rushed up to Peking many days ago; they arrived in the dark; they were crammed into their respective Legations as quickly as possible; they have done a little patrol and picquet work on the streets, and have stood expectantly behind barricades which they were told to erect; but otherwise they are as completely at sea again as if they were back to their s.h.i.+ps.... In all the clouds of dust and smoke around them, how can they understand? It is true I have rather a grudge against some persons of the Legation defenders as yet unknown, and think of them perhaps a little angrily, for, like all soldiery, they loot. They have already taken my field-gla.s.ses, an excellent revolver, and several other things during the confusion of the nights.
Of course this is the fortune of war, as all old campaigners will tell you, but a more decent interval should have been allowed to elapse before beginning the inevitable stripping process....
As for the detachment officers, some of them are very good fellows and some of them are not; but already they have each of them instinctively adopted the old att.i.tude of the Legations towards one another. They are mutually suspicious. The detachment officers are also considerably tired and in very bad tempers, for the night has been turned into day with a regularity which cannot leave anybody very happy. Then dirt is acc.u.mulating, too, sad truth; and in the East you cannot feel dirty in the summer and be happy. That is quite impossible....
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