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I noticed as I crept along that the shells fell screaming into the Imperial city a mile or two away. If they only get the range! Far along the Tartar Wall, towards the Ch'ien Men Gate, yellow dots could be indistinctly seen. These were the Americans, in their slouch hats and khaki suits, lying on the ground and facing the enemy's fire in the other direction.
I knew that they were sexless eunuchs, who would stammer as I had heard them stammer in the old days when I had seen them trafficking things they had been donated by officials desirous of cultivating their friendship, in the mysterious curio shops beyond the great Ch'ien Men Gate. Nor was I wrong. Stammering, they replied by asking how it was that orders had been broken.
This is the last weak spot there is a half-closed gap, which could be rushed by bodies of men coming in from the Ch'ien Men Gate and ordered to attack us. This new angle of native houses are being sandbagged and loopholed. Both sides, defenders and attacking forces, are now as ready as possible. What is going to happen? I am mightily tired of speculating and of writing. 4th August, 1900.
Every street and lane from the Ch'ien Men Gate was now choked with troops of the relieving column, all British and American, as far as I could see, and already the pioneers attached to each battalion were levelling our rude defences to the ground in order to facilitate the passage of the guns and transport waggons.... Strange cries smote one's ears all the cursing of armed men, whose discipline has been loosened by days of strain and the impossibility of manoeuvring.
Unsuccessfully: the men of Tawn knew the Huns, but not Han wuti, who was too far away for a safe ally; and they proposed to do nothing in the matter. Chang Ch'ien considered. Go back to China? Oh dear no! there must be real Yueh C'hi somewhere, even if these Tawanians were not they. On he went, and searched that lonely world until he did find them.
There is, indeed, a faithful record kept of all the actions of each reigning emperor in turn; good and evil are set down alike, without fear or favour, for no emperor is ever allowed to get a glimpse of the document by which posterity will judge him. Ch'ien Lung had no cause for anxiety on this score; whatever record might leap to light, he never could be shamed.
You can also tell them that we had not explained to you what was the right thing to do." Chou Jui and Ch'ien Ch'i accordingly wended their steps straight for the side-gate. But while they were keeping up some sort of conversation, they came face to face with Lai Ta on his way in. Pao-yue speedily pulled in his horse, with the idea of dismounting.
After that the Hsiung-nu withdrew farther to the north, and the Chinese settled peasants in the important region of Kansu. Meanwhile, in 125 B.C., the famous Chang Ch'ien had returned. He had been sent in 138 to conclude an alliance with the Yüeh-chih against the Hsiung-nu.
On seeing Pao-yue approaching, they, in a body, stood still, and hung down their arms against their sides. One of them alone, a certain butler, called Ch'ien Hua, promptly came forward, as he had not seen Pao-yue for many a day, and bending on one knee, paid his respects to Pao-yue. Pao-yue at once gave a smile and pulled him up.
There is, is there not, something Elizabethan in that Chang Ch'ien, taking the vast void so gaily, and not to be quenched by all those fusty years imprisoned among the Huns, but returning only the more fired and heady of imagination?
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