rifle-chamber

Updated: May 5, 2025

I was not a minute too soon, for as I seized my rifle, one of my men ran in and shouted to me that foreign cavalrymen had burst in, shooting in the air, and were now driving out all the animals and looting all the carts as well. Nothing could be done unless I lent my leadership. Hastily I ran out, feeding a cartridge into my rifle-chamber as I rushed.

- Indiscreet Letters From Peking : Being the Notes of an Eye-Witness, Which Set Forth in Some Detail, from Day to Day, the Real Story of the Siege and Sack of a Distressed Capital in 1900—The Year of Great Tribulation