rolled into the next room, and as we were grovelling on the floor I saw that the room was full of Chinamen, and that our late guide was in the middle of them.  The light was so bad that I was unable to see more than this.  It was plain that we had to deal with an organised gang of criminals.  Thugs who practised their trade as a fine art.  Despite all proverbs the foreseen is what generally happens; and our amazing advent in their midst created a sort of panic whereby we took advantage.  The Celestials carried knives, but they dared not use them, because the light was so dim and the room so crowded.  The first thing that I saw when I scrambled to my feet was the fat dull face of the guard shining like a harvest moon, and presenting a mark for my fist as round and big as a punching-bag.  I hit him once—­and that was enough.  Then I began to hear the measured thud of my brother’s blows, the blows of a workman who knows how to strike and where to strike.

At first they took their medicine without a whimper.  Then they began to squeal and chatter as the fear of the “white devils” got hold of them.  Very soon I saw “red,” as our Tommies say, and remembered nothing till I came to myself in the passage at the foot of the rotten stairs.  We scurried up these and through the warren above like rabbits when the pole-cat pursueth, and finally found ourselves in the alley, where we called a halt.

“By Jove!” said Ajax, “that was a ruction.”

I looked at him and burst out laughing:  then he looked at me and laughed louder than I. Our clothes were in rags; our faces were red and black with blood and grime; every bone and sinew and muscle in our bodies ached and ached from the strain of strife.

“It is not time to laugh yet,” said my brother; and we ran on down the alley, out into a small by-street, and straight into the arms of a policeman, who promptly arrested us.

* * * * *

The rest of the story was in the newspapers next day, although there was no mention of our names.  When the police reached the battlefield they found one dead man—­the opium-eating and smoking bar-tender.  He had died—­so said the doctor—­of heart failure.  Few whites can smoke the “pipe” with impunity, and he was not of their number.  The wounded had been carried away, and, despite the strenuous endeavours of the police, not one was arrested, which proves that there is honour amongst these yellow-faced thieves, for a handful of gold-pieces and “no questions asked” was well known in Chinatown to be the price offered for any information that would lead to the capture of one or more of the gang.