been warned that perhaps they would all have to retreat to the base at the last minute, and that all must remain ready during the night and none sleep.  As soon as it was possible, they were told that the relief was coming—­that the end was near....  What a sight it was to see them all grouped together, for they had scrupulously obeyed orders!  In one great hall five hundred Roman Catholic women and children in sober blue gowns were sitting patiently and silently, with their hands folded—­had been sitting so all the long night, waiting to hear any news or orders that might be brought to them.  Relief or retreat, massacre or deliverance—­all must be taken with the stoicism of the East.  A single lamp cast its dim rays over these people; and a hundred feet farther on were other halls and buildings, all filled to overflowing with these waiting miserables.  A word would have sent them surging back across the dry Imperial Canal—­to seek safety for a few hours in our base.  Would it have been safety?  An immense flood of feeling overwhelmed me....

So the night passed uneasily away, but no more distant sounds were heard, and in the end we began to wonder whether our ears after this strain of weeks had not played us false.

XXX

HOW I SAW THE RELIEF

14th August, 1900.

* * * * *

Day broke, after that tremendous night, in a somewhat shambling and odd fashion.  Exhausted by so much vigilance and such a strain, we merely posted a scattered line of picquets and threw ourselves on the ground.  It was then nearly five o’clock, and with the growing light everything seemed unreal and untrue.  There was not a sound around us; there was going to be no relief, and we had been only dreaming horrid dreams—­that was the verdict of our eyes and looks.  There was but scant time, however, for thinking, even if one could have thought with any sense or logic.  The skies were blushing rosier and rosier; a solitary crow, that had lived through all that storm, came from somewhere and began calling hoarsely to its lost mates.  We were dead with sleep; we would sleep, or else....

I awoke at eleven in the morning sick as a beaten dog.  The sun beating hotly down, and a fierce ray had found its way through the branches of my protecting tree and had been burning the back of my neck.  The Eastern sun is a brute; when it strikes you long in a tender spot, it can make you sicker than anything I know of.  Arousing ourselves, we got up all of us gruntingly; reposted the sentries; drank some black tea; made a faint pretence at washing; and finding all dead quiet and not a trace of the enemy, sauntered off for news.  Not a word anywhere, not a sound, not a message.  Everybody was standing about in uneasy groups, from the French and German lines to the northern outposts of the British Legation.  Where the devil were our relieving columns?