and rice. To-day not a house stands in the street of Ki, not a person
lives. The men they slew quickly, or held for torture, as they desired
at the moment; the boys they hung from the trees as marks for their
arrows. Of the women and children this person, who has since been
subject to several attacks of fainting and vomiting, desires not to
speak. The wells of Ki are filled with the bodies of such as had the
good fortune to be warned in time to slay themselves. The cattle drag
themselves from place to place on their forefeet; the fish in the
Heng-Kiang are dying, for they cannot live on water thickened into
blood. All these things this person has seen."

When he had finished speaking, Ling remained in deep and funereal
thought for some time. In spite of his mild nature, the words which he
had heard filled him with an inextinguishable desire to slay in hand-
to-hand fighting. He regretted that he had placed the decision of the
matter before Li Keen.

"If only this person had a mere handful of brave and expert warriors,
he would not hesitate to fall upon those savage and barbarous
characters, and either destroy them to the last one, or let his band
suffer a like fate," he murmured to himself.

The return of the messenger found him engaged in reviewing the bowmen,
and still in this mood, so that it was with a commendable feeling of
satisfaction, no less than virtuous contempt, that he learned of the
Mandarin's journey to Peking as soon as he understood that the rebels
were certainly in the neighbourhood.

"The wise and ornamental Li Keen is undoubtedly consistent in all
matters," said Ling, with some refined bitterness. "The only