struggle. Had they only been wise enough to retire gracefully from
the field, all would have been well. But they swaggered into
Li's presence. "They appeared"--so an eyewitness described the
scene--"rather like leaders in a position to dictate terms than men
sharing in an act of clemency." They even had the audacity to suggest
that Li should pay their soldiers--_their_ soldiers, who had fought
_him_, mind you--and divide the city of Soochow by a great wall,
leaving half of it in rebel hands.

Naturally he refused to do either of these things; how could he
possibly agree to such quixotic demands? But through his refusal, he
found himself face to face with the problem of what to do with
the surrendered Wangs. He might keep them prisoners--that would be
difficult; or he might summarily behead them--and that would be easy.
The latter action must certainly be open to the ugly suspicion of
treachery, but he had as his excuse that the city was under martial
law, and that prompt and vigorous measures might be the means of
saving more bloodshed in the end. Accordingly he ordered the immediate
execution of the surrendered chiefs.

When Gordon heard of it he was as angry as only a passionate nature
such as his could be. The idea that his unspoken word of honour to
helpless prisoners had been broken for him made him mad with fury. Out
into the city he went, revolver in hand, to look for Li, and to avenge
what he called the "murder." His sense of his own guilt was certainly
morbid; morbid too was his treatment of the head of the Na Wang,
which he found exposed in an iron lantern on one of the city gates.
He brought it home, kept it for days beside him, even laying it on his
bed, and kneeling and asking forgiveness beside it. The Na Wang's son
he adopted into his bodyguard. No father could have treated his