be certain of nothing. Perhaps the firing was not even the enemy at
work, whoever he may be; it might be our men....

But directly in front of us all was still, and just as we thought of
stealing on, a Japanese whispered "Hush," and pointed a warning
finger. We flattened ourselves against houses and scurried into open
doors. Suddenly it was getting exciting. Down another lane then came a
noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the
accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this
network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and
no force could properly patrol them....

Without any warning two men came round the corner, peering everywhere
with sharp eyes and bobbing up and down. Simultaneously with the sob
of surprise they gave our rifles crashed off. And this time, owing to
the short range and the Japanese warning, we got them fair and square,
and both of them rolled over. But no, one fellow jumped to his feet
again, and before we could stop him was down another lane like a flash
of lighting. We promptly gave chase, yelling blue murder in an
incautious manner, which might have brought hundreds of the enemy on
our heels. But we did not care. Round a corner, as we followed the man
up, a high wall rose sheer, but nothing daunted, the fellow took a
tremendous leap, and by the aid of the lattice-work on a window,
climbed to a roof. Then bang, bang, bang, seven shots went at him
rapidly, one after another. In spite of the volley the man still
crawled upwards, but as he reached the top of the low house and passed
his legs over he gave a feeble moan and then.... _flopper-ti flop,
flopper-ti flop_, he crashed down the other side and ended with a dull
thud on the ground. On the other side there he was dead as a door-nail
and all covered with blood. It was our first proper work. But he was