In this curious fashion the memorable night of the 12th passed away,
with sometimes one picquet firing, sometimes another, and with
everybody waiting wearily for the morning. We had almost lost interest
by that time.

At half-past four the pink light began chasing away the gloom; the
shadows lightened, and day at last broke. At six o'clock native
refugees from the foreign houses that had been burned came slinking
silently in with white faces and trembling hands, all quite broken
down by terrible experiences. One gate-keeper, whose case was
tragically unique, had lost everything and everybody belonging to
him, and was weeping in a curious Chinese way, without tears and
without much contortion of features, but persistently, without any
break or intermission, in a somewhat terrifying fashion. His wife, six
children, his father and mother, and a number of relations had all
been burned alive--thirteen in all. They had been driven into the
flames with spears. Moaning like a sick dog, and making us all feel
cowardly because we had not attempted a rescue, the man sought refuge
in an outhouse. Sir R---- H---- was still standing at his post,
looking terribly old and hardly less distressed than the wretched
fugitives pouring in. His old offices and residences, where forty
years before he had painfully begun a life-long work, were all stamped
out of existence, and the iron had entered into his soul. A number of
the officers commanding detachments, and people belonging to various
Legations, attempted to glean details as to the strength of the Boxer
detachments from these survivors, but nobody could give any
information worth having. I noticed that no Ministers came; they were
all in bed!

At eight o'clock, still afoot, we heard that there was a deuce of a