far as I am personally concerned, three hours' sleep is but the
appetite-giver for five hours more. And so on this fateful 20th June,
with the time limit of our ultimatum expiring at four o'clock, I got
up in no sort of valorous spirit, and with the feeling that tragedies
outside the theatre--at least those that spin themselves out for an
indefinite number of days--are quite impossible for us Moderns. But,
then, probably everybody has always thought the same thing--even those
who lived before the Renaissance.

At eight o'clock everyone was once more afoot, although most have
hardly had a wink of sleep. All over our Legation quarter, dusty and
dirty men, unwashed and unbathed, now squatted along the edge of the
streets, hanging their weary heads against their rifles, with their
faces very white from too much sentry-go and too little sleep. There
is little distinction between sailors and Legation people, for we are
all in the same dilemma. On this eventful 20th of June, instead of
being resolute and alert, everybody is merely tired and weakened by a
couple of weeks' watchfulness against Boxers during an unofficial
semi-siege, a state of affairs which has quite unfitted us for fresh
strains. Yet beyond our barricades of upturned carts and stolen
building-bricks all was quiet and peaceful, and hardly a thing moves.
It seemed as if we had been only dreaming.... Wandering down beyond
the eastern end of Legation Street, which gives you the most view of
the mysterious world around the great Ha-ta Street, which the Boxers
have conquered, indeed you find everything practically deserted, the
people having learned that it is best to stay indoors until this
crisis is solved in some manner. Occasionally a rag-picker, or some
humble person so little separated from the life hereafter that to push
a trifle closer does not spell much peril, can be seen hooking up rags
and whatnots from the piles of Peking offal. If you speak to him he