With the Allies to Pekin: A Tale of the Relief of the Legations

A day or two after this, Sandwich and Rex were chatting together in their own quarters, when the former said: “Those cannon will soon bring the whole place about our ears. They have already done terrible damage. To–day three men have been killed, and the house is little better than a ruin; it is impossible for men to stay in the upper floor.”

Rex sat silent for some little time, and then, without making a remark, got up and went to find Ah Lo.

“Ah Lo,” he said, “you know the damage those guns across the market have been doing?”

“Yes, master, very serious. Other guns not do so much harm; those very bad.”

“Well, I am thinking that I might go out and silence them.”

Ah Lo looked at Rex by the light of a lantern, which was hanging overhead, to see if he were speaking in earnest.

“Master would get killed,” he said, shaking his head.

“I donʼt think so, Ah Lo. Of course there is some danger in it, but I think that it might be managed.”

“Ah Lo is ready to go with his master, if he chooses to kill himself,” the Chinaman said; “but killed he would be for sure.”

“I donʼt think so,” Rex said. “Anyhow, it is worth the risk. They will have that house down, and the wall behind it, if they are allowed to go on much longer. Then there will be a fierce rush and all will be over.”

“But how will master do it?”

“Well, I shall take a hammer and a long spike with me, and if you go with me – but mind you, Ah Lo, I donʼt ask you to go – “

“You must take me too.”

“Very well then, as only two guns are worrying us, you take one and I take the other. We can do it in half a minute. Of course you must manage to get me some native disguise, for we shall have to mix with the enemy to some extent, they are sure to be sitting and talking round the guns. And then we must run for it.”

“Canʼt run across the market. We know that there are lots of them in the houses on this side of it.”

“No, I quite see that, Ah Lo. We must run the other way. I think I can run faster than most Chinamen, and if we get a start of a few yards, which is likely, as they will not at first realize what has been done, we ought to be able to escape and find a secure hiding–place. Then the next day we can work our way back at some point the enemy are not watching.”

“Very well, master,” Ah Lo said in a more hopeful tone; “when do you go, sir?”

“I will go to–morrow night, as we shall require some time to make our preparations. Mind, you are not to say a word to anyone of what we are going to do, for if he heard of it, it is possible that Sir Claude Macdonald would stop us.”

“Ah Lo will tell nobody, master. It is all the same to him whether he is killed outside or starved inside.”

Rex went to bed, and lay awake for some time thinking how the affair had best be managed. He came to the conclusion that the only way would be to lower himself by a rope from the end of the burnt library, then make his way round and come up to the guns from behind. It struck him that it would perhaps be advisable to tie knots in the rope as a help to them when they were climbing back again, but in the end he decided to make a rope–ladder, for he had a strong idea that neither Ah Lo nor himself would be able to swarm up a rope. When morning broke he went down to the store, which he unlocked, and after rummaging about for some time found a long rope, two hammers, and some long spike–nails. He hid the hammers and spikes in his bed, and then, retiring to an unfrequented corner of the Residency, he soon manufactured a rope–ladder, cutting some boughs to form the rungs. This ladder he concealed near the spot where he intended to get over the wall.

Later in the day Ah Lo brought him a Chinese dress.

“We take guns with us, sir?”

“No, Ah Lo, they would only be in our way when we wanted to run. We can, however, hide our swords under our clothes, and I will get a revolver and ammunition for you. I can borrow them from Mr. Sandwich, telling him that I am going on guard, and that my own weapon has somehow got out of order.”

The day passed off quietly, except that the guns across the market still continued to batter the house and to make a breach in the wall behind it. Soon after midnight Ah Lo joined his master. Rexʼs disguise had been laid down by the rope–ladder, and as soon as he got there he changed and prepared for a start. They got safely over the wall and then struck off in a direction opposite to the market. For some time they saw no one in the streets, but as they got farther away they here and there met people hurrying along, evidently fearful of being within the range of the firing from the wall. When they had gone some distance they turned and made a sweep towards the market. Now they came upon groups of soldiers. Firing had ceased for the day, and would not begin again until two or three hours before daybreak. An occasional bullet whistled overhead, showing that the garrison were on the alert; for although the firing generally ended with the day, yet fierce attacks were often made during the night.

Rex and Ah Lo sauntered quietly about among the soldiers, gradually getting nearer and nearer to the spot where the guns were placed.

“I suppose we can look at them,” said Ah Lo, who with several others was standing near them.

“Certainly you can,” the man said. “They are doing good work. In another couple of days we shall have the wall down, and then we shall finish off with the white devils.”

“That is good,” Ah Lo said.

“They have been here too long as it is, and ought to be cleared off without delay. When we have got rid of the last of them we shall be our own masters again. They are always meddling in our affairs, just as if they were our masters instead of only living here by permission of the Empress. They even venture to tell us what we should do, and their bishops get made mandarins, and then, if their people commit crimes, they will not have them punished. We have put up with it too long; now we are going to make an end of it once and for all.”

“Quite right!” Ah Lo said, as he lounged up to the gun, for at thatʼ moment Rex moved towards the other. While they pretended to be examining the guns, they quietly inserted the points of the spikes into the touch–holes. Then Rex looked round. The moment seemed favourable. Eight or ten soldiers were standing close to them, talking over the fighting of the day, and the prospect of making a breach in the morning. Farther back other soldiers were laughing, talking, and cooking their rice. He waited a minute, and then signalled to Ah Lo. On the instant two heavy hammers fell on the heads of the spikes. With three quick strokes they drove them up to the head in the touch–holes, then, throwing down the hammers, they started off at full speed.

The soldiers shouted as they saw the spikes being driven in, but the strikers had gone some thirty or forty yards before they had sufficiently recovered from their surprise to think of pursuit. Rex and Ah Lo increased their lead to fifty yards before their pursuers had fairly got up their pace. They turned down the first lane they came to and then down another. Glancing back, Rex saw that so far they were holding their own, except that two Boxers, swifter than the rest, were some yards ahead of the main body of their pursuers. The Chinamen, as they ran, set up a perpetual shouting, which did not improve their speed.

“We must get rid of these two men,” said Rex, speaking for the first time since they started. “Slacken your speed a little and let them come up to us, then suddenly turn round upon them.”

“All right, sir!” Ah Lo said.

“I shall use my revolver, Ah Lo, you can use either your revolver or your sword, whichever you like.”

A minute later the two foremost of the pursuers came rushing upon them, but the sudden pause of the fugitives had left them no time to draw their swords. Rexʼs revolver cracked out, laying one of them low, and Ah Lo, using his sword, struck the other with such force that he nearly decapitated him. There was a shout of rage from the party behind. Rex and his companion, needless to say, did not stop to listen, but at once turned and continued their flight. They ran down till they were brought up suddenly at the end of a lane where a house rose straight in front of them. It was too late to retrace their steps.

“What is to be done, master?” Ah Lo asked.

“We must break in the door, if it is not open.”

The first door they tried, however, was unfastened. They entered, shot the bolt to, and ran to the back of the house. They were disappointed, however, for there was no opening through which they could escape. Without wasting time they turned and ran upstairs to a terrace on the top of the house. Here a number of clothes flapped in the wind; it was evidently the family drying–ground.

“We can defend this ladder for a bit, Ah Lo, but they must beat us in the end. Let us scramble up to the other end of the street.”

Looking down they saw that the lane was now full of soldiers, some of whom carried lanterns. It was no easy matter getting along on the roofs, as the houses were irregular in height. Sometimes they had to jump down ten or twelve feet, at others to help each other up walls of equal height. They were some distance along when they heard a sudden shout, and knew that their pursuers had broken down the door of the house and had entered, and another that told that the enemy had gained the roof and found that it was deserted. In a short time lanterns appeared on the roofs of some of the houses, but the fugitives were already within a house or two of the end of the lane.

“The streets are full of people,” Rex said, peering over. “We canʼt get down here. We must jump upon the house behind; it is four or five feet lower than this, so we shall have no difficulty.”

Without hesitation he stood upon the parapet behind and leapt. Ah Lo followed his example.

“Now,” said Rex, “let us run down. The house will probably be empty, as the family is sure to run out to see what the row is about.”

There were, indeed, some women standing in the lower room, and these gave a cry of astonishment when the two fugitives rushed past them through the open door and joined the people who were hurrying up to the other end of the lane. Now that they were mixed up in the crowd, Rex felt that there was little fear of being detected. Only the soldier they had been talking to would know their faces, and as he had been among the first to take up the pursuit he must now be down at the farther end of the next lane, or more probably on the roof of the house they had entered. As the crowd was already very dense, he could not possibly make his way back.

Suddenly flames broke out from one of the houses they had crossed, and soon it was seen that other houses were on fire also. A cry of dismay broke from the Chinese standing near. They were accustomed to high–handed proceedings, for many houses had been burnt by the Boxers in the pursuit of plunder or in their indignation at failing to find any. They had now evidently fired the houses as the easiest way of destroying the fugitives, who had shown that they would sell their lives dearly.

Gradually Rex and Ah Lo withdrew themselves to the edge of the excited crowd. Many of the people were already moving off to carry their goods from the houses in the adjoining lanes, for the wind was blowing strong, and there was no saying how far the conflagration would spread, as the houses were but flimsy erections, being composed chiefly of bamboo and mud, which would catch like tinder when attacked by the flame. They moved away from the scene gradually, and without any appearance of haste. The alarm had evidently spread some distance, for they met a fire–brigade of men carrying tubs of water slung on poles hurrying towards the spot. People were standing at their doors watching the blaze, and calculating whether, if it spread, it would come their way.

“Well, Ah Lo,” Rex said, “you see it has not been a very dangerous business after all, and if those two soldiers we killed had not been so fast we might have got away without being pressed at all.”

“It was very unfortunate for them,” Ah Lo said quietly, “and I donʼt suppose they knew what they were running for. Very few of them could have known that we had spiked the guns. It was lucky that those two houses were so close to each other that we were able to leap across, otherwise they might have had us.”

“I donʼt think they would, even in that case, Ah Lo. We might really have gone down through that last house and joined the crowd there.”

“We might, master, but I donʼt think we could. Everyone had run to the streets by that time, and doubtless many were standing at their doors, and would have noticed two strange men running behind them.”