"All were killed—none were left?" cried the boy.
"Who knows!" rejoined the man sullenly as if this talk was increasingly distasteful to him. "So we were told. It was not our business. Some, who ventured near afterwards, picked up weapons in the fields and many cartridges. There were cartridges scattered for many li,—baskets and baskets of them were gathered."
"But the dead—what of the dead?"
The man made an angry gesture.
"How could we know? Men armed with swords were camped everywhere and we were afraid. There were men without number. They destroyed the railway; and in the end every piece of iron and timber was carried away so that it could never be restored."
The boy's eyes never moved from the man's face. It was difficult to say whether he believed him or not.
"And now—where is the fighting now—have all the devils been driven into the sea?"
"We have no knowledge," rejoined the other gloomily. "Only we know that everywhere there is still danger. Men in our village were taken forcibly to drive wagons for our soldiers. At any moment it is said the soldiers may return."
The boy pretended to whimper:
"Ai-ya," he exclaimed again. "I must travel sixty li further to find my uncle. It is doubly dangerous for me since I do not even know the road to Yangtsun." (He named a point twenty miles farther on.)