The younger sister, however, could scarcely stand, and Ah Lo caught her up and they at once started, Jenny pouring question after question into Rexʼs ear as he hurried her along. When they were two or three hundred yards away they broke into a walk.
“Now we can go on steadily,” Rex said. “We are absolutely safe till the morning, and by that time I hope we shall be a good many miles away.”
When they had gone another mile Rex said: “We had better stop here and eat something, for we shall want all our strength for the journey.”
“But how did you come to be here, Rex?”
“Well, dear, we heard such terrible news of what was going on throughout the country that Ah Lo and I determined to come out in disguise to see if we could be of any assistance to you. Of course we have heard all that has happened, so do not pain yourselves by talking about it at present. We have got stain for you to colour your skin, and the dresses of Chinese boys in which you must disguise yourselves. It would not do for you to be travelling as girls. We shall try to make our way to Pekin. Of course we shall have difficulties, but I trust that we shall get through all right. We intend to give out that we are going to enlist in the army, and we shall have to invent some story to account for your going with us. We have got rifles, so that if we should be interfered with by any small party we shall be able to give a good account of them. We have got you out more easily than we had expected, and no one is likely to notice that you have escaped. They will have more than enough to do if they wish to save the house, and I doubt whether they will succeed in putting out the fire, for I think we set the place pretty well alight.”
Indeed, it was already evident that the fire had got a great hold, for, from the point that they had now gained, the flames could be seen leaping out of all the windows on the ground floor at the back of the house. The fugitives went almost at a run for another mile, and when they stopped and looked round, the yamen was in a blaze from top to bottom. Ah Lo now set Mabel on her feet, and the two girls threw themselves into each otherʼs arms and burst into tears.
“Now you had better eat something,” Rex said, after he allowed them a short time to recover themselves. “Did the brutes feed you well?”
“We had enough to eat till to–day; they have given us nothing to–day, and we thought that that was a sign that the end had very nearly come.”
“No doubt it was so. Now in the first place you must each eat and drink something.”
“I donʼt feel as if I wanted anything.”