“Towards morning I told her to throw in the megaphone attachment, and the instrument was laid up for four days, for she was so frightened at the loudness of the voice that she dropped the seismaphone, and two of the German silver wires snapped. I was nearly crazy in fact for the next few days, for I thought that the instrument was ruined.
“I couldn’t tell whether Bradley was getting my messages all right or not, and not a word did I hear from him during all that time.
“After working all one night, however, I succeeded in getting the wires fixed in the right position and signaled to Bradley. Almost immediately he answered and I heard him shouting:—
“‘What the devil has happened to you? Have you been seasick too? I haven’t heard a word from you for four days, and here I’ve been sending you the most exciting kind of messages. The disguise is working fine, and I shall soon be in the city of Peking.’
“That day I received a note from the head of my department, telling me I was granted an indefinite leave of absence, and I haven’t been in the office since. They think me a lunatic, and God knows I’ve been through enough to make a maniac of any man.
“For three days more I didn’t get a message from Bradley, and I had begun to fear that the wires I had fixed weren’t right, when the bell started to tinkle and I heard him signaling faintly.
“‘This is the last time you will ever hear from me,’ he said, and I noticed that he spoke as if in great pain. ‘I worked my way into the city last night, but got mixed up in a street fight between the imperial troops and a crowd of ruffians and was captured by the latter, who found out my disguise.
“‘Don’t interrupt me,’ he called faintly, for I had uttered an exclamation of horror, and he, seeing the hammer striking, thought I was trying to speak to him, ‘for I can’t hear if you do. They cut my ears off this morning, and filled up the holes with hot wax.
“‘There are three Englishmen and a Russian here also, all of whom were captured and brought in to-day.’
“He stopped for a few minutes, and I stood cursing the helplessness of the whole thing. There he was, thousands of miles away, being tortured to death in some filthy Chinese den, and I had to stand and listen calmly to his voice, not able to raise a hand to aid him.