The tumult was fearful. The great gate was rent, the stones flew far and wide, the wall bulged, and at the same moment the apparently dead Japanese, who had been lying in wait, came rushing up, and cut down the gunners before them. One soldier, the leader, pulled away the Dragon flag, and shouted "Banzai!" I saw no more. Struck by a glancing bullet I sank back, almost insensible, behind the western parapet; and the last sounds in my ears were the vociferous cheers of the Japanese as they poured through the dismantled gate, and took possession of the "castle-town" of Kinchow.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SACK OF KINCHOW—RELEASED—"CASTLED"—A CHECK
When my scattered senses returned, I could not quite understand my position. Had I been wounded? Yes, I remembered something striking me on the head. Whatever it was it had grazed my temples, and my hand sought the wound involuntarily. My fingers came away tinged with blood, my head felt very uncomfortable and dizzy, but after a while I sat up and began to wonder what was the matter.
The Chinese soldiers—all those left alive, I mean—had disappeared. Dead or wounded men lay around me, but few of the latter moved, and I began to suspect that the victors had killed most of them. My own escape from death seemed marvellous, for I lay almost helpless. The shouts, shots, and shrieks below in the town told me of the fearful scenes, the pursuit of the vanquished, the death of the fugitives. I attempted to rise to my feet, and had just supported myself by the parapet, when a Japanese picket approached. The men were almost savage, their weapons were bloodstained, their dress disordered and dusty, and splashed with blood; they were shouting, and indulging in what seemed to me fiendish merriment; they were drunken with excitement and the spirit of slaughter; they bayoneted the few living Chinese within reach, and then levelled their rifles at me, laughing still.
Holding up my hands, I called out the few words I had heard on board the Naniwa, "Long live Japan!" and added in English, "I am no enemy. Look! I am a friend."
Whether the appeal touched their hearts or they recognised the English tongue, they certainly perceived that I was not a native Chinese or Manchu. They examined my appearance closely, saw my stained and painted face, through which spots of white British skin appeared, and my blackened features, which could not belong to any Celestial being, and they looked surprised. One fellow, in sheer brutality, as he intended, seized my pigtail and wrenched me round to torture me, when, behold, it came away in his hand!
A shout of laughter succeeded at the expense of the brutal soldier, whose face was a study for a caricaturist, and his profound surprise saved my life. At this juncture I recalled the badge and permit which the captain and officers had given me. In a moment I had grasped them, and even as the angry soldiers advanced with sanguinary threats to bayonet me, the priceless permit, and, even more than it, the badge of the naval officer, arrested my would-be murderers.
I was saved! The levelled rifles were shouldered, and when the men had talked together, they intimated to me that I must accompany them—to their officer, I presumed. Securely guarded, I proceeded, taking care not to exhibit any of my disgust at the many terrible scenes I noticed, until we met an officer who was wearing white gloves, and appeared almost a dandy in the midst of slaughter and destruction.