The mass of wrigglers grew less and less.
Several houses on the western side of the open space were set on fire by shells exploding in them, and as the flames shot skyward they cast a lurid light over all.
The firing ceased. There was nothing to shoot at other than when a wounded man would jump up, run a little way, then fall. Some of these men ran to the river and jumped in; some ran to the Mission Gates and knocked entreatingly; others ran toward the buildings in flame.
Several boats loaded with marines now put off from the warships and rowed heavily across the lighted waters. No one opposed their landing, but as they started across the open space they involuntarily drew back at the frightful spectacle that lay before them. Lit by the red glare of burning buildings the place was as one vast slaughter pen. The dead lay strewn about in bunches; headless, legless, gutless, soulless. Here one with muscles twitching in death’s agony, there one asleep. The eyes of some were glazed, others looked resignedly at the stars. Some sat erect, and as the marines approached laughed and—died.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE WHITE LAMB AND YELLOW WOLF
A month after the night-flight and night-riot, which the Propitiation of the Gods of the Waters had brought about, a defensive calm pervaded the Mission of Yingching and its immediate environs, although to the westward the noise of hammer and saw filled the air.
The fires that started from the bursting shells had swept westward to the street of the Golden Flower and north to Old River Street, where, owing to the greater width of these thoroughfares, as well as to the strenuous exertions on the part of the fire-fighters, the flames had been stopped, but only after an area almost an half-mile long and about an eighth of a mile in width had been completely gutted.
In a few days after that dreadful night, when the dead and mutilated had been removed from the open space and order had been restored throughout the suburbs, these people, as industrious ants, began to rebuild on the embers, amid ashes, their homes and stores and temples. Abroad over the black blot rose the garrulous noise of their labour; and over the debris, ash, and dead, creative life in its various phases hummed persistently. Men were coming and going, some carrying bricks, others chiselling granite blocks; some were whipsawing logs into floors, joists, beams, and doors, while others were putting together the piles of wood, brick and stone.
A kind of bitter happiness pervaded those building this new suburb in the midst of the old, and they chattered, cursed, railed. Hucksters with viands and sweetmeats passed and repassed; children played among the logs; soldiers moved back and forth; silent groups stood scowling along the waterfront, and among the brick-heaps and half-completed buildings troops of spectators came and went. Sometimes a lone being slunk along, looking vainly for some spot; if found—weep; if not—vanish.
At the northwest and northeast corners of the Mission Compound the marines had thrown barricades across the Old River Street and had mounted ordnance on each. Sentries patrolled these barricades as well as the whole circuit of the Mission Walls. On the river opposite the open space a French cruiser and gunboats still anchored; their cannon covering all approaches and even holding the city at their mercy.