But it would only be needlessly harrowing to dwell on the sights of horror we encountered at every turn. We pressed on, rapidly yet cautiously, our feet dabbling in blood wherever we trod. As we proceeded down a street about ten feet broad, we heard in front sounds as of voices shouting and singing. The avenue we were in took a turn about fifteen yards in advance of us, and as we hesitated and finally stopped, there appeared round it a body of men in whom we at once recognized the Japanese soldiers. There was a low but wide doorway on our right, and into it we at once slipped with no trifling celerity. It was intensely dark and offered a good concealment. We could not afford to extinguish our lantern, and I placed it behind an angle of the inner wall where it was impossible that its glimmer could be seen from the street. Crouching in the deep shadow, we anxiously awaited the passing of the soldiers, whose voices we heard momentarily approaching, shouting at their full pitch a discordant song, accompanied by a loud ringing sound which at first I mistook for that of some instrument. They were soon abreast of us, some twenty or thirty in number. I scarcely breathed as the ferocious band went trooping past. Their appearance was ghastly and terrible beyond conception. They were literally reeking from the shambles of inhuman butchery; their clothes and weapons were smeared and clotted with blood; some held human heads aloft on their bayonets; the lanterns which most of them carried, and swung to and fro as they marched, threw on their repulsive figures and savage Oriental faces, their white teeth, oblique eyes, and sallow countenances, a weird, wavering light, appropriate to their infernal aspect; they looked more like demons than like men. The foremost, who appeared to be dismounted dragoons, were clashing their sabres together in a kind of accompaniment to the yelling chant in which they all joined. On they went, trampling the dead with whom their bestial ferocity had strewn the devoted town, the sound of their high shrill voices and the ring of the clashing steel being audible for some time after they had passed out of sight. At length it died away and all was still again, so silent that I seemed to hear the quick and heavy throbbing of my heart.
After waiting two or three minutes I told Chung to take the lantern so that we might set out again. He did so, but as he was about to step from the doorway he tripped over some object concealed by the darkness and fell: it was a dead body. I examined it by the lantern-light. There were several deep bayonet wounds and a terrific sabre-slash across the face which had completely destroyed the left eye. The abdomen was abominably mutilated. A knife was clenched in the right hand of the victim, showing that he had not died without an effort to defend himself. I swung the lantern about the recess, and perceived further back three or four steps, ascending to a door slightly open. These steps were covered with blood which seemed to flow from behind the door. I pushed it open, and entered the place to which it gave access. It seemed to be a kind of public office—a wide, low, bare apartment, divided on one side by a massive wooden counter, surmounted by a partition pierced at intervals with pigeon-holes, as if for communication between persons on opposite sides of the division. It may have been a bank or money-changer's office. It is not, however, on account of the place itself, but of its contents, that I describe it. The floor was covered with the corpses of men, women, and children, mingled indiscriminately together, fugitives who had there taken refuge and been relentlessly butchered. The bodies had been decapitated, and the bloody heads stuck up on a long row of spikes which surmounted the wooden partition over the counter. Both Chung and the mandarin uttered a cry of terror as we caught sight of those distorted countenances, grinning upon us with the livid stare of violent death through the dim medium of the coloured lamplight. My blood seemed to freeze as my eyes encountered that ghastly gaze of the dead, to which the upright position of the heads gave a sort of semblance or mockery of life. An infant a few months old was pinned to the counter below by a sharp piece of iron run through its little body. The floor was two or three inches deep in thickening blood and the entrails of the mutilated bodies. The arms and legs as well as heads had been hacked off some of them and flung about the place. Altogether a more hideous and revolting spectacle than this chamber of horrors can never have been presented to mortal gaze. Such a scene, and the sickening smell of blood, drove us out again almost immediately. At that moment another party of the Japanese passed our hiding-place. An infantry soldier in advance carried a large uncovered flambeau, which threw a broad, red, steady glare over all surrounding objects. I at once saw that these were all officers, excepting two or three; smart, well-got-up, gentlemanly-looking little men in the extreme; returning, perhaps, from calling off the last of their bloody war-dogs, or making sure that all resistance had ceased. They were laughing and chatting gaily, as if the massacre were rather a pleasant affair than otherwise. When they had gone by, we issued into the street, but had proceeded only a few paces when we saw a man carrying a lantern appear round the abrupt bend before mentioned. He looked like another Japanese hurrying after his companions who had just passed. We returned with all haste to the doorway; and as we judged that he had probably seen us, we re-entered the inner slaughter-house and closed the door. We were right in thinking we had been seen, and in about a minute we heard steps outside the door, which was presently thrust violently open and the soldier entered, a low, sinister figure, holding a drawn sword in what seemed to me a curiously white hand. He peered into the obscurity, perceived me, and doubtless taking me, in the uncertain light, for a Japanese, from the clothes I wore, lowered his weapon and addressed me in a harsh authoritative tone. The sound of the language was singularly like that of Italian. He pointed to the Chinamen, probably asking what they were. I took advantage of his unguarded pause to plunge my bayonet in his body, with a thrust so rapid that he had not time to make the least movement to avoid it. He fell at once where he stood, but attempted to rise again, when I gave him another prick which settled his business. He fell back heavily against the counter with a groan. One of the heads above was shaken off its spike by the concussion and struck him on the shoulder as he lay. His eyes, opening and shutting convulsively, seemed to gaze upon the ghastly object. He groaned again, and in a few moments was dead. I bent over him with the lantern, and soon perceived from the richness of his uniform and accoutrements, as well as from the look of caste about the head and face, that I had killed an officer of high rank. He wore white gloves, which accounted for the odd look of his hands when he appeared on the threshold. I felt sorry when I realized that he was a man of consequence and authority, for had I perceived it at first I would certainly have endeavoured to obtain his protection for myself and my companions; but Chung had slunk behind me with the lantern, the officer's own was a very dim one, so that in the obscurity I could only make out that he was a Japanese soldier, and expecting to be attacked judged it prudent to get my blow in first. Having given him what his countrymen called the "happy despatch," he could be of no further use to us. Before again leaving the place, I took possession of his sword, which was a very beautiful and valuable weapon, the hilt ornamented by a quantity of massive and richly-chased gold, and a great number of tiny diamonds and rubies,—infinitesimal gems, set in pretty, quaint devices, with a larger stone here and there. This trophy I brought away with me from Port Arthur, but when in Liverpool at the beginning of the year of grace 1896, the pressure of financial exigency compelled me to entrust it to the temporary care of the universal uncle of mankind, who said it was worth £600 or £700. I could by no means persuade him to believe my account of how it came into my possession. He laughed and said I was making fun of him. His obstinate incredulity was amusing. "You're a sailor, sir, I see," he said, "and we know what sailors' yarns are in this town. I've heard a few of them."
Again stealing outside, we resumed our perilous way through this city of dreadful night. We lost no time in turning out of the street where had occurred the incidents just described, and which seemed in the track of stragglers moving towards the adjacent Golden Hill fort. We left it by a very narrow lane abutting at right angles. The other end of this was blocked by a heap of corpses which we had to climb over. As I was doing so a hideous groan struck my ear, and the body under my foot seemed to heave. I started back, and simultaneously the apparent corpse rose up, a tall, blood-besmeared figure, which stared horribly upon me for a moment and then, with another loud and horrid groan, fell prone on his back, his arms widely extended. I lost no time in scrambling past him after my companions, who had run away, and small blame to them, for it was like the rising of a corpse suddenly endowed with volition. Both were by this time in what has been forcibly and picturesquely described as a "blue funk"; they trembled ceaselessly; their teeth chattered, and their eyes roved here and there with a wild, hunted look; every now and then they stopped convulsively, imagining that they saw or heard something to indicate the proximity of the ferocious murderers. As for myself, if my outward man were less open to reproach, my inward condition was nothing much to boast of, and truly the horrors which continually presented themselves, joined to the oppressive midnight shadow and stillness which hung over the place of doom, would have damaged the nerve of a football referee.
We reached the basin through a series of open brick-works, used as timber stores, on its north side. Everything was darkness and desertion. The moon was rising far beyond the West Port away in our front, but it was in the last quarter and afforded little light. There were very few stars visible. The night had turned piercingly cold, but so great was my mental anxiety and excitement that I seemed unaffected in body by the severity of the weather. With the lantern we began to search about for a boat, at first without success. In a square-shaped inlet or creek a little above the dockyard we presently came upon another horrifying spectacle. A junk lay stranded in the shallows. It was literally full of dead bodies, and many lay on the adjacent shore. The unfortunates had evidently been pursued down to where the junk lay, and slaughtered before they could get it off. It struck me that what we were looking for, a boat, might in all probability be found on board the fatal vessel. It lay heeled over broadside to the beach, and I waded out to it through the shallow water. I gained the upper deck with some difficulty and stood amidst the mass of carnage. Rifle-balls had done the work of death. Many of the bodies were in army uniforms. I could find only two boats. One, a mere cockle-shell, had been perforated by bullets and rendered useless. Another lay inboard on the quarter-deck, but it was so filled and covered with corpses that at first I did not notice it. It seemed in fair condition, but the task of ridding it of its horrible freight was so repugnant that I returned on shore to resume the search for one elsewhere. It was in vain, however; all we could find in the vicinity was an old sampan, which besides being very leaky, was more than three men could manage, only one of them, moreover, having any knowledge of sailoring. There was nothing for it but to return to the death-ship. We all went on board this time, and applied ourselves to the work. The pile of dead were dragged away, and with considerable labour, and aided by the careened condition of the junk, we managed to launch the boat, which had been secured inside the bulwark. It was in a horrid state with blood, but we were not in a situation to be particular. We found a quantity of provisions and fresh water—or rather water which had once been fresh—in the cook-house of the junk.
It must have been after midnight when we shoved off and got afloat. Neither of my companions were experts with an oar, and could render me very little aid; moreover, Chinese oars, like Chinese belongings altogether, are very unlike anything else in the world and need some practice to use. We were, however, close to the entrance of the port, which being defended by torpedoes and mines, we ran little risk of encountering Japanese vessels, although the submarine dangers threatened us as well, if we strayed from the deep-water channel in the dark. We got on in safety, though very slowly, and another two hours had been consumed before we were through.
What to do next I had no fixed idea. One thing, however, was assured, that it was certain death to stay in Port Arthur, and that our only chance, slender as it seemed at best, consisted in getting as far away as possible. I resolved, after some consideration, to hold on south round the extremity of the Peninsula.
In the seaward forts above us we could discern no signs of activity, and only a light here and there, far out on the misty expanse of waters, showed the position of the Japanese war-vessels, which had an easy job of it as far as Port Arthur was concerned. The weather, though so bitterly cold, was far from stormy, yet the difficulty of rowing was increased naturally when we got out into the heavier waters of the sea. So unpromising in fact did our situation look, that I began to reflect whether it would not be better to stay about the mouth of the harbour, and allow ourselves to be taken by some Japanese ship, than wander off I knew not where, probably in the end to perish of starvation. Luck decided the point. We had painfully made a couple of miles from the estuary of the harbour, when we came upon a large junk stranded on a sand-bank. There were no lights showing on board her; in the obscurity we could see nobody; yet she did not look like a wreck, and at first we did not know what to make of it. After a consultation, it was decided to fire a shot from the rifle and see what it would lead to. No sooner had the report rung out, than there was a bustle and stir on the vessel's decks, which appeared suddenly to swarm with men, and became illuminated by lanterns. I told Chung to hail. He did so, and a voice replied in Chinese. We drew close abreast, and my companions held a parley with those on board. Our situation explained we were permitted to ascend. The junk was full of men. She had got into her present predicament in escaping, and they were waiting for the morning flood tide to float her off. Two or three junks, we were told, had struck torpedoes in leaving the harbour and been blown in pieces, and many others had fallen into the clutches of the enemy. Those on board, besides her usual crew, were chiefly soldiers. With the profound deference paid to rank by the Orientals, the chief cabin was at once given up to the mandarin, who insisted on my sharing it with him. He and Chung gave a most glowing account of me to those on board, to whom, in my remarkable accoutrement, I was an object of legitimate curiosity.
Exhausted by exertion and anxiety, I was fast asleep within half-an-hour after stepping up the junk's side. I slept far into the day, and when I emerged found that she had been successfully floated off the bank, and got out to sea without so far attracting the notice of the Japanese ships.