“Good-bye, Ned, old fellow, if they separate us,” said I. “Should you escape, please tell my old Dad about me, and the people at home.”
“Nonsense, Jack,” he replied, trying to laugh it off. “If we die, we’ll die together. But, I should like to pay out old ‘yellow hat’ first. By Jove, I should like to see him now!”
Talk of—angels!
At that every moment, as we were passing through a narrow stone passage beneath the walls of the city, as we judged from their height, the very individual of whom Ned had been speaking the instant before appeared on the scene; and, all I can say is, that if we had thought him the reverse of an angel previous to his coming, we were, on the contrary, inclined to believe him to be the genuine article as soon as he told us his errand!
It was to release us, and take my poor emaciated and ragged comrade and myself to the English camp.
Then it was that we heard the news that had happened since our imprisonment.
Sir Hope Grant, with the French troops under Montauban, had fought their way up to Yuen-ming-Yuen, the Summer Palace of the emperor.
This place, I may mention, was subsequently burnt to the ground by the English, after the French had looted it and carried off more than a million’s worth of plunder, leaving only the husks of the spoil for our gallant men, who had done all the hard work of the campaign!
The Summer Palace was burnt, I should explain, as a punishment for the cruel murder by the Chinese of a number of our officers and men, as well as poor Mr Boulby, the special correspondent of the Times, all of whom had been taken prisoners and tortured to death, though at the time they were under the protection of a flag of truce!
Our troops had pretty well paid out the Chinese before this, however; their infantry being annihilated and the Tartar cavalry of Prince Sanko-liu-sin “doubled up” by our dragoons.