"It is twenty minutes after four," he said. "Promise me that you will wait here with your boat until five."
The boatman promised, and the doctor hurried to the hospital. At the tea-table in the dining-room sat Mrs. Huntley with Jennie Crawford and Jennie Cody.
"We have no choice, we must leave in thirty minutes," announced Dr. Huntley. "Get together a few things and take no more than you can carry."
The half-emptied teacups left on the table as the women hurried from the dining-room were to remain there many days. Gathering up a few things, they started for the boat as the sun was setting. On a hill back of the hospital were six hundred soldiers of the Manchu Emperor.
"They are likely to fire!" said one of the servants.
But no gun was fired as the party went out. The boatman was waiting, although he trembled with fear. The river was rough, and the waves threatened to swallow the little boat, but it reached Hankow in safety.
The city was crowded, and the only rooms to be found were in a poor little hotel. None of the party slept that night.
"If you hear a signal in the night," they were warned, "it will mean, 'Danger! Rise and dress!' If there is a second signal, it will mean, 'All gather near the gunboats!' A third signal will mean, 'Great danger! American women and children get into the boats!'"
All night they listened, but they heard only the steady tramp, tramp of the guards who marched up and down the streets.
In the morning a messenger called out, "The soldiers entered Hanyang in the night!"