If the boatman had not waited, they would have been shut up in the city.
"Rich Chinese men and women are paying much money to be let down over the walls in baskets, for the gates are closed, and no one can get out any other way," said the messenger.
In the evening Jennie Crawford saw thirty girls coming down the street.
"Here come the schoolgirls from Wuchang!" she cried joyfully.
Each girl carried the few clothes she had been able to save tied up in a square of cotton cloth.
"For two days and nights we were shut in the school building," said one. "The bullets flew all round, and we could see burning buildings every way we looked. Then the rescue party reached us. We had our bundles all ready to leave at a moment's notice."
They were very tired, yet they stood bravely round the walls of the room, for there were no chairs. Not one knew whether she had a home or any friends left, but not even the youngest cried or complained.
"Extra! Extra!" shouted a newspaper messenger as he carried his papers from house to house. "Twenty thousand troops on the way from Peking!"
Jennie Crawford bought a paper and everyone gathered round her.
"Twenty thousand of the Emperor's soldiers are on their way from Peking!" she announced. "The British and American consuls advise all foreign women and children to go on to Shanghai!"