Again Rob Hinckley and Annabel Lorimer stood together at an open grave, and as they turned away at the conclusion of the simple but solemnly impressive ceremony of committal, the latter said, with tear-choked voice:
"I think he was the bravest boy I ever knew."
"He certainly was," replied Rob, "and also he was the best friend I ever had."
When Sir Claude Macdonald first read the welcome despatch from General Gasalee, and at the same time heard that its bearer was dead, he exclaimed: "What a pity he could not have lived to take back a plan of the city walls, showing the best place of entrance!"
A little later this regret became generally expressed, but it did not reach Rob Hinckley's ears until the day after Jo's funeral. Immediately upon hearing it, he went to the American minister and offered his own services as a messenger to convey any desired information to the approaching army.
At first the minister refused his consent. "The southern city, as well as the country between here and Tung Chou, is crowded with the enemy," he said, "and for a foreigner, or even for a native messenger, to attempt a passage through them would be to court an almost certain death."
"My friend gave his life for us," replied Rob, simply, "and he was a Chinese who had been badly treated by Americans. What he did any American ought to be willing to do. Besides, I believe I can get through. He taught me how to travel in China as a Chinese, and now, if ever, is my chance to profit by his lessons. Please let me go, sir. If I am killed, it will only be one life lost; if I get through, the information I can give about the water-gate may save thousands of lives."
That night a Chinese beggar, apparently old and on the verge of starvation, clad in the filthiest of rags, and with a scanty, unkempt queue coiled in slovenly manner about his half-shaven head, hobbled, by aid of a stick, towards the low water-gate, under the Tartar City wall, that carried off the surplus water of the imperial canal. This gate nominally was closed by iron bars, and in times of flood was impassable; but now there was little water flowing through it, and it was only choked with black mud. Above it was that section of the city wall held by American marines.
Fumbling in the darkness of this almost-forgotten water-gate, the beggar found a bar so rusted and worn by age that he could force a way through. When he emerged on the other side of the wall he was covered with black, vile-smelling mud. It rendered him so disgusting an object that even a Chinese could not tolerate his presence, and, whenever he approached one with a whining plea for alms, he was driven away with blows and curses. Thus he wandered on from group to group, through many streets, until he came to a gate in the eastern wall of the southern city that was guarded by a troop of Chinese cavalry. These amused themselves by teasing him, until, at length, one of them, tired of the sport, said:
"Oh! Put him outside, and let the old bag of bones go to the foreign devils. They will stuff him full of bullets and make him fat."