"Am I not a representative of one of the greatest mandarins of the empire?" demanded Jo, fiercely, "and am I not come to prepare the way for him? Has it not already been told to your dull ears that upon his reaching the imperial city within two days depends the very life of the Son of Heaven?" At this august name every one present, excepting Rob, and including the speaker himself, made a deep reverence.
"The Emperor is no longer in danger, since the ocean-devil army has been driven back, and now is being cut to pieces by his own invincible troops," boasted the official.
"What do you mean?" asked Jo. "No such news has come to the ears of his excellency the governor."
"It is nevertheless true that from the ships gathered off Taku bar thousands of ocean men were landed to go to Pekin. They travelled by the road of iron-fire, restoring the track, even as you now propose to do. Slower and slower they moved, being beset on all sides by sons of the Great Sword. Beyond An-Ting they could not go, for there they were met by imperial cavalry from the South Hunting Park, and turned back in disorderly flight. Hundreds were killed, and hundreds more are being cut down at this moment. All their guns and banners are captured, and it is certain that not one of them will escape alive. The ocean devils still on their ships have threatened to fire on the Taku forts, but they dare not do it. General Nieh has made answer that, with the firing of the first shot, every foreign devil in Tien-Tsin and Pekin will be put to death; for so commands an edict from the imperial city."
"What has all this to do with us?" inquired Jo, pretending not to be at all affected by this startling news. "The governor of Shan-Si must pass in spite of everything. Let him be delayed by so much as the fraction of an hour, and those whom he will hold responsible may well tremble in their shoes."
"Is not the man with the black face, standing by your side at this moment, a foreign devil?" suddenly demanded the official, ignoring Jo's threat and pointing an accusing, clawlike finger at Rob.
"No," answered Jo, stoutly. "He is a native of the Middle Kingdom; but he comes from the far south, where he was born. Also, he is wise in the science of iron-fire, and has been sent on in advance of the great governor to make safe his way. If you should harm so much as a hair of his head, the vengeance of Yu-Hsien would be swift and terrible as that of Heaven itself."
"He is yang-kwei!" (foreign devil, northern dialect) cried a voice from the back of the room, and Rob, turning quickly, caught a glimpse of the begrimed engine-driver whom he had seen crawl out from under the tender and who afterwards had followed them.
At the same instant he, together with every one in the room, was hurled violently to the floor, the walls of the building were blown in as though they were of card-board, and the city of Pao-Ting-Fu was shaken by an explosion so terrific that its inhabitants ran shrieking from their houses into the streets.
Some of the occupants of the station-agent's room fled from it unharmed, while others, and among them our lads, more or less bruised by falling bricks or tiles, crawled out from the débris and made exit more slowly. Only one remained behind, crushed to death beneath a heavy roof-timber, and he was the engine-driver, killed, in the very act of denouncing Rob, by the blowing up of his own locomotive. It had been left with a roaring fire behind its closed furnace door and very little water in its boiler.