“Belong my,” answered the shivering coolie, endeavouring to slip past, and in deadly terror that the pointed rifle would go off. They were ground between two millstones those unfortunate peasants. The Boxers harried them, and then the foreigners came and avenged their wrongs on these who had done probably no harm. Always it is these helpless serfs who suffer in case of war. Other classes may suffer—these are sure to.
They will never hold this house again should necessity arise, for the well that gave them water has gone dry.
Of course everyone hopes and says, that the necessity never will arise again but for all that, they are not, the foreign settlers in China, quite as certain of their safety as one would be in a country town in England, for instance. They came in to afternoon tea and tennis, men and women, and they gave all attention to the amusement in hand, a lighthearted, cheerful set of people, and then one little speech and one saw there was another side. There was always the might be. Everything was going on as usual, everywhere around were peaceable, subservient people, and yet—and yet terrible things had happened in the past, who could say if they would not happen again. Every now and again, not dominating the conversation, but running a subcurrent to it, would come up the topic of the preparations they had made in case of “another outbreak.”
One woman kept a box of clothes at Tientsin.
“I wonder you don't,” she said looking at her hostess. “No, my dear, don't you remember yet, I never take sugar. Thank you. You ought to think about it, you know. It is really so awkward if one has to rush away in a hurry to find oneself without clothes.”
Another woman laughed, and yet she was very much in earnest.
“That's not the first thing to worry about. There, that was vantage to them,” she interpolated, taking an interest in the game of tennis, “that young woman's going to make a nice little player. No, what I think is that the place they have chosen to hold is far too far away. Want your clothes in Tientsin? I'm not at all sure you'll get over that mile and a half from your house in safety, and I've farther still to go, with two little children too. Why don't you get your husband to——— Oh there they've finished! Now have I time for another set?”
“It's after six.”
“Good gracious! And baby to bath! I must go. You speak to your husband about another place, my dear. He'll have some influence.”
“No, I wouldn't try to hold any place again,” said my host, thinking of the past, “I should be on the train and off to Tientsin at the first hint of danger.”