“A Debt Commission spells another anti-foreign outbreak, and we're within an ace of a Debt Commission,” said another man thoughtfully; “and if there is a row and things look like going against us, I keep one cartridge in my revolver for myself.” It does not seem much when I write it down, such things have I heard carelessly said many a time before, but when I, a foreigner and a solitary woman, was contemplating a trip up-country, they had a somewhat sinister sound.
On the other hand again and again have I heard men scout all idea of danger, men who have been up and down the country for years. And yet but yesterday, the day before I write these words, a man looked at his pretty young wife, she was sweetly pretty, and vowed vehemently, “I would not leave my wife and child alone for a night in our house just outside the Quarter for anything on earth. If anything did happen—and it might———” and he dropped his voice. There are some things that will not bear thinking about, and he had seen the looting of Nanking and the unfortunates who had died when they took the Woosung Forts. “We went to look after the wounded,” said he, “and there weren't any wounded. The savage Northern soldiery had seen to that.” And those whom they mutilated were their own people! What would they do to a foreigner in the event of an anti-foreign outbreak?
“Are you afraid?” I asked a man who certainly lived far enough away in the city. He looked at me curiously, as if he were going to say there was nothing to be afraid of, and then he changed his mind.
“Perhaps I am when I think of it,” said he; “but then you see, I don't think of it.”
And that is the average attitude, the necessary attitude, because no man can perpetually brood over the dangers that might assail him. Certain precautions he takes to safeguard himself, here are the nations armed to the teeth in the heart of a friendly country, and for the rest Quien sabe?
And I talked with all men, and while I was making preparations to go into the interior, had the good-fortune to see a quaint and curious pageant that took me back to Biblical days and made me remember how Vashti the Queen was cast down, and the beautiful Esther found favour in the sight of her lord, and how another tragic Hebrew Queen, going down to posterity with a name unjustly smirched and soiled, had once painted her face and tired her head, and looking out of the window had defied to the death her unfaithful servant. “Had Zimri peace who slew his master?”