“I—I'll go back to the house,” she breathed, then. “Keep strong, dear,” said he very gently.
“I know. I will. It's helped, just seeing you.”
Then she was gone.
As he looked after her, his heart full of a gloomy beauty, he longed to call her back and in some way restore her confidence. But the appearance of the mission folk had shaken him, as well, this day. The mere presence of Mrs. Boatwright in the compound was suddenly again a living force. Up there on the hillside, driving his native workmen through the long hot hours, he had faced unnerving thoughts. For Mrs. Boatwright had brought him out of the glamour of his love; she, that sense of her, if merely by stirring his mind to resentment and resistance, restored for the time his keen logical faculty. He saw again clearly the mission compound at T'ainan-fu. And he saw Griggsby Doane—huge, strong, the face that might so easily be tender, working with passion in the softly flickering light from a Chinese lamp.
He had given Griggsby Doane a pledge as solemn as one man can give another. He had, because Doane was so suddenly dead, broken that pledge. But now he knew, coldly, clearly, that of material proof that Doane was dead neither he nor M. Pourmont nor these difficult folk from T'ainan held a shred.
4
Early on the following morning—at about three o'clock—a small shell exploded in the compound. Within five minutes two others fell outside the walls.
At once the open spaces within the walls were filled with Chinese, none fully dressed, talking, shouting, wailing. Among them, a moment later, moved white men, cartridge pouches and revolvers hastily slung on, rifles in hand, quietly ordering them back to their quarters and themselves taking positions along the walls. The crews of the two machine guns promptly joined the sentries in the redoubts. M. Pourmont went about calmly, pleasantly, supervising the final preparations. Two small parties, one led by Swain, the other by Brachey, went up the hillside to the men in the rifle pits there. A few trusted natives slipped out on scouting expeditions.
As the first faint color appeared in the eastern sky, and the darkness slowly gave way through the morning twilight to the young day, the walls were lined with anxious faces. Strained eyes peered up and down the hillside for the first glimpse of the enemy. Surmises and conjectures flew from lip to lip—the attackers were thousands strong; American, French and English troops were already on the way down from Peking; no troops could be spared; such a relieving party had already been intercepted and driven back as McCalla had been driven back in 1900; the Shau T'ing bridge was down, the telegraph lines were broken, old Kang had beheaded Pao and seized the entire provincial government, was, indeed, in personal command here at Ping Yang. So the rumors ran.
Daylight spread slowly over the hillside. Far up among the native houses and down near the village groups of strange figures could be seen moving about. They wore a uniform much like that the Boxers had worn, except that coat and trousers were alike red and only the turban yellow. At intervals shells fell here and there about the walls.