The day was wearing on as they drew near their destination. The by-path they were following did not join the main road entering the town, but led over some wooded hills nearly at right angles to the principal highway. While still unable to see the town, they heard wild yells and occasional shots. Their rapid walk quickened into a run.
As they came over the last bluff, through an opening in the shrubbery they could see the end of the town where the main road entered it. Just emerging from between the houses was a man dressed in white and wearing a sun-helmet. It was MacKay. He was walking steadily, resolutely out along the road which led towards the capital. Behind him, in close but irregular order, was a band of natives—men, women, and children. Among them were a few sedan chairs, evidently carrying aged and wounded. Pressing upon their rear, crowding upon them on either side, threatening to block the road in front, was a screaming, jeering, cursing mob. Black flags were waving over their heads; guns were discharged; mud and filth were thrown; howls like those of beasts of prey burst from them in chorus.
The situation was obvious. MacKay had appealed to the Chinese authorities at the capital to protect the Christians. They had replied that they could not protect them in outlying districts like Sin-tiam, but would protect them if they came to the capital, where there was a garrison. He was endeavouring to bring the survivors to where their lives would be safe. They had lost their homes, their property, their church. They had only their lives left. He was trying to save these.
But the mob were determined that they should not escape. They crowded closer and closer on the native Christians, but still opened up before the missionary. His cool, resolute demeanour, the instinctive recognition of unruffled courage and conscious superiority made them give way. As the little band passed out of the town they began to fear that their prey was going to give them the slip. Bricks and stones were flung. Jostling passed into interchange of blows. Shouts of "Kill the barbarian. He is not very big. Tear the foreign devil in pieces" mingled with inarticulate yells of rage.
Suddenly with a surge from behind the mob flung themselves like wolves on their prey. The Christian maidens, always the first victims, were being dragged away, their terror-stricken shrieks mingling with the fiendish yells of their captors. Sedan chairs were overturned. Men and women were beaten down. The hopelessly outnumbered Christians were fighting desperately for their lives.
At the first sound of the onslaught, MacKay turned back. He would save his people or share their fate. The muzzle of a rifle was jabbed against his chest. Like a flash he thrust it up with his left hand and it was discharged harmlessly past his ear.
It was the last time that Chinese freebooter ever pulled a trigger. Simultaneously with the explosion of the rifle Sinclair's stick came down on his head and cracked his skull like an eggshell.
The same instant, with a wild "Hurroosh!" Gorman was into the melee. MacKay's Highland blood was up, too. Alongside of his bigger and heavier companions he was proving that his slight, sinewy frame had not for nothing gone through more than a dozen years of strenuous training in that tropic clime.
For a few minutes it was rough-and-tumble fighting, with foot and fist and shillelagh. Friends and foes were so mixed together that Sinclair and Gorman were afraid to use their revolvers. But the terror those big, fiercely-fighting foreigners inspire in the hearts of a Chinese mob fell on the rioters. They loosed their holds on their prey and fled in wild disorder, hurried by the barking of the two revolvers and the fall of some in whom the bullets had found their mark.
"Thank you, Dr. Sinclair; Sergeant Gorman. You have done me, and you have done my poor people, a great service."