A vast commotion was created, as you may judge, when this news circulated among the refugee Ministers and all the heterogeneous crowd who have been behaving so strangely since the serious business began. Not one of us had relished the idea of being massacred after the manner of the Indian Mutiny, but there are different ways of behaving under such perils; some of those we had witnessed would not bear relating.
In a very short time, indeed, a suitable reply had been written briefly in Chinese on another board, but the finding of a messenger was more difficult. We must send a proper man. A chinaman was at length discovered, who, after having been invested with the customary official hat and the long official coat, was persuaded to advance towards the bridge bearing our message and piteously waving a white flag to show that he likewise was a harbinger of peace. The man progressed but slowly towards the Imperial bridge, and twice he gave unmistakable signs of wishing to bolt; but urged on by cries and a frantic waving, he at last reached the parapet on which leaned our enemy's placard. Then depositing our own reply, his courage left him completely, and he incontinently bolted for our lines as hard as he could run, casting his dignity to the winds. In his haste he had set his board all askew, and the enemy could not possibly have understood it. But no arguments could induce our messenger to return. He swore, indeed, that he had just escaped in time, as the enemy's rifles were all pointed towards him from a number of positions just beneath the Imperial city wall, which we could not see from our lines. So nothing more was done by our headquarters, and an hour passed away with all the world waiting, but with no Imperial despatch brought to us.
The sun was now down only six inches above the pink walls—in another hour it would be dark and our position would be exactly the same as before. On all sides our fighting line had clambered over their barricades and were examining the enemy's silent ones with curiosity. Beyond the fortified Hanlin courtyards, to the north of the British Legation courtyards, which had been occupied and heavily sandbagged after the big fires there, so as to keep the enemy at a safe distance—the mass of ruins were indeed as silent and as deserted as a graveyard. Cautiously escalading walls and pushing down narrow alleyways, some of us advanced several hundred yards to see what was happening beyond; and presently, standing on the top of an unbroken wall line, there were the Palace gates and the mysterious pink walls almost within a stone's throw of us. The sun had moved still farther west, and its slanting rays now struck the Imperial city, under whose orders we had been so lustily bombarded, with a wonderful light. Just outside the Palace gates were crowds of Manchu and Chinese soldiery—infantry, cavalry, and gunners grouped all together in one vast mass of colour. Never in my life have I seen such a wonderful panorama—such a brilliant blaze in such rude and barbaric surroundings. There were jackets and tunics of every colour; trouserings of blood red embroidered with black dragons; great two-handed swords in some hands; men armed with bows and arrows mixing with Tung Fu-hsian's Kansu horsemen, who had the most modern carbines slung across their backs. There were blue banners, yellow banners embroidered with black, white and red flags, both triangular and square, all presented in a jumble to our wondering eyes. The Kansu soldiery of Tung Fu-hsiang's command were easy to pick out from among the milder looking Peking Banner troops. Tanned almost to a colour of chocolate by years of campaigning in the sun, of sturdy and muscular physique, these men who desired to be our butchers showed by their aspect what little pity we should meet with if they were allowed to break in on us. Men from all the Peking Banners seemed to be there with their plain and bordered jackets showing their divisions; but of Boxers there was not a sign. Where had the famed Boxers vanished to?
Thus we stood for some time, the enemy gazing as eagerly at us as we at them. Strict orders must have come from the Palace, for not a hostile sign was made. It was almost worth five days of siege just to see that unique sight, which took one back to times when savage hordes were overrunning the world. Peking is still so barbaric!
We sent back word that it might be possible to parley with the enemy, and to learn, perhaps, the reason for this sudden truce; and soon several members of the so-called general committee, whose organisation and duties I confess I do not clearly understand, came out from our lines and stood waving their handkerchiefs. But it was some time before the gaudy-coated enemy would pay any attention to these advances, and finally one of our committeemen, to show that he was a man of peace and really wished to speak with them, went slowly forward with his hands held high above his head. Then a thin, sallow Chinese, throwing a sword to the ground, advanced from the Palace walls, and finally these two were standing thirty or forty yards apart and within hail of one another. Then a parley began which led to nothing, but gave us some news. The board ordering firing to cease had been carried out under instructions from Jung Lu—Jung Lu being the Generalissimo of the Peking field forces. A despatch would certainly follow, because even now a Palace meeting was being held. The Empress Dowager, the man continued, was much distressed, and had given orders to stop the fighting; the Boxers were fools....
Then the soldier waved a farewell, and retreated cautiously, picking his way back through the ruins and masses of débris. Several times he stopped and raised the head of some dead man that lay there, victim to our rifles, and peered at the face to see whether it was recognisable. In five days we have accounted for very many killed and wounded, and numbers still lie in the exposed positions where they fell.
The disappearing figure of that man was the end to the last clue we came across regarding the meaning of this sudden quiet. The shadows gradually lengthened and night suddenly fell, and around us were nothing but these strangely silent ruins. There was barricade for barricade, loophole for loophole, and sandbag for sandbag. What has been levelled to the ground by fire has been heaped up once more so that the ruins themselves may bring more ruin!
But although we exhausted ourselves with questions, and many of us hoped against hope, the hours sped slowly by and no message came. The Palace, enclosed in its pink walls, had slunk to sleep, or forgotten us—or, perhaps, had even found that there could be no truce. Then midnight came, and as we were preparing, half incredulously, to go to sleep, we truly knew. Crack, crack, went the first shots from some distant barricade, and bang went an answering rifle on our side. Awakened by these echoes, the firing grew naturally and mechanically to the storm of sound we have become so accustomed to, and the short truce was forgotten. It is no use; we must go through to the end....