The Frenchmen and their companions had already disappeared inside, and on the ground lay two of the pawn-shop men, dead or dying, swimming silently in their own blood. Beyond this there was a first hall, empty and devoid of furniture, excepting for immensely long wooden counters; and as I jumped through to the warehouses beyond, I saw dimly in the darkened room those dozens of city rapscallions whom we had unleashed hurl themselves on to the counters and literally tear them to pieces. They knew! Thousands of strings of cash were laid bare by this action, and with the quickness of lightning hundreds of furious hands tore and snatched, while hot voices smote the air in snarls and gasps. They wanted this money—would lose their lives for it. In an instant the pawn-shop hall had been turned into a sulphurous saturnalia horrid to witness. That gave you a grim idea of mob violence. I rushed to escape it....
In the warehouses beyond I found the Frenchmen and the first Cossack, who had directed the carrying of the place by assault, breaking open with rude jests chests and boxes, and flinging to the ground the contents of countless shelves. They cared nothing for the things they found; they were hunting for treasure. With curses as their disappointment deepened, and always hurling more and more shelves and cupboards to the ground, they soon reduced room after room to a confusion such as I have never before witnessed. Rich silks and costly furs, boxes of trinkets, embroideries, women's head-dresses, and hundreds of other things were flung to the ground and trampled under foot into shapeless masses in a few moments, raising a choking dust which cut one's breathing. They wanted only treasure, these men, gold if possible, something which possessed an instant value for them—something whose very touch spelled fortune. Nothing else. In some amazement I watched this frantic scene. From the outer courtyards came the same roar of excitement as the street crowd fought with one another for possession of all that wealth in cash; separated from one another by only a few yards, European marauders and Chinese vagabonds, I reflected, were acting in much the same way. I followed the Frenchmen and their companions into the last great rooms, all dust-laden and filled with boxes without number, which were carefully ticketed and stacked one upon another. Some were prized open with bayonets; some had their pigskin covers beaten through by butt-end blows; but whatever their treatment, there were always the same furs and silks. There was no treasure.
My men had now fought their way through the outer crowd, and rapidly flinging out coat after coat, suggested that sables were at least worth the taking and the keeping. They selected two or three score of these coats of precious skins, beautiful long Chinese robes reaching to the feet, and tumbling them into emptied trunks, we went out as soon as possible. We had had enough. The explanation of why the crowd had not rushed through was in front of us. The remaining Cossack had seated himself, carbine in hand, on the stone ledge at the entrance to the inner courtyards and held everyone in check; just beyond hundreds and hundreds of men stripped to the waist, glistening in their sweat and trembling in their excitement, were waiting for the signal which would let them go. I noticed that now there were old women, too. The whole quarter was coming as fast as it could....
The Cossack grinned when he saw me appear, and looked with a shrug of his shoulders at the sables. To him these were not priceless. Then he explained his unconcerned attitude in a single gesture. He pushed a hand down into his rough riding boots and pulled out one of those Chinese gold bars which look for all the world like the conventional yellow finger-biscuits which one eats with ice-cream. The rascal had elsewhere come across some rich preserve and had his feet loaded with gold—for he pulled out other bars to show me—and he did not care for this petty pilfering. Then the Frenchmen began coming out, with the Annamites and the Indians, each man with a bundle on his back, and the Cossack, esteeming his watch ended, got up and stepped back. Once again, like bloodhounds, the crowd rushed in, an endless stream of men, women, and even children, all summoned by the news that the pawn-shop, which was their natural enemy, had fallen. They roared past us, striking and tearing at one another with insane gestures as if each one feared that he would be too late. Inside the scene must have baffled description, for a clamour soon rose which showed that it was a battle to the death to secure loot at any price. Shrill cries and awful groans rose high above the storm of sound, as the desperadoes of the city, who were mixed with the more innocent common people, struck out with choppers and bar iron and mercilessly felled to the ground all who stood in their way. With conflicting feelings we struggled outside, and as I mounted my pony, a wretched man covered with blood rushed forward, and flinging himself at my feet, cried to me sobbingly to save him. He was the last of the pawn-shop defenders and was bleeding in a dozen places. Him, too, we roughly tied up and saved, and telling him to mount a cart and to lie concealed inside, at last we moved on again. We were gathering odd cargo.
The day was now waning, for the time had flown swiftly with such strange scenes, and people began to slink out from side alleys more and more frequently, as if they had been waiting for this dusk. Several times we passed bands of men armed with swords and knives—Boxers, without a doubt—who calmly watched us approach, as if they were debating whether they should attack us or not. Once, too, a roll of musketry suddenly rang out sharp and clear but a few hundred feet away from the high road, only to be succeeded by an icy silence—more speaking than any sound. We did not dare to stray away to inquire what it might be; the high road was our only safety. Even that was doubtful. Curious isolated encounters were taking place all over the vast city of Peking; it was now everyone for himself, and not even the devil taking care of the hindmost. It was no place for innocents.
At last, by vigorous riding and driving, which caused a great clatter and drew forth many leering faces from darkened doorways, we debouched into that long main street down which I had shot so few days before in such an agony of doubt. Hurrying homeward in the same direction, we now met bands of our siege converts in groups of forty and fifty strong. These men, who had come so near to starving during the siege, were having their own revenge. They had sallied forth with such arms as they could lay their hands on, and had been plundering all day within easy reach of the Legations. They had done what they could, and had gathered every manner of thing in which they stood most in need. Each man had immense bundles tied to his back—it was the revenge for all they had suffered. They had given no quarter either, and before many more hours had gone by they would have made up for those long weeks.... We soon left these groups behind, and with the whole cavalcade now going at a hand-gallop, it dawned on our companions and beasts which we had so curiously gathered during the day that we were nearing our destination.
But here the roadway was absolutely deserted, and in the dusk I realised that had we been farther from home we would almost certainly be ambuscaded by some of the many ruffians Boxerism had unloosed on the city. Here was a sort of neutral belt. At every turning I half expected a volley to greet us; at every door-creak I thought there would be some rush of armed men which would have been impossible for us to meet without losing half the convoy. Yet these fancies were not justified, for to my immense surprise, at a cross-road I saw numbers of women in their curious Manchu head-dress standing at a big gateway, all dressed in their best clothes. As we passed they caught sight of me, and, nothing abashed, began immediately calling to me and waving with their arms. This was extraordinary and unlocked for. At first I thought that they were only courtesans, who had been deprived for so long of all custom that they had been rendered desperate, and were seeking to inveigle me faute de mieux; but remembering that such women are confined to the outer city, I reined in my mount, halted the whole caravan, and went slowly towards them, half fearing, I confess, some ruse. Yet the women greeted me with fresh cries and words. There were a full dozen of them of the best class, and they explained to me that they had been left, absolutely abandoned, two nights before by all the men of the household, who, fearing the worst and hearing that the way out through the north of the city was still open, had seized all the draft and riding animals and ridden rapidly away, saying that the women would be spared by the foreign soldiery, but that probably every man of rank would be killed. No one had molested them so far, because this house lay so close to the foreign troops, but with so many armed men on the streets, and with the pillaging and the murder that was going on, they did not know how long they would be spared. They told me this quickly in gasps. I paused in doubt to know what to answer; it was everyone for himself, and the devil not even looking after the hindmost, as I have just said. But women.... I must propose something.
They saw my hesitation, and women-like, renewed their pleading in chorus. I noticed, also, that two or three of the older ones grouped themselves close together, and, putting down their heads, began rapidly discussing in loud whispers, which showed their trepidation. Then they called a tall, splendidly built woman, and, telling her something in an undertone, pushed her forward towards me. Unabashed, she advanced on me with a firm step, and laying a white-skinned hand—for the Manchus can be very white—on my arm, she begged me to stop here myself—to make this my house for the time being—to do as I pleased with all of them.... After all those weeks of privation, that constant rifle-fire, that stench of earth-soiled men, this woman so close seemed strange.... I answered, in greater confusion, that I could not yet say whether it was possible for me to stay so far away; that there might be trouble; that I would see and let them know before the night was far advanced....
Not wholly satisfied and half doubting, they let me draw off with their pleadings renewed. Then, as I thought something might happen before I could let them know, I gave them two rifles from the store we had collected, and telling them to bar and bolt their gate, showed them how a shot or two would probably drive off an attack. We clattered on and lost them in the gloom....
It was almost dark as we re-entered the ruined Legation lines and picked our way slowly though the débris which still stood stacked on the streets. Fatigue parties of many corps were finishing their work of attempting to restore some order and cleanliness, and clouds of murky dust hung heavily in the air. All round these narrow streets there was an atmosphere of exhaustion and disorder, crushed on top of one another, which oppressed one so much after the open streets, that an immense nostalgia suddenly swept over me. We had had too much of it; I was tired and weary of it all. It was mean and miserable after the great anti-climax. It was like coming back to a soiled dungeon.