'Simply this,' Ping Wang answered with a smile, 'we have been sworn in members of the Big Sword, or Boxer Society—a Society which exists for the sole purpose of ferreting out and killing foreigners.'
Before Charlie and Fred had recovered from the surprise of this announcement, the people in front started running quickly towards the town.
'The town gates are about to be closed for the night,' Ping Wang explained. 'We will stay out here until they are opened to-morrow. Let us hide among these bushes, in case any more men should come along and be suspicious of us for not hurrying.'
They pushed their way through the dwarf bushes until they came to a small clearing. Then they sat down and waited silently until the last townsman had hurried by.
'They have all gone,' Ping Wang declared a quarter of an hour after the last man had passed, 'so now I will tell you all about the Boxers. After we had exchanged greetings they told me that they were members of the Big Sword or Big Fist Society, commonly known as Boxers, and asked me to join them. I agreed to do so; if I had refused we should not be alive now. Then they told me that the Empress Dowager, Tsi-Hsi, and most of the mandarins were supporting them, and had approved of their plan to destroy every European and native Christian in the land. I asked when the rising was likely to take place, and was told that, as far as they knew, it would begin in about three weeks' time. Then I heard a man address you, and therefore declared at once that you could not speak, and after that I made a speech pretending to be very hostile to foreigners.'
'Don't you think,' said Charlie, 'that we ought to hurry back to warn Barton and his friends of the threatened rising?'
'We can warn them without going back to them. I will send word to my cousin. Since he has become a Christian, all the members of his family, excepting his youngest brother, have refused to speak to him. His youngest brother, who is in Kwang-ngan, is very fond of him, and when I tell him of his brother's danger, he will, I am certain, hurry off to warn him—and, of course, my cousin will tell Barton.'
"They butted each other gently."
Then they began to discuss once more the object of their visit to China—the recovery of the idol.