As soon as the _coup_ had been successfully carried through, Luu-Ky retired into the security of his lair in the mountains of the Bao-Day range, and from here he sent out messengers to the nearest military station, announcing that he would release the prisoners on the receipt of a sum of $100,000 in silver; but he also declared that, in event of the troops approaching his encampment he would have the captives executed immediately. The excitement throughout the colony was intense, and party rancour was forgotten in the general anxiety felt for the three unfortunate prisoners, as the cruelty of the Chinese bandits was well known to all. After three weeks of negotiation a slight reduction in the ransom was obtained, and the three gentlemen were released, after having suffered indignity and torture at the hands of their captors, with the result that their constitutions were wrecked by privation and exposure. The Governor still refused, however, to authorise effective operations against the robbers; and it was not until several military convoys had been captured, and a good many officers and men slain, that M. de Lanessan finally agreed that the bandits were worthy of more serious attention than they had previously received. When the column actually commenced operations its work was considerably facilitated by the death of the famous chief Luu-Ky, from the effects of a wound received during the attack made on the convoy when Major Bonneau was killed; but, owing to the rugged nature of the country in which the operations took place, it was fully six weeks before the brigands were defeated and scattered. A good many of the bandits escaped into Kwang-si, and others fled to the mountainous regions in the north. The telegrams and reports, coming in from the column, were of great interest to me, as my company was taking part in the _battue_. I happened to be on night duty one evening towards the end of September, when a wire was received stating that a detachment of my comrades had been caught in an ambuscade, among the rocky defiles of the Kai-Kinh, at a point not far from Cho-Trang, my former garrison. This despatch mentioned that Captain Watrin, our commander, was among the slain. Both Lipthay and myself were shocked at this news. We experienced, however, a certain relief on hearing next day that the body of our chief had not fallen into the hands of the enemy, though seven of the men were hit while carrying the corpse out of a narrow defile to a place of safety.