It is the cruel Empress who hates the foreigners, and it is her emissaries who have stirred up the people against us. The Boxers are her tools really, and the ignorant people are told all kinds of things which they believe, that the Europeans take their little children and kill them, and that it is our presence here which causes the lack of rain, and then they pretend to see most wonderful apparitions, those who appear always bearing the same message, "Kill! kill!" The other day they declared that a marvellous vision appeared in the sky; it was a spirit girl, they said, with a lamp in her hand. Father and I went out to see it, but of course we did not see the girl, but only a brilliant light in the sky, and the Chinese, who are very superstitious, imagined the rest. But what caused more stir and alarm than anything else was the mysterious Red Hand which suddenly appeared in Pekin. Mrs. Ross and I saw it on a house one day, and then again on another, and as the people caught sight of these dreadful Red Hands they gesticulated wildly, and seemed terribly excited. Mrs. Ross was very frightened, as she thought it meant that the Boxers were going to kill all the inmates of the houses on which the Red Hand appeared, but Captain Ross said he had been told by someone who knew that we, the foreign devils, were accused of marking the houses, and wherever this dreadful mark appeared a curse was sure to follow; in seven days one of the inmates would go mad, or in fourteen days they would die. This was just before a most dreadful event occurred. CHAPTER VII. A PAINFUL DISCOVERY. Several days passed by. One gets accustomed to everything, and we were getting used to the big fires at night and all the mysterious warnings we had had, and I was getting very tired of not being able to run about as in the old days before we came to Pekin. It was a lovely morning, and I made up my mind to go round and see my friend, Mrs. Ross. I was allowed to go and see Mrs. Ross, but when there I was never supposed to be out of her sight. Father was busy when I left, so I did not see him, but Phoebe, our old servant, followed me with a great many injunctions and warnings—at which, I am sorry to say, I only laughed. The sunshine seemed to intoxicate me—I revelled in it—I could no longer feel any fear; afterwards I thought I must have been mad that morning. I turned round in the middle of my flight down the path which led to the house in which Captain and Mrs. Ross lived. "Phoebe," I cried, shaking back my curls, which, somehow, always would come tumbling about my face, "Phoebe, you may depend upon it the Chinese are not nearly so black as they’re painted; anyway, black or yellow, or whatever they are, it’s a lovely day, and I’m going to enjoy myself." "And what am I to tell your pa, Miss Nina?"