While Phil’s attention was absorbed by the stirring sight ahead of him, against which he would in but a few minutes launch his hundred men in what seemed a forlorn hope, to take and silence the formidable battery now exerting itself to the utmost to breach the wall of the compound, a terrifying danger loomed before him. The sailors in the compound were delivering a murderous fire from their Colt guns, directed at the troublesome artillery, but many of the bullets were falling alarmingly close to the flanking force. The midshipman realized that he must go no farther; with the battery scarce three hundred yards in his front and his men as yet undiscovered he must call a halt and remain without that awful zone of fire until their friends on the mission wall had been apprised of his intentions by Commander Hughes. The word was passed quietly by word of mouth along the line, and the sailors, keyed to the highest pitch of excitement, threw themselves face downward on the ground, while less than a hundred yards ahead of them a storm of bullets swept every inch of the soil. “It looks black,” Langdon breathed in the grass close to Phil’s ear as they both were racked by ominous foreboding while watching the sweep of the devastating stream of bullets; “they haven’t got word to the mission yet that we are here; if those guns are pointed ten degrees further this way, it will be all up with us. See,” he added pointing in the direction of the active artillery, “those guns are behind intrenchments, for otherwise the Chinese could not have stood such a murderous fire for a minute. It’s withering,” he gasped with a shudder, while the singing of bullets redoubled, seeming to be slowly drawing their deadly zone nearer to encompass the crouching sailors. Phil cast his anxious eyes often on the dark slope of the mission hill where he had left the main force under Commander Hughes, but the night was too dark for him to discover what was going forward. There was nothing for him to do save wait with what patience he could muster. To rush ahead could mean but annihilation at the hands of his own guns. He must not open fire upon the battery, so close that the smell of burning powder was rank in his nostrils; to do so might draw the fire of the Colt guns, for how could the mission know that help was so near at hand? After what seemed an eternity to the anxious men, the fire of the Colt guns suddenly ceased, while from the Chinese position, believing no doubt that their enemy was weakening, a great volume of musketry fire added its roar to that of the big guns. Phil felt the moment had come; the cessation of the rhythmical discharges of the Colt guns must be the result of communication between Commander Hughes and those defending the compound. He glanced anxiously through the night toward the hidden enemy, while he was at that moment framing the words which would send his hundred men in a mad dash against an intrenched foe, counting their numbers by the thousands.