The pilot, after a motion of consent had been received from the leader, informed the mandarin of Commander Hughes’ terms. Phil watched his friend’s face closely, glancing occasionally at the dignified old Chinaman, whom nothing apparently could move. “There is a hostile movement against the foreigners in your provinces,” Langdon commenced in the mandarin’s language, using all the flowery and diplomatic terms which these astute diplomats clung to so closely. “This movement can exist only through your tolerance. We do not claim that your Excellency is giving it active support, but you are taking no steps to smother it. That being the case, the allied powers have taken the law in their own hands. Having discovered that an army of rebels were concentrating at Lien-Chow, only seven miles from your Excellency’s city, with the avowed intention of attacking the American mission and massacring the inmates, the allies have but a few hours ago attacked them in their stronghold and dispersed them with many killed, while not a foreigner has been hurt. These rebels were permitted to collect despite the fact that you have seven thousand soldiers under your orders capable of suppressing these outlaws. Commander Hughes has directed us to say that if your Excellency will give his honorable word upon the spirit of his father that no further outrages will be permitted, and that he will protect with his soldiers the American mission, and also cause to be issued and posted throughout the provinces orders to desist from attacks on Christian converts and their teachers, then the foreign sailors will be at once withdrawn from China’s soil.” Chang-Li-Hun’s face was barren of expression while the pilot was delivering himself of this long speech. “I am not the general of the soldiers,” he craftily replied; “suppose I, a civilian, should give the soldiers orders to protect foreigners, how may I be assured that they will obey?” Langdon fearlessly gazed at the aged mandarin, whom he knew was trying, as the Chinese say, “to throw dust in his eyes.” “Is not the Tartar general under the orders of the viceroy?” he asked uncompromisingly. “I may give an order,” the viceroy answered evasively, “but I am not a soldier; then how shall I risk the displeasure of my father’s spirit, when I would not know if it were being enforced?” By the viceroy’s words his treachery was unmasked. Langdon had been told in the strictest confidence by Emmons that General Hang-Ki had embraced secretly the Christian belief; not suspecting this, the viceroy had put his foot into a trap by insinuating that the general could not be depended upon to carry out orders to protect the foreigners and the thousands of Christian Chinese, who were alike called foreigners by the fanatical anti-Christians. “Where can the general be found?” Langdon inquired finally. “His residence is in the forts,” the viceroy answered.