He set about to tell his story.--how that the whole of the officials, from General Li downwards, were in a blue funk; how that there were some ten thousand troops now in Wuchang; how that the intention was to blaze away with all the bluff in the world on the foreshore whilst the army was clearing out by the back gates of the city; how that if the Imperialists cared to march upon Wuchang they could capture it {150} forthwith. He then waited for the pardon that did not come. [Illustration: DISMANTLED IMPERIAL GUN ON PURPLE MOUNTAIN, HANKING. The author is seen standing in the foreground of the picture.] "Have you any more to say?" asked the officer to whom he told the story. "No, I've told you all I know." "Well," retorted the officer, "if this man has nothing more to tell us"--and he turned to a man who commanded the execution proceedings--"take him outside and have his head off." In a couple of minutes the big knife fell, and the head of the best spy in the Revolutionary official camp rolled to the ground. [1] The following story as told me by a Red Cross worker who was in charge of the Emergency Hospital, of what he saw before the Imperialists took the Hanyang Hill, will be of interest:-- "At 7.30 a.m. our launch made a trip to our Emergency Hospital in Hanyang. As the launch was needed for work in Wuchang until ten, I sent her away as soon as we had landed. At once we began to notice that there was a change of some kind about the place. There were very few soldiers about, and movement that was being made was in the direction of Wuchang. I noticed too, that the ground along the riverside was pretty liberally sprinkled with unused rifle cartridges, many in their clips. These seemed to betoken a somewhat hurried embarkation at least, but I thought that it might have been caused by a hurried dispatch of troops in the night. On arrival at the hospital, one of the Army Red Cross men said, "You'd better go back. It is dangerous to be here." However, there were one or two cases awaiting our arrival, so we at once set to work to attend to them. A little later we noticed that the servants who had been so freely helping us had all disappeared, and presently I met one of them on the street carrying his bundles of goods off to the riverside. One of our number had some business inside the city walls, so we decided to go on with the work for the time being and await his report as to the state of things. After about an hour I had occasion to take a wounded man to the landing-place, some two hundred yards distant to await the arrival of the launch, and then found that there was some cause for uneasiness. All who could secure a sampan or other boat were hurriedly gathering their bits of goods together and making off up-stream against the current, all hands in the boat helping to row. It was the panic of the populace that feared the arrival of the enemy. I also overheard a quiet