"So the conspiracy was thwarted. The runners had accused the people, and set tongues wagging. The Viceroy had been told, 'Something is going to happen.' He would not believe his informant, and all might have become quiet, but the arrival of the coolies confirmed the information. The Government did not start. The unhappy coolies were hunted by the Imperial Commissioner and his staff, and many of them beheaded. We leaders dispersed; many fled into the interior. The Commissioner and Imperial Guard sought the leaders. They seized and beheaded sixteen persons, only seven of whom had anything to do with the movement. The remainder were occupants of houses where it was supposed some of us had met. The leaders all got away. I went on board my own steam-launch and sailed down to Hongkong, where I stayed a week. The Imperial officers were seeking me, and I passed them several times in the street without their recognising me. At the end of the week, during which I had made arrangements for my family, my wife and children and my mother, to follow me, I stepped on board a steamer under the eyes of my stupid pursuers without their noticing me. When I arrived in London, I was captured for the first time, after having been pursued around the world for one year. But the fault was not that of the English people. Indeed, the noble-hearted {208} way in which the English people came to my assistance, and rescued me from the death for which I was assuredly destined, make us shed tears of gratitude. "In saving my life the English people have earned the love of every one of our millions of cruelly ill-used people, and strengthened our hope of one day soon enjoying the blessing of a just government, such as that which has made your mighty nation so great and so good." English friends on this occasion had warned him to steer a wide course away from the Chinese Legation, for there he would technically be on Chinese soil and could be arrested, but these friends either neglected to tell Dr. Sun where the Legation was or he forgot the directions they gave him. At any rate, one day as he was walking through a certain street two Chinese accosted him. They asked him to go with them to their lodging, where they could discuss the Revolution at home. When he demurred they seized him and pushed him through the door of a nearby house. It was the Chinese Legation. A white man, who was Sir Halliday Macartney, English Secretary of the Legation, told Sun that he was under arrest and that he would be secretly taken out of London and back to Canton. The prisoner was locked in a room on the top floor of the Legation until arrangements could be made for the official kidnapping. Dr. Sun tried throwing messages out of the window weighted with coins, but one of them was picked up by one of the Legation servants and shown to the Minister, and the windows were nailed up.