[2] It was about this time that Yuan Shih K'ai, in compliance with a strong invitation from the Throne, took office. He was appointed Viceroy of the Hu-kwang, and was instructed to quell the rebellion. The report was that he was now at Kilometre Ten, but he was really at Siaokan. Perhaps readers would care to read the chapter dealing with Yuan at this juncture. {81} CHAPTER VIII THE BURNING OF HANKOW Have you ever seen a fire--a big fire? Have you ever stood watching a wide prairie fire and seen the flames dance and leap upwards, downwards, wriggle in and out, and menacingly approach you? If you have, you will in some measure be able to follow me. Can you imagine in that great dancing prairie fire that you have seen thousands of housetops, minarets, temple spires, roofs of all heights, sizes, and shapes--can you? Can you imagine those wild flames, fanned strongly to one side, and see that mighty belt of flame galloping furiously onward, then drawing back, then galloping on again and gaining ground, then settling finally down as if it had its luckless enemy in its most deadly grasp, slowly to torture it and cruelly to draw from it its last gasp of life? Can you see that sea-like, billowy mass of curling smoke, too thick to be driven by the strong north wind, but just thick enough slowly to move and to give way now and again to that enormous force of white-hot, crackling fire that sends up its deep red flame in anger to the heavens? And can you see beyond you through that dense smoke more roofs and spires and curving Chinese architecture, seeming to dodge up and down, in and out, like a full disordered regiment of cavalry in awful flight; on and on they seem to go, yet to get no farther? Terrific is their endeavour, but futile. They gallop never faster, in and out, up and down, and at last, {82} giving up all hope, are compelled hopelessly to settle down in the smoke and are lost to sight for ever. [Illustration: THE BURNING OF HANKOW. A wave of flame a mile and a half wide swept through the city and rendered half a million people homeless.] But those roofs are not cavalry; they are not men. The men and terrified women, and the tiny helpless children, the old fathers and the mothers, the invalids, the incapacitated, the blind, the halt, and the maimed had left the city a couple of days before, and now were around the countryside, rich and poor alike being turned out of house and home. Those who doubted, however, or were indifferent were mixed up in the flaming street, helpless, hopeless, waiting for their inevitable doom in that great fire, the great fire of Hankow, the devoted central market of the Chinese world, now lost in doom in the Chinese war.