Government, and much more that one cannot hurriedly think of or relate, will live long in our memories. At the time of the fire's outbreak it was thought that thousands must have perished in that modern Sodom and Gomorra. The Imperialists were mad for the lusts of war. A day or two previous Yuan Shih K'ai had offered a large reward for the recapture of Hankow, and the men were hot for the spoils. Their dead, truckloads piled up irreverently, were all deposited in the flames, and over the Concessions on the second day of the fire came the rank smell of smouldering human flesh. During those days Europeans witnessed a hell from their rooftops. At the back of the British Concession, at the back of the French, and at the back of the German were batteries; the Imperialists were winning their way over towards the Han River, their goal, and from their batteries an incessant shelling was vigorously kept up. No one would forget those days. But lest they should, as it seemed, the big guns from Tachimen kept hard at it, planking shells into the city of Hanyang and anywhere else where soldiers were likely to lay ambushed. The guns boomed away for an hour, and then there came again dead silence, disturbed only by those who were still rescuing the wounded and the helpless. But the calm lasted not for long. Soon from the corner of the city nearest the Foreign Concessions there came fresh wreaths of black smoke, showing that the deadly work had recommenced. Soon the flames leaped up again, the wind blew them farther inwards to the houses still standing, shells inconsequently {87} fell near by; there was the same pathos and the same panic--the city was on fire again. And so it continued for three days, and one could see all over again what he might imagine in that prairie fire. [Illustration: THE TOLL OF THE DEAD. After the heavy fighting round Tachimen, nearly all the work of collecting the dead for burial fell to the lot of foreigners.]