[Illustration: HUNAN SOLDIER. One of the men who turned traitor, causing the disastrous fall of Hanyang. HUPEH SOLDIER. From time immemorial at feud with the Hunanese, but brought into co-operation in the early part of the Revolution.] One found it the more difficult to write an accurate account of the situation which would remain true because from now onward it seemed to change its aspect hour by hour. Everything seemed to have taken a change for the worst. Chinese met in the streets and told each other the bad news with long faces. The sight of the dead being brought in from the field and prepared for burial, under the gaze of all and sundry, brought a peculiar depression into the very atmosphere. Foreign and Chinese communities waited hour by hour for what was coming. Rumours were wild on the lips of every one. No one could be believed, and what one actually saw could scarcely be taken as truth. The general situation was extremely grave to the Republican military cause, and the Imperialists were never stronger in numbers, and in the advantage that they held over their enemy in their positions in the field. In possession now of Hanyang Hill, it was expected that they would bring their big guns into position and blow Wuchang to pieces in three hours. There was nothing to stop them. They were the military masters of the situation. All the Chinese could do now was to sit tight, interfere as little {130} as possible, endeavour to keep their heads on their shoulders by keeping out of the way of the executioner's knife, and wait to see what would happen. Then slowly came the story of the fall of Hanyang.[1] {131}