I'm wondering, though, whether he would fight this way for England--whether he will ever fight again this way for himself. It has been cold the last two days. The flies have almost disappeared and the fleas are less active--in numbers, anyhow. Two officers came to see us last night and it's the first time we have been honored in this way. One had a long sword 400 years old--the other a short one 500 years old, and both were wonderful blades. Now, the sword of a Samurai was his soul, and the man who even stepped over it did it at the peril of his life. I was rather surprised that they let us handle them so freely. "We are to leave here very soon," they said. To-morrow we do leave--toward Liao-Yang. VII THE BACKWARD TRAIL OF THE SAXON Out at the gate of the compound, last night, a barytone voice lifted a pæan of praise to the very stars. We were to leave that wretched enclosure next day, the Three Guardsmen said, and that night the White Slaves listened to the barking of dogs, the droning chorus of school-children chanting Chinese classics and the medley of small noises in streets and compound, and sank to sleep for the last time in Haicheng. As usual, the raucous cries of Dean Prior and Burleigh ushered in the dawn, and the usual awakening and bustle of servants and masters followed. For the last time Little Wong, Cup-bearer and Page-in-Waiting, with his hand at his forehead, clicked his heels before each of us in turn, stirred his master, the Irishman, from slumber deep, and, with a radiant smile and flashing teeth, fired volleys of Tansan right and left. Within half an hour we were gathered under Yokoyama's tent for our last breakfast. For the last time Big Reggie, the Frenchman, marched past us, and for the last time we made him keep step to a ringing Marseillaise. Half an hour later, the compound was full of squealing horses, and soon carts, coolies, the White Slaves of Haicheng, and the Three Guardsmen wound out of the gate, through the narrow streets and under the city wall--on the way to see a battle at last. Two hours we marched, climbed then a little hill, left our horses on the hither side, crawled over the top to where that battle was raging--some ten miles away. Up in the mountains somebody was evidently letting loose giant puffs of cigarette-smoke high in the air. No sound was perceptible, but they were shells, a Guardsman said. "Whose shells?" "I don't know," said the Guardsman. As a matter of fact, those shells were so far away that we could not tell whether they were Russian or Japanese, whether they were coming toward us or going away. But we could count them, and, of course, that was great profit and fun. So, while that battle raged, we fearlessly strolled around the hill-side or sat in groups and told stories, and one daredevil of a correspondent, made reckless by the perils we had passed, deliberately turned his back to the fight and calmly read a newspaper.