droll fashion with Remingtons and revolvers, and some of the converts carrying pikes and carving-knives in their hands, for the Peking crowd and Peking itself has been, and is being, terrorised by the Boxers and the Manchu extremists, and is not really allied to them--of that we all are now convinced. But C----, who was so nearly massacred, came in too with the American missionaries. He managed somehow, after he was shot in a deadly place, to half-run and half-crawl until he was picked up and carried into the American missionary compound. From what I heard, he knows nothing more about the death of the German Minister. It was only a few hours ago, and yet it already seems days! All the non-combatants were now rushed into the British Legation, and to the women and children join themselves dozens of men, whose place should be in the fighting-line, but who have no idea of being there. Lines of carts conveying stores, clothing, trunks and miscellaneous belongings were soon pouring towards the British Legation, and long before nightfall the spacious compounds were so crowded with impedimenta and masses of human beings that one could hardly move there. It was a memorable and an extraordinary sight. The few Chinese shops that had been until now carrying on business in our Legation quarter in spite of the semi-siege and the barricades in a furtive way, were soon quietly putting up their shutters--not entirely, but what they call three-quarters shut after the custom on their New Year holidays, when they are not supposed to trade, but do trade all the same. The shop-boys, slipping their arms into their long coats and dusting off their trousers and shoes after the Peking manner with their long sleeves, made one feel in a rather laughable sort of way that finality had been reached! They had that curious half-laugh on their faces which signifies an intense nervousness being politely concealed. Up to three o'clock these complaisant shopmen were still selling things at a purely nominal price, which was not entered in the books, but quietly pocketed by them for their own benefit. Having completed my own arrangements, I began idly watching their actions, they were so curious. At three o'clock sharp the last shutters went up, the last shopman pasted a diamond-shaped Fu, or Happiness, of red paper over the wooden bars, and vanished silently and mysteriously. It was for all the world once again exactly like the telegraph-operator in "Michael Strogoff," when the Tartars smash in the front doors of his office and seize the person of the hero, while the clerk coolly takes up his hat and disappears through a back door. These Chinese had done business in the very same way, until the very last moment--the very last.