Before they reached the river one of the Manchu peasants who had been captured, seizing a favourable moment, felled the man in charge of him and scrambled down an almost perpendicular declivity. A dozen shots followed him before Bob could interfere to stop the fusillade. The sound of the shots echoed and re-echoed over the hills; they must be heard by any Russians who happened to be in the neighbourhood, and if heard they would certainly bring the enemy upon the track. For several miles Bob turned at intervals anxiously to look back; there was no sign of pursuit. But, unknown to him, ten minutes after the unfortunate incident a Manchu had galloped up to the spot where the firing had taken place, and there, hidden behind a rock, had watched the disappearing tail of the procession. His fierce eyes lit up as he looked. In a few moments he was galloping back. The Manchu was Chang-Wo. The cavalcade crossed the river. It was a question of the direction they should take. There were probably Russians between them and the Japanese lines, it would therefore be well for them to strike south-east in order to give the enemy as wide a berth as possible. Bob pointed out that this would probably cause the loss of a day; but Kobo replied that he would rather lose one day, or even two, than run the risk of his information never reaching General Kuroki. Bob noticed that the safety of himself or of the party never entered into Kobo’s calculations. With him it was merely a weighing of advantages, with the sole consideration how best his news might be delivered. On the south side of the Yalu the fugitives saw on all hands traces of the Russian occupation. Almost every village had been sacked and burned; the country was for the most part deserted; the few Koreans who were seen wandering in disconsolate helplessness about the sites of their ruined homes scuttled away in terror when Bob’s cavalcade approached. They were evidently afraid lest the party should be a band of raiders come to capture and destroy the little that the Russians had left.