The Japanese know their chances, if wounded, are the same, and if they reach the Russian lines they accept only two things--victory or death. So it is that here through long weeks the siege has concentrated its bitterest essence, living has come to be a burden and death a joy. Then came the thud of a bullet. It was a different thud from any we had had up to that time, and though I had never before heard a bullet strike flesh, I could not mistake the sound. It goes into the earth wholesome and angry, but into flesh ripping and sick with a splash like a hoof beat of mud in the face. I turned to look. I saw the nearest sentry sinking to his knees. His rifle had dropped and was leaning against the wall, butt down. He sank together all in a heap and his head hung limp, his chin against his breast. “Poor chap,” said Villiers, “he was looking at us and got in front of the loop hole. I suppose we are so great a novelty in his strained existence that he could not resist the temptation to neglect his duty for a minute.” We crawled back and out silently and quickly, bade a hurried good-by to the Colonel, hastened past the smiling, oblivious men--they are used to it--and over a mile and a half of chipmunk burrow. The General was waiting tiffin for us in his tent. There was a jar containing strawberry jam like grandmother used to make. With a flash it brought back all the comforts of home. An empty shell in the center of the table held some field daisies and wild chrysanthemums. All the fragrance of the fields and the beauties of nature came with them. At my mess plate lay an American newspaper, just delivered by this incomprehensible field post. With it civilization, its myriad passions and joys, floated in. As the cigars were passed I opened the paper. I found an interview with Dr. Nicholas Senn, of Chicago, in which he said: “All the talk of inhumanity which some correspondents are sending out from the Orient is foolish. Statements of soldiers being wounded in the mouth and reports of all similar acts of atrocity can be set down as being without foundation. Russia has the best Red Cross Society in the world and the Russians are an extremely humane people. Likewise, this war is going to be a humane war. As for the Japanese, the worst that can be said of them is that they are a proud people.” I read this aloud. It was translated and the officers, Lieutenant-General Oshima and his staff, listened. None of them replied. Finally Villiers said: “The question is not: Are the Japanese or the Russians a humane people, or not a humane people? It is: Are individual men, under conditions the most terrible the imagination can devise, Christians or savages? Both Japanese and Russians socially are delightful people. I’ve lived with the armies of both nations and their soldiers are delightful and humane. But that is not the question.