Here was a shop boarded, bolted, and locked. A crowd of soldiers gathered before it. They demanded that the shop be opened. No reply came from within. The demand was repeated and emphasized with a blow of a rifle butt against the boards. Still there was no reply. More gun butts fell upon the boards and they began to creak and snap. A scared man within began to dicker for life, property, and family. He paid and paid high—for nothing. The shop was broken open. Stripped and wounded, the man was sent down the street. His goods became the playthings of the soldiers. His wife lay above, outraged and stabbed. His daughter was in the hands of other tormentors. At the command of the soldiers, his son began carrying his father’s goods and piling them as the soldiers directed. There was a look of death upon the boy’s face; he was sick and weary. The soldiers demanded more silver. The boy knew there was no more. He knew that his father had paid it all to save the family. He was so sadly sure he would not look. The soldiers cut him down and went their way. There was a ricksha coolie who had sunk frightened against a wall in a side street. He had hidden his family, but he, himself, had come forth from hiding in the hope of much work and large pay. With quaking knees he had pulled loads of loot for the soldiers. At last the horror had overcome him and here he cowered against a wall. He was called but he could not move. He knew that he could not pass down the bloody streets again. The call was repeated and still he did not move. They shot him as he lay and took his ricksha from him. That street also, a little street and a quiet one, had its spreading mark of red. A poor barber lay trembling upon his bamboo bed. He had no family and few friends. Why had he not run away? He lay thinking and thinking but he could think of no good reason. As he lay thus they came upon his shop. Down came the boards. He paid them all his savings, a pitifully small sum, and they demanded his wife and children. They killed him because he had neither the one nor the other. “For,” said they, “no honest man is without a family.” There was a girl of eighteen whom the soldiers seized. Guile or temporary insanity prompted her to play her part as if with pleasure. She smiled on them and shrugged her shoulders most coquettishly. She bandied jokes with them and made advances. A petty officer accepted her advances and, later, had her beaten to death. The soldiers approved. “These people must be taught,” said they, “that modesty is a woman’s duty.” For two days the riot continued. For two nights there was no sleep but the sleep of death. The moans of the women, the groans of the men, fire and fresh alarms made sleep a thing that seemed years away. The city was red and the blood flowed. Loot and the lives of men, silver and the bodies of women, these things did the victors take as is old custom in China. Then came the third day and the general.