Terror and astonishment wiped one of the brigands from the temple step into the river. He flashed into oblivion; his desperate hand made a little passing splash in the river. All the men on deck laughed. “That was the Edward who fell in,” thought Edward, laughing a little too. “Just like him.” The other two brigands ran away. The syren was such an unexpected retort. There was no declaration in the voice of the syren. Doubt made them run away. “Gee, look at the corpses....” said Stone. One dead man pursued another furiously down the river. They floated on their faces, legs and arms wide-thrown. They looked like dead spiders. “They’re always fighting about one thing or another up in Szechuan,” said the ship’s officer in an irritated voice. Edward thought of Emily’s voice, “Oh, what a party....” “She will enjoy dead men,” he thought. But there was, it seemed, peace in Chungking, at least for a few hours after the ship arrived. The junkmen were taking advantage of the peace; they were leaning out of their junks armed with poles and arresting the procession of the dead in order to take the coats and sandals that were no longer needed. The retreat of the dead was easy now and, though they had a long journey before them, they needed no supplies. The cold could not reach them now, their pitiful feet might be bare. The dead soldiers, released, fled away eagerly and joined the long humble file of their fellows. Chungking stood in the hush that comes when one’s friends have forsaken one and one’s enemies have not yet come. Like panels the tall, thin, wooden houses lined the steep banks of the river. Strings of yellow fish and dried vegetables and blue garments hung across the faces of the houses. The wall framed the strangely perpendicular city. The steep steps—Chungking’s only streets—were like grey gashes or scars down the town. Outside the wall stood the outcast houses on unsafe trestles; the feet of the trestles were in the water; the cleanly dressed outcast women watched the vanquished soldiers leave the city and waited for the victors to come in. The ship was moored opposite Chungking. The town on this side was diluted with grass and trees. Green hills, grey hills, blue hills lay behind it. Groves of sharp thin trees—the cypresses that are supposed to denote the graves of poets—fitted like plumed caps upon the lower hills. Retreating soldiers were climbing the steps on their thin active ponies. Soldiers were carrying a few of the wounded along a climbing path. The wounded were bound to poles. “Gee, Emily’ll be tickled to death,” said Stone. “To see us, I mean.” On shore they asked the only white man they could see, “Do you know Emily Frere?” “I ought to,” replied the stranger. “There’s only about a dozen white women up here. But I never heard of her. Sure you don’t mean Miss Erica Blainey?”