After these little excitements came a lull till August the 9th, when a furious fire was directed against the Fu, upon which, however, so strenuously had every one worked, it made but small impression. In the meanwhile, news came in that some Shansi troops had arrived who had registered a vow to take the Legations within five days; we shall see how they fared! With the 10th came another tremendous fusilade against the whole of the defences, and further encouraging messages from Generals Gaselee and Tukushima, this time naming the 14th as the probable day of relief. On the 12th the enemy showed many signs of restlessness, and they again opened with their artillery, which had been almost unheard since the truce. Eventually they pressed forward on all sides with great impetuosity—indeed so impetuous were they that they overturned one of their large barricades. For this absurd rashness they paid very dearly, and among the dead was the Brigadier-General of the Shansi column. Poor fellow, he will register no more braggart vows! That day, a day of serious fighting, ended in the utter repulse of the enemy, who had nowhere gained so much as a foot of ground. The 13th was ushered in by sharp firing, and the day was practically a replica of the one before. Once again did the Shansi braves attempt to storm the defences; once again did they get hurled back with indescribable gallantry; and so the fight waged through the day, and the whole night, until early next morning came a lull, when, “Listen! Yes! no doubt of it. Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” the first sounds of firing were heard beyond the walls. The Chinese heard it and understood; an angry and deafening fire broke out from their barricades for a few minutes, and they were gone, gone to endeavour to stem the advance of outraged civilisation, at this very moment clamouring against their gates. How this failed has been told already, and by 3 p.m. on 14th August the British Legation had welcomed the British General and many of his splendid Indian troops. The troops of other nationalities gradually gained their footing in the city, and thus came to an end a siege unlike anything yet recorded in history. In such a huge myth as Pekin, it can be gathered that all resistance was not immediately crushed; and it was not till two days later that a body of our marines and French troops effected the rescue of the splendid defenders of the Peh-tang Cathedral who, as has been shown in a previous chapter, were even more hard put to it than their equally gallant _confrères_ in the Allied Legations. Much has been said about the “Fu,” but below is a return of the killed and wounded in this position alone: