One evening during this period, some nervous Italian sentry discovered an imaginary enemy, and for some time after the report of his rifle, and the hasty retreat of the foe (a dog), one of the gunboats—not the “Algerine!”—indulged in heavy-gun practice at apparently nothing! As one can imagine, this kind of life began to pall on men who were eager to see more fighting, and all hands heartily wished that the much talked of advance to Tientsin would commence. Of this there seemed to be but little likelihood, for the total forces at the disposal of the Allies did not exceed a thousand men, and even then, a garrison for the forts had to be deducted from this number, in addition to which there seemed to be a very general idea that the detachments at Tientsin were having a right royal time of it; or even supposing that they were fighting, they were in all probability capable of looking after themselves. So much for ideas, which were not allowed to last long, for one morning Mr Watts rode in with his dispatches, which explained the desperate fight the garrison were maintaining, and asked for more men, more guns, and more ammunition. The authorities, already rather alarmed by the somewhat incoherent yarn of the men who had tried to come down in the “Spray,” immediately grasped the situation, and the “Terrible” happily arriving at the same time as a shipload of Russians, a relief force was forthwith formed. The adventures of the “Spray” party had been extraordinary. At the time when urgent need of communicating with the outside world became manifest, these brave fellows, seven in number, volunteered to take a little steam launch and endeavour to run the gauntlet by river. They seemed doomed to failure at the outset, for they ran ashore, and stuck fast when only just a few miles past the lines of the Chinese army. All their efforts to get the boat off were unavailing, and in due course they were discovered by some Boxers, who immediately went off to rouse the neighbourhood. When night fell there were quite a large number of these blood-thirsty gentlemen on the bank, and it was decided that it was better to desert the boat than to fight with practically no chance of success. Accordingly, taking advantage of the gloom caused by the disappearance of the moon behind some clouds, the whole party slipped quietly over the gunwale, and swam to the opposite bank to that on which they could just distinguish the Boxer sentries. Hardly had they done so when the Boxers dispatched a body of men over to the stranded launch, and, having poured paraffin all over it, set it ablaze. By means of this light the fugitives were spotted, and an extraordinary chase ensued. Luckily the Boxers were absolutely without firearms, while the little party were all armed with rifles and bayonets, without which all of them would doubtless have been killed within an hour or two.