On the 6th an adventurous party determined to reconnoitre the line in the direction of Pekin, and managed to reach Yangtsun without hindrance. Here the train was boarded by General Nieh, who, it will be remembered, had been sent to deal with the Boxers armed with all sorts of contradictory orders. The train proceeded for another fifteen miles, until, on reaching Lo-fa, bodies of Boxers were descried vigorously hacking down the telegraph poles, whilst others were burning sleepers and other railway material, in a similar energetic manner. This was enough for the cautious old Chinaman, and he politely but firmly refused to go further. His manner on the return journey betokened great alarm, and it was evident that he quite believed, in common with the majority of Chinese, that the Boxers were invulnerable. Be this as it may, an extraordinary rumour reached Tientsin on the following day, to the effect that he had engaged and defeated the Boxers with a loss of four hundred killed. An air of truth was given to this theory by the statement that he had been censured for his act, and had retired on Lu-Tai, where he was sulking with his army. This last is probably entirely untrue, for no traces of any engagement were to be seen when the British Commander-in-Chief arrived on the scene a few days afterwards, except three harmless villagers, who were probably shot, not because they belonged to the rebellious faction, but for the opposite reason. Hundreds of bullets, with the appearance of being newly extracted from their cartridge cases, were found buried by the fires where Nieh’s men had evidently encamped; and on the whole there are no grounds for hoping that he taught his, at that time supposed, opponents, such a salutary lesson as had been stated. The next day another train left for the same purpose as the last, and it was found that during the night the Boxers had rendered it impossible to advance beyond Yangtsun without large repairs. However, it was surmised that the track was safe up to Yangtsun, and that a way might be forced along the line to Pekin by a sufficiently large force with the necessary repairing tools. [Illustration: TAKING THE ADMIRAL TO THE FINAL CONFERENCE ON H.M.S. “CENTURION.” [_page 22._]