The little group of soldiers who had fought and marched together had not had off their clothes for seven days. A stubby two weeks' beard was on each face. Their feet were raw from hard marching. Rain and dust and mud and powder smoke had trimmed their uniforms, and now the baptism by immersion in the Compound sewer had given them the finishing touches. But the gaunt-faced men and women, the pitiful, big-eyed children, whose emaciated forms told the tale of the six weeks' imprisonment, made them forget themselves as these poor rescued Christians hugged and kissed their brave rescuers. Thaine hadn't kissed any woman except his mother since the evening when he and Leigh Shirley had lingered on the Purple Notches in a sad-sweet moment of separation. It lifted the pressure crushing round his heart when he saw Goodrich, with shining eyes, bending to let a poor little missionary stroke his grimy cheek. The Boxers retired by degrees before the superior force, entrenching themselves inside the Imperial City. Never in its history, centuries on centuries old, had this Imperial City's sacred precincts been defiled by foreign feet. Here the Boxer felt himself secure. Here the gods of his fathers would permit no foreigner to enter. On these hoary old walls no Christian would dare to stand. On three sides of the Imperial City these walls were invincible. The fourth was equipped with six heavy gates. In a council of the powers the impossibility of storming these gates was fully made clear. The number of soldiers was carefully estimated--American, Japanese, Russian, German, French, and Italian, Sikh and Sepoy, Bengalese, Scotchman, Welsh, and Royal Englishmen. All had suffered heavily in this campaign. None more grievously than the American. The decision of the council was overwhelming that the Imperial City could not be taken by this little force outside its battlements. Only General Chaffee protested against giving up the attempt. "Can your men take those walls?" The query came from the leaders. "My men can take hell," General Chaffee replied, with less of profanity than of truth in his terms. And the attempt was given over to the Americans. One of the six gates stood wide open, a death-trap laid by the wily Boxer, believing that the foreign forces would rush through it to be shot down like rats in a hole. Beyond it was a paved court some five hundred yards wide, reaching up to a second wall, equipped likewise with six great gates. Thaine's company was singled out to go inside the open gate and draw the Boxer fire toward themselves while the American army stormed the closed gates. The little group of men lay flat on the pavement, defending themselves and harassing the enemy. They knew why they had been sent in, but they were seasoned soldiers. Thaine looked down the line of less than a hundred men, McLearn, and Boehringer, Tasker, Goodrich, and Binford, all were in that line. He felt a thrill of soldier pride as he said to himself: