88 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



the others would go away. In a pitch-dark night it 

 is not so easy to shoot men out of a loophole, and our 

 tower only commanded two sides of the roof. He 

 added that, in the event of an attack, his friends in 

 the neighbourhood would turn out, and that he him- 

 self, with his sons, would hold the lower part of the 

 building. 



I was at a loss what value to attach to this pleasing 

 information, and whether to make any resistance or 

 not in the event of an attack. Falling into the hands 

 of Chinese, after killing or even wounding any of 

 them, has usually resulted not merely in death, but 

 in more omnibus critciatibus ; and they, with their 

 obtuse nerves, are ignorant of the amount of pain 

 Avhich can be got out of a nervous vascular European. 

 When Wong left, I resolved to be guided by the 

 course of events, but saw that my revolver was in 

 good order. I had gone to bed, and was dozing very 

 quietly, when two or three gingalls were fired off 

 about midnight from or near the house ; but on going 

 out to the roof, 1 could hear and see nothing. The 

 tower in which we slept had no direct communication 

 with the building below ; in order to get down we 

 had to cross the roof, and descend ^through another 

 tower, in which an old Chinese teacher and two of 

 our coolies usually slept. These parties, I found, had 

 betaken themselves to some safer dormitory, and, more- 

 over, the doors of this second tower were fastened 

 below, so that it was evidently intended to leave 



