A Tale of Red Pekin

o come. At the other end of the hall, upon a kind of red dais, stood a man. I suppose he was a man, but he appeared to me to be more like a personation of th

randish his horrid, blood-stained spear, but the man on the raised dais smiled. His smile was worse than the other's fury, and then he said a few words. I could not understand it all, but I knew enough of Chinese to guess that we were to die a lingering death of agony. The implements of torture were all round us, an

d by these terrible orgies to be working themselves up to a still greater pitch of fury. Every moment I expected to be our la

ible to die without saying good-bye to anyone. Perhaps people in England will wonder and blame us that it was a temptation to us at all, but I heard Uncle Paul say once that temptation was not sin: that it only becomes sin when we yield. They say that times of great persecution are times of decision, too. I had not cared much for Christ in the old days; I had not been like Uncle Paul or Cicely-I had been careless and thoughtless; but now, with a cruel death staring me in the face, now, I chose

hat poison, but even if it were possible I think it would be better not to do so. We are

course, to know if a thing is right or wrong now, but

ead about these things in a story, but unless you have passed through it yourself, you can have no idea of the horror and fear and deadly anticipation of c

unning into my mind, "Our light affliction which is but for a momen

their preparations now, and ca

o pray that we

it will soon be over

me awful place of pain-a place of confusion and horrible noise and terrible suffering and then a blank, which seeme

better,

k, I could hardly hear it

you are better now, t

are we,

cave at the ba

t here, I want to

are strong enough

erishly; "it will make m

not agitate yourself. Now I will give you a cooling draught, an

want to know what happened after tha

were I do not know. I think they did mean to put us t

en, Lilian? I am sure I cou

violently apart that you fell with your head against that pl

hat hap

d, and gradually they ceased to brandish their spears, and after what seemed an eternity to me, I saw that they had given up the idea of murdering us, at any rate for the present. What arguments these men used, of course, I do not know, but anything like the expression of concentrated disappointment and rage on the faces of those who would have killed us, I have never seen. It makes me shudder to think of it now. An order was then given, and we, or rather, I was marched off, for you, poor darling, were past marching or doing anything. The two strange men picked you up, not un-gently, and we moved off; it seemed to me along, long way. Then there was another altercation, but at last it was decided that we should be taken to this house, and here we have been

ne of them stan