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"Bedad, Dr. MacKay, I have been safer in manny a battlefield than we are at this very minute."

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"The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strong rock, in Him will I trust.'

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"Thin, sir, you have better fortifications around you than a great manny of us have."

A petty officer from the Locust came up the garden walk, saluted, and said:

"Are you Dr. MacKay, sir?"

66 I am.”

"Commander Gardenier sent me to present his compliments, and to invite you to bring your family and your valuables and come on board the Locust. He says that you are in great danger here and that no place on shore is safe. A boat is waiting at the jetty, sir."

His words were interrupted by the weird moan of a shell, followed by an ear-splitting crack. The air was full of smoke and dust and flying fragments of metal and stone. It had struck a big boulder directly in front of the house, on the edge of the narrow road at the foot of the garden.

As they recovered from the shock, MacKay was speaking as quietly as if nothing had happened:

"Give Commander Gardenier my thanks. Tell him that I am deeply indebted to him for his thoughtfulness. Say to him that I have no valuables save these." He swept his arm around the semi-circle of native converts, preachers, students, and simple believers. "He could not accommodate all these. It is not his duty. They are subjects of China. But these are my valuables, my children in the Lord. Since I cannot take them with me, I shall stay with them."

"I shall tell him, sir."

The sailor saluted and withdrew.

When Sergeant Gorman told Sinclair of it at the hospital he said:

"I was born a Catholic, an' I'll die a Catholic. But whin I see that man up there on the hill an' thin think of that college in Skibbereen, an' the priests that have me little farm, that isn't mine neither, at Sleeahtballymackcurraghalicky, I'll tell ye it isn't the memory of the priests that kapes me a Catholic. It is because I am an Irishman an' I hate the name of a turncoat."

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XXV

THE BALL PROCEEDS

HIS is a sudden and unceremonious inroad of uninvited guests, Mr. MacAllister," said the consul as he entered. "Awfully sorry to crowd you so."

"There's no necessity for apologies, Mr. Beauchamp. We are only too glad to share with all any shelter or safety our situation may afford. Will you not stay and be as comfortable as the circumstances will allow?"

"Thanks, very much. I cannot stay just now. I see that you have every one from the hill except MacKay and his family and those who are at the hospital. But there are others who have taken refuge at Scott & Co.'s bungalow. I want to look in at the hospital, and then go on to Peeatow. I shall leave this party in your care and that of Boville. If it gets too hot here, signal Gardenier, and he will take you all on board. I shall be back in an hour."

He was off, following the narrow, crooked, roughpaved Chinese street, his quick, nervous step carrying him rapidly on his tour of inspection.

Mr. MacAllister went up to the living-rooms where the ladies were with De Vaux, Thomson the missionary, Clark the tea-buyer, Boville, Carteret, and practically the whole customs staff. The house never ceased shaking with the continual discharge of the cannon. Ever and anon the sharp splitting crash of a

bursting shell, some nearer, some farther away, gave the nervous a start. Less frequently could be heard, even within the house, the mingled whine and whirr of a passing projectile.

Not one of the ladies showed a sign of fear. Mrs. Beauchamp was quiet and self-controlled. Perhaps there was a trace of anxiety as her eye followed the light, fawn-like movements of Constance, or when she thought of her husband out trying to assure himself of the safety of others. But there was no fear. Mrs. MacAllister was at her best. Whatever her faults might be, timidity was not one of them. She belonged to a war-like people. Her colour was high. Her dark eyes shone with a strange fire. She looked a score of years younger than she was. Her husband was struck by the change in her. He found an opportunity to say:

"You look beautiful to-day, Flora."

"I am thinking of you, Hector. If you have to go out into danger, I want to go with you. Now I know why Allister would be a soldier. And I know what Jessie would mean when she says she wishes she wass a man. I nefer knew before."

She was deeply moved. The instinct of a fighting race had suddenly come to life with the sound of battle, and the accent of her childhood's speech was back upon her tongue.

She looked around for her daughter. Miss MacAllister was standing near a window, talking to Boville. She was drawn up to her full height, dwarfing the rotund commissioner of customs. Her cheeks were burning. Her eyes had an almost unnatural light. Her bosom was heaving with the short, quick

breath of one in struggle. Perhaps for the first time in her life Mrs. MacAllister understood her daughter's feelings. But she did not understand how much their interview of the day before had added to their intensity.

"Mr. Boville, I really cannot stay in here and not be able to see what is going on. I simply cannot. Let us go out on the verandah."

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Very well, Miss MacAllister. I do not know that it is any more dangerous there. I shall be glad to go with you."

"So shall I!" exclaimed Mrs. Thomson, whose natural vivacity had likewise been quickened by the excitement of the occasion. "I must go out. If there's any danger, let's take it in the open, and not shut up here like rats in a hole."

Her husband made a slow and feeble protest. But, with a half-defiant " You may hide in here if you want to," she ran out where she could get a view. Meanwhile, Constance Beauchamp danced in and out, bringing reports of what was to be seen to her mother, who remained sedately inside.

A heavy projectile splashed in the river midway between the company's jetty and the Locust. Another dropped on a cargo boat lying at the jetty, smashing through its bottom. The boat immediately filled and sank. A third drove into the soft mud of the shore close by and exploded, bespattering the whole vicinity with slime. There was a moan and rush nearer still, a shrill human shriek, a splitting crash, and a small native house spouted up a cloud of dust and splinters and fragments of sun-dried brick. Then it collapsed in a little heap of débris. In that heap were the bodies of an old Chinese peasant and his wife, and a little

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