scarcely drag one tired leg after the other, and had to be urged forward constantly by their officers. They were willing—nay, eager,—to fight; but to drag along mile after mile through rain and mud, with the thermometer standing at a hundred degrees in the shade, was something for which nobody had bargained.
And yet all felt that the advance upon Pekin must be made as soon as possible. The foreigners congregated in the compound of the British legation were being subjected to a constant bombardment by the Boxers and Chinese troops; and, if the legation fell, it was certain that every man, woman, and child would be killed, and perhaps horribly tortured. Four hundred and fifteen people were pent up in the compound; and it was being defended by three hundred and four marines and eighty-five volunteers, all imder the general command of Captain Poole, of the British army. Every entrance to the compound was strongly guarded; and barricades of sand and salt bags, boxes, casks, and dirt, were everywhere in evidence.
In the mean time the attack on the foreigners had lasted for many weeks, and the greater part of the foreign settlement in the Tartar City of Pekin was in
