And though within a few miles the broken Chinese braves and routed Boxers, formed into roving bands of robbers, swooped down upon defenceless villages, and heavily accoutred European soldiers trudged wearily and fruitlessly after them over impossible country, life in Tientsin flowed on unheeding in all the gay tranquillity of ordinary garrison existence. Entertainments in the Gordon Hall, convivial dinners, polo, races, went on as though the demon of war had been exorcised from the unhappy land. Yet grim reminders were not wanting; scarcely a day passed without seeing a few miserable prisoners brought in from the districts round. Poor wretches! Many of them were villagers who had been driven into brigandage by the burning of their houses and the ruin of their fields as the avenging armies passed. Some were but the victims of treacherous informers, who, to gain a poor reward or gratify a petty spite, denounced the innocent. And, with pigtails tied together, cuffed and hustled by their pitiless captors, they trudged on to their doom with the vague stare of poor beasts led to the slaughter. A hurried trial, of which they comprehended nothing, then death. Scarce knowing what was happening, each unhappy wretch was led forth to die. Around him stood the fierce white soldiers he had learned to dread. Cruel men of his own race bound his arms, flung him on his knees, and pulled his queue forward to extend his neck. The executioner, too often a pitiful bungler, raised his sword. The stroke fell; the head leapt from the body; the trunk swayed for an instant, then collapsed on the ground.