he already had to support many destitute and starving persons. However, he ended by promising me the money in the course of a few days. When you asked me this evening if I had been looting, I could not honestly say 'No.' How I hate this business." people were very poor, and that each side of us where no law runs. We have frightened away the Chinese soldiers and police, and have provided nothing in their stead. The country is swarming with exsoldiers, ex-Boxers, ex-cultivators, and breken men of every description. Many of them are armed-all of them are desperate. Whenever I go out with a patrol I feel that we are being watched by many pairs of hostile eyes from each desolate village." "If you go out to Nan-tao again, give me warning, so that I may show a few troops in that direction. It really isn't safe to go so far alone." "No. There must be no troops. The only salve that I have for my conscience is that this money will not be collected by force. The presence of troops would deprive me of even that small consolation. Besides, I am sure that an escort is quite unnecessary.' "You never can tell. There is a large zone of country on "I am accustomed to travel about the country unarmed," answered the missionary. "I have no fear for my own safety. Even if I had, I could not allow it to influence me. Any sign of cowardice on my part would destroy my hold over my people.' "Very well, then, Padré, have it your own way." A week later the rising sun found the missionary and his servant well on the road to Nan-tao. They had started from Ma-cha-su in the small hours of the morning, so as to avoid any escort that the post commandant might think fit to impose upon them. Where possible, they moved along at an easy canter, but in many places the roughness of the track, or the depth of the dust, reduced their pace to a walk. Their road lay over a flat plain, on which crops of millet had grown, ripened, and withered unreaped. Small villages of mud-huts were dotted II. at regular intervals over the plain. Some of these villages had been burnt by the Boxers, and only the blackened walls of the houses were still standing; others were intact, but seemed for the most part deserted. With the sun rose the wind. At first it only rustled the withered cornstalks, but soon it raised the grey dust, and lifted it higher and higher, until at last even the sun was blotted out in a drab haze. By ten o'clock a steady gale was blowing from the north-west, and the icy, dusty wind cut like a sand-blast. Through this dust-blizzard it was no use trying to frighten the missionary with the apparition of one mounted Chinaman. the missionary and his servant he kept silent about the rode with bowed heads. As mounted figure. He knew they approached Nan-tao the mafu became manifestly uneasy. At last he broke the long silence. The day was unlucky, he said. It was no use going on to Nan-tao. They would be well advised to return at once to Ma-cha-su, and wait for a more auspicious occasion. The missionary thought that the man had seen some evil portent, in which he was ashamed to acknowledge his belief. But the mafu resented this suggestion, and reiterated his forebodings in pidgin English, as being more convincing. "This day velly bad. This all fool pidgin. Bring no soldiers, then catch no dollars. Bring plenty soldiers, then catch plenty dollars." His master tried to extort some explanation of his fears, but the mafu found it very hard to give any. The impression of danger was so vivid in his mind that it had already blurred the incidents that gave rise to it. Besides, he was not in the habit of analysing his impressions. The facts seemed insignificant enough. He had noticed that as they approached Nan-tao the fields and villages were utterly deserted. Not a sign of life was to be seen; the village streets were empty, and the doors barred. Also he thought he had seen through the dust haze a horseman, who had turned and galloped off at their approach. He spoke to his master of the deserted fields and streets, but "Of course the fields and village streets are deserted," answered the missionary. "The people always run into their houses when they see a European.' "They run into their houses after they have seen you, not before," answered the mafu. His master could not help admitting to himself the force of this argument. For the last mile or two he certainly had not seen the fleeting figures or heard the slamming doors that usually heralded his progress through a village. The inhabitants had evidently barred their doors before he came in sight. He sought for some other explanation that might satisfy his servant. "Perhaps there are German troops in the neighbourhood," he said. "If the Germans were about we should hear shots fired and see the smoke of burning villages." The missionary was not disposed to defend the conduct of the German troops or to admit the truth of his servant's statement, and the mafu, recognising that further argument was useless, relapsed into silence. Another half mile brought them to a small, smooth-flowing river, on the farther bank of which lay Nan-tao, a large village surrounded by a crumbling, crenelated, mud wall. As they came down to the river they discovered a small sampan moored to a stake on the near bank. The large ferry - boat was drawn up on the opposite side, and the ferryman was nowhere to be seen, nor did he answer to their shouts. The mafu regarded his absence as a fresh ill-omen, and commented on it with a grunt and a grimace. As the ferryman was not forthcoming, the missionary dismounted, handed his reins to the mafu, and entered the sampan. "Let me go back and fetch the soldiers," implored the mafu, when he saw that his master was going to cross the river alone. "If I do not come back within an hour you may bring the soldiers.' "Then give me a letter that I may show to the officer so that the soldiers shall come quickly." The missionary was impatient at the delay, but he drew a note-book from his pocket, wrote a few words in it, tore out the leaf and gave it to his servant. Then he pushed off from the shore and sculled across the river. The mafu watched him ascend the opposite bank bank and disappear under the gate-house that crowned the entrance to Nantao. this he came into another court, round which were built the headman's dwelling-rooms. As he crossed the court, a door on the farther side was opened by a small, middle-aged Chinaman. "The headman is not here to receive you." As he spoke he offered the missionary some straw-coloured tea in a tiny porcelain cup. Then he took up a small brush of grass fibre, and made a few perfunctory passes, that distributed the dust in the room without removing it. In this way he complied with the precepts of Confucius for the reception of a guest. The missionary seated himself on the k'ang and began to question the Chinaman, supposing that he was some member of the headman's family. "My name is too evil-sounding for your ears, and my profession is too despicable to be mentioned in your presence," protested his host with exaggerated politeness. The missionary then asked him of the condition of the people in the village. "How do they get on without any magistrates or police to keep order?" "The police are no loss. They are such extortionate rascals that the people are glad to be "Then who keeps the robbers in check?" The missionary made his rid of them." way through the narrow streets till he came to a gateway in a high wall. The gate was open, and he passed through into a courtyard surrounded by stables and servants' quarters. Beyond "Each village pays a small sum to the head robber of the district. Then if any one steals, the headman of the village tells the head robber, and he THE MAD SYMPHONY. THE evening of December 8, 1813, fell with sweeping rain over the streets of Vienna. Yet all the world seemed abroad, rumbling in carriages with the cracking of whips, or splashing on foot through the mud, all bent on a common point-the grey buildings of the University. It was an earnest, almost a grim crowd that pushed through the open doors: for these were the years of terror, when men's hopes were shortlived and death often in their homes. Two short months ago Napoleon Bonaparte had faced them at Leipzig-the "Battle of the Nations" and had fallen back still fighting like a lion. Day by day the wolfpack of Bavarians and Austrians had hung along his flanks until they bayed him at Hanau with fearful loss. Day after day the Viennese had watched the wounded and the dying and the broken dead trailed through their streets, and to-night they were met, in an agony of compassion and hate and fear, at a grand concert for their suffering soldiers. All the greatest musicians were to give their services, all the world of fashion was to be there. Hours before the time it seemed that the great hall would hold no more. Yet more came and still more. Every seat was gone, every gangway full of swaying people: they clung to pillars and fought at the doors. There were rushes from behind like waves, and on the crest of one the crowd was borne right up to the foot of the platform. As it retreated and returned two figures were left for a moment behind it, then pressed backwards against the orchestra rails. They were caught upon a ledge a little above the rest of the audience two drops isolated and distinguishable in a great human sea. One was a boy with lank black hair over his eyes, spectacled, and curiously sallow; the other, a tall, gaunt stranger, driven, it seemed, in every smallest motion by some fierce excitement. He wore a brown tailed - coat, almost in rags, soaked dark across the shoulders with rain, faded on the breast to a red russet. It was buttoned up to a dirty white stock, which served to throw up his bristly chin and white hollow face, lighted by the wandering flame of dark eyes. Beside the thick-set boy in spectacles he seemed of towering height, type of some hideously misspent energy, bare soul of a man who has fought the losing fight since the beginning. Not a few in the audience singled out this odd pair and watched them with interest. There was a sudden cheer above the mutter of the crowd. It rose and ran and swelled until it seemed that it would never end. Ludwig von Beethoven stood at the conductor's desk looking over the ocean of |