Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-12-07

before he was on his feet in the room and
called out to him in Chinese to stand where
be was or l would shoot him Ny clothes
were on a chair between him and me- and If
he had been intent on robbery alone he might
have grabbed them and made off. But he
wanted to rob and kill, too; and although he
could have seen the CLEAN of my revolver in
in the moonlit room, he came for the bed on
run, brandishing the ugliest looking knife
ever set my eyes on. Ipulled for him over
the footboard when he was only ten feet
away, and he fell. When lights and help
arrived we found that my bullet had glanced
around his skull and stunned him. There
were six or eight of us at hand, but the fell
low fought like giant, and we could not Sc
cure him until had raped him over the head
with the butt Of my pistol. He was all right
again as an officer arrived, and lol he ac-
tually followed the policeman to the station
housed was stranger. The other was an
official While be fought to murder me, he
was as humble as dog in the presence of
official power
1t turned out that the man coveted my
gold watch, and that alone, and, though he
had had several previous chances to rob me,
be let them slip, because he could not also
kill me. The man was tried that self same
day, found guilty, and the next morning at
O'Clock was led out and beheaded He
walked before the executioner, seemingly as
placid as the morning, and when ordered to
kneel down, he promptly obeyed and held his
neck in the best position to have his head
struck off. A single blow decapitated him.
Near Siang-tian, few months l.aartter / was
captured by two 2f. a rdFountain band of rob-
bers Their first thought was to slay me. /
+ was alone and on donkey, and they sprang
upon me so suddenly out of the bushes that
had no time to prepare myself Both slashed
at me with their swords, but lodged them
and called out that was an English official
of great Importance, and that if they did me
harm the heads of twenty mandarins woulC
be demanded in payment. This cooled then
off, ana, luckily for me, the leader of thu
band came up. He was a native of Turkes
tan-a wicked fellow, and one who delighted
to shed blood, but my reiteration of my i'm
portance had its effect upon me. He rea
soned with his fellow robbers as follows:
Here we have prisoner. 1t is plain tina
he is an Englishman. He doesn't wans to b
killed. If we kill him, the mandarin vii
send soldiers after US, and we shall hav
trouble. We shall all be killed, and hi
friends will want a large sum of money be
sides. That will make SO much trouble tina
no one else will dare to rob. We will not xii
him, but as we have been 20 much trouble
must pay us ransom"
But want to cut his throat" proteste
one of my captors.
That is true, but We viii spare his lif
and kill four other men to pay for it,"
was taken up q ravine INTO the mountain
where we found three other members Of tn
band. But for the leader l should have bee
murdered off hand. They took my watci
money and trinkets, ana then debated tt
question of ransom. When they had fixe
the sum the leader said;
, you must pay US sum equal to IS
English money or we shall kill you at Il
end of the week
They seemed to think the sum an extrav
Q cant one, and were considerably surprise
I when sent note in to our local agent al
D the money was forthcoming, The Chine
Y still howled for my life, and as l departs
? for the town, cleaned out and on foot, Il
3 leader was protesting:
: MY children, it is sad that we cannot k
e him, but am doing for the best. You ms
( kill the next eight men you meet, and
= some are Turks or Russians we Will n
care New York Sun.