Oh? Bahram ran a finger over his beard. Have they let him off then? How is it that he was out on the Maidan?

Vico came to a stop and put his hand on Bahram’s arm.

That was not Allow, patrão. Allow is dead. It was he who was to be executed in the Maidan this morning. The authorities have just announced the name: it was Ho Lao-kin – that was what Allow was called, remember? After the riot he was taken to the execution grounds. He was strangled this afternoon.

Part III

Commissioner Lin

Thirteen

January 4

1839!!

Never before has it happened to me, Puggly dear, that I have started a letter in one year and ended it in the next! It could not be helped, however, for the traffic on the river has been frozen all this while. But only this morning there was word that the ban may soon be lifted – and being thus reminded of this unfinished letter, I have retrieved these pages from the drawer in which they have languished since December 12th.

Having now re-read the last entry I have decided to leave intact the interrupted sentence with which it ended: for just as the half-eaten meals on the tables of Pompeii are proof of the unforeseen nature of Etna’s eruption, this little fragment too bears witness to the suddenness with which the riots of December 12th burst upon us in Canton.

Since news needs no boats to travel in, word of those events will, I warrant, have reached you before this letter. Instead of burdening you with my own account of the riots I am enclosing a copy of Mr Slade’s report in the Canton Register. Suffice it to say that the events unfolded in front of my very eyes and in looking back it strikes me that it was a most fortunate turn of kismet that led to my being seated at my desk at the time of their commencement. I was thus preserved from Bodily Injury (which was not the case with some who were wandering abroad in the Maidan); and being granted a privileged point of vantage, I was spared the temptation also of venturing closer to the Scene.

It is surely no secret to you, my dear Puggla’zelle, that your poor Robin does not aspire to be a Hero, so you will not be surprised to learn that I did not stir from my room until order had been restored. In the late afternoon I was informed by Zadig Bey that Captain Elliott, the British Superintendent, had arrived in Fanqui-town and was shortly to address all the foreign residents. Being assured that there was no risk to my Person, I decided to accompany Zadig Bey to the meeting, which was to be held in the British Hong, across the Maidan from Markwick’s Hotel.

The enclave was, by this time, perfectly tranquil, with guards posted everywhere and no sign of the usual vendors and loiterers. Yet, evidence of the recent Upheaval was littered around us; shards of glass glistened in the dust; fence posts lay scattered about, like twigs after a storm, having been uprooted and hurled against the factory walls; and the gates of some of the factories were so badly battered it seemed a miracle their hinges had not given way.