He must have dozed during these hours of dawn; for he awoke to find himself shivering under a fine rain which dripped through the grain and covered his face with dew. Rousing himself, he sat up and began munching some flour-cakes he still had with him. Now he made a vow that that very day he would push through and encounter his destiny cost what it might. Tightening his belt he started off.
As he scrambled through the fields he became gradually aware of a low thunder on the horizon. The sound puzzled him for the rain had stopped and the sun had come out from behind the clouds and it was fair weather and very hot. And yet as he walked this thunder increased--not slowly but very rapidly. At length he paused to listen.
"_Shen-mo_(what is it)," he exclaimed aloud in his perplexity, impelled to talk to relieve himself, and wondering whether the tiny paper wad in one ear was spoiling his hearing.
Then at last he struck his hands together and babbled madly in his excitement.
"_Ta-p'ao_(big guns)," he shouted. "They are coming, they are coming!"
He ran now until he was completely out of breath, changing his run to a fast walk and then back to a trot as soon as he could.
In this frantic way he covered several miles, his face beaded with perspiration. The air was shaking with the concussions now and his excitement was so great that he trembled from head to foot. He knew it was the foreign army exploding in wrath at finding its path barred: he pictured to himself the rival soldiery struggling together....
He ran on directly towards the growing sounds. He was on the main road now and the dry alkali soil, being unsuitable for any kind of cultivation, opened up in great vistas of space.
At length he saw the river again and on it boats, many boats, loaded with people, crossing from one bank to the other.
He made his way towards them pantingly. Almost before he knew it, he had met a crowd of men, women, children, all crying and talking together, driven in front of the rising storm like wild animals before a prairie-fire. The deserted countryside was giving up its victims: every hiding-place was being emptied by this approaching human storm.
He did not stop to ask questions: he ran on towards the river. The boats were going backwards and forwards steadily and quickly, the boatmen working like madmen to save the mass of women and children.