Page:Kidnapped in London.djvu/104

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100
Kidnapped in London.

me; where they came from I could not tell. We had left them a mile away in Portland Place, and here they were again the moment my cab stopped. There is no repressing them; one man had actually, unknown to us, climbed up on the seat beside the driver. He it was that stayed the cab at the restaurant, knowing well that if once I was within the precincts of Scotland Yard they could not get at me for some time. Unless the others—some dozen in number—were on the roof of my cab, I cannot understand where they sprang from. I was hustled from the pavement into the back premises of the hostelry with much more violence than ever was expended upon me when originally taken within the Chinese Legation, and surrounded by a crowd thirsting for knowledge as eagerly as my countrymen thirsted for my head. Pencils executed wonderful hieroglyphics which I had never seen before, and I did not know until that