Page:Kidnapped in London.djvu/95

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The Government Intervene.
91

AN INTENDED RESCUE.

In reference to the arrest of Sun Yat Sen, it has been ascertained that his friends had arranged a bold scheme to bring about his rescue. Had they not been definitely assured by the Foreign Office and Scotland Yard that no harm whatever should come to him, his rescue was to be effected by means of breaking the window of his room, and descending from the roof of No. 51 Portland Place, the residence of Viscount Powerscourt. His friends had succeeded in informing him of the plan they intended to pursue, and although information which was subsequently obtained pointed to the fact that Sun Yat Sen was being kept handcuffed, a promise of inside assistance in opening the window satisfied his friends of the feasibility of the plan. Indeed, so far matured was the scheme, that a cab was held in waiting to convey Sun Yat Sen to the home of a friend. By the prisoner's friends it is declared that Long, the interpreter at the Legation, was one of the Chinamen who actually decoyed Sun into the Legation, though he was invariably the most positive subsequently in denying that such a man had ever been inside the Legation walls. His friends declare that Sun was dressed in English clothes, and so far from his being a typical Oriental, when dressed according to Western fashion was invariably taken for an Englishman. He is declared to be a man of unbounded good nature and of the gentlest dispo-