pretentions of the superstitious Boxers and their leaders, and in
the hope of preserving her country.

Her first act after imprisoning Kuang Hsu was to offer a large reward
for his adviser Kang Yu-wei either alive or dead. Failing to get him,
"she seized his younger brother Kang Kuang-jen, and with five other
noble and patriotic young men of ability and high promise, he was
beheaded September 28th, while protesting that though they might easily
be slain, multitudes of others would arise to take their places." One
of my young Chinese friends who watched this procession on its way to
the execution grounds told me that,--

"The scene was impossible to describe. These five young reformers,"
after expressing the sentiments quoted above from Dr. Smith, "reviled
the Empress Dowager and the conservatives in the most blood-curdling
manner."

I have already spoken of Wang Chao the secretary of the Board of Rites
who presented the memorial which caused the dismissal of the six
officials of that body, and, indirectly, the fall of the Emperor. Some
time before writing this petition he called at our home requesting Mrs.
Headland to go and see his mother who was ill. When his mother
recovered he sent her to Shanghai, and at the time of the coup d'etat
he failed to get out of the city and went into hiding. Some days
afterwards a closed cart drove up to our home and to our astonishment
he stepped forth. We expressed our surprise that he was still in
Peking, and asked:

"Has the Empress Dowager ceased prosecuting her search for you
reformers?"

"Not yet," he answered.

"And what is she doing?" we inquired.

"Killing some, banishing others, driving many away from the capital,
while still others are going into self-imposed exile."

"Does the Emperor know anything about this?" we inquired.

"No doubt," he replied. "Everybody knows it, why not he?"

"That will make his imprisonment all the harder to bear," we suggested.

"Quite right," he answered.

"There is general alarm in the city that the Emperor himself will be
disposed of; what do you think about it?"

"Who can tell? He has not a friend in the palace except the first
concubine, and, I am told, that she like himself is kept in close
confinement. The Empress stands by her aunt, the Empress Dowager, while
the eunuchs now are all her tools. The officials who go into the palace
to audiences are all conservative and hence against him, though I
suppose they never see him."