forgiveness for Kim.

A price was put on his head. Assassins followed him to Japan, but could
find no opportunity to kill him. Then a plot was planned and he was induced
to visit Shanghai. He had taken great pains to conceal his visit, but
everything had been arranged ahead for him. Arriving at Shanghai he was
promptly slain, and his body was carried in a Chinese war-ship to Chemulpo.
It was cut up, and exhibited in different parts of the land as the body of
a traitor. The mortified Japanese could do nothing at the time.

Years passed. The Japanese now had control of Korea. One of the last things
they did, in 1910, before contemptuously pushing the old Korean Government
into limbo, was to make it issue an Imperial rescript, restoring Kim
Ok-kiun, Hong Yung-sik and others--although long dead--to their offices and
honours, and doing reverence to their memory.[1]

[Footnote 1: Curiosity may be felt about my authority for many of the
particulars supplied in this chapter. Accounts published by foreigners
living at Seoul at the time are of use as giving current impressions, but
are not wholly to be relied on for details. A very interesting official
report, based on information supplied by the King, is to be found in the
unpublished papers of Lieutenant George C. Foulk, U.S. Naval Attache at
Seoul, which are stored in the New York Public Library. A valuable account
from the Japanese point of view was found among the posthumous papers of
Mr. Fukuzawa (in whose house several of the exiles lived for a time) and
was published in part in the Japanese press in 1910. I learned the
conspirators' side directly from one of the leading actors in the drama.]

III

THE MURDER OF THE QUEEN

"We are not ready to fight China yet," said the Japanese Foreign Minister
to the impetuous young Korean. It was ten years later before Japan was
ready, ten years of steady preparation, and during that time the real focus
of the Far Eastern drama was not Tokyo nor Peking, but Seoul. Here the
Chinese and Japanese outposts were in contact. Here Japan when she was
ready created her cause of war.

China despised Japan, and did not think it necessary to make any real
preparations to meet her. The great majority of European experts and of
European and American residents in the Far East were convinced that if it
came to an actual contest, Japan would stand no chance. She might score
some initial victories, but in the end the greater weight, number