The Hemsters had fallen into the English habit of afternoon tea, and,
having finished the refreshing cup, I excused myself and went outside
to learn how strict the cordon around us was kept. I found that the
Prime Minister had done his work well. The gates were very thoroughly
guarded, and short of force there seemed to be no method of penetrating
into the city. I tried bribery, desiring to get a short note through
to the British Consul-General, and, although my bribe was willingly
accepted, I found later that the missive was never sent.
Rambling around the vast precincts of the Palace, trying to discover
any loophole of escape, I came upon our escort and the ponies which had
brought us from the port to the capital. These had been gathered up in
the city and taken inside. I could not decide at the moment whether
this move on the part of our gaolers strengthened or weakened our
position. The escort was composed of a very poor set of creatures who
would prove utterly valueless if the crisis developed into a contest.
They were all huddled together under a shed, and were very evidently in
a state of hopeless panic. They knew intuitively that things were going
badly with us, and it needed no prophet to foretell that they would
instantly betray us if they got the chance, or cut our throats if they
were ordered to do so. I deeply regretted now that we had not stayed
longer at Chemulpo until we had gathered together an escort composed
entirely of Japanese. Two Japanese followers were among our crowd, and
they now stood apart with the imperturbable nonchalance of their race.
I was aware that I could depend upon them to the death; but the rest
were the very scum of the East, cowardly, unstable as water, and as
treacherous as quicksand. I spoke a few words of encouragement to the
Japanese, patted the ponies, and then returned to Mr. Hemster. I told
him I had endeavoured to send a note to the British representative in
Seoul, and to my amazement found that he did not approve of this move.
“The fact is, Mr. Tremorne, we have acted like a parcel of fools,
and if this thing ever gets out we shall be the laughing-stock of
the world. I don’t want either the American or the British Consul to
know anything of our position. God helps those who help themselves. I
don’t want to boast at all, but I may tell you I’m a dead shot with a
revolver, and I have one of the best here with me, together with plenty
of cartridges. This expertness with a gun is a relic of my old cowboy
days on the plains, and if these here Coreans attempt to interfere with
me, somebody is going to get hurt. You have another revolver, and if
you are any good with it I guess we’ll have no difficulty in forcing
our way through this flock of sheep. Have you learned whether your two
Japanese can shoot or not? If they can, I’ve got revolvers here for
them, and it seems to me that four of us can put up a bluff that will
carry us through this tight place. If it wasn’t that we have women with
us, I wouldn’t mind the encounter in the least. As it is, we’ll have to
do the best we can, and I propose that we start to-morrow as soon as
the gates are opened.”
“All right, Mr. Hemster, I believe your diagnosis of the case is
correct. I can trust the Japanese, and I think I may say you can trust
me.”
A little later in the day, the Prime Minister, accompanied by an
imposing following, came to me, and with much circumlocution made
formal proposal of marriage to Miss Hemster on behalf of the Emperor
of Corea. The misguided man appeared to think that this smoothed
away all difficulty, and that the only question now to be settled
was the amount of money the honoured lady’s father would pay down as
dowry. Hun Woe fatuously ventured to hope that it would be large in
proportion to the elevation in station which awaited the young lady. I
replied that Mr. Hemster considered himself equal in rank, and greatly
superior in wealth and power, to the Emperor of Corea; that he was now
practically held prisoner in the Palace; therefore, if negotiations
were to continue, he must be set free, and allowed to return to his own
battleship, in which I should be happy to carry on the discussion in a
manner which I hoped would prove satisfactory to all parties concerned.
The Prime Minister replied that what I proposed was impossible. The
Emperor was completely infatuated with Miss Hemster, and only as a
great concession,--due, Hun Woe said, to his own pleadings, which
he hoped would be remembered when settlements were made,--did his
Majesty consent to a marriage. The Prime Minister continued with many
professions of friendship for myself, urging me therefore, as he
pretended to have urged the Emperor, to put myself in a reasonable
frame of mind. He had never known the Emperor so determined in any
course of action before, and lack of compliance on the part of our
company would do no good, and might lead to irretrievable disaster.
The Emperor had resolved, if his offer were refused, to seize the
young lady, and to behead her father, myself, and the whole party who
accompanied her. He therefore trusted humbly that I would not thwart
his efforts toward an amicable understanding.
I said he must surely have mistaken his instructions; the barbarous
programme he had proposed would shock the civilized world. He answered,
with a shrug of his shoulders, that the civilized world would never
hear of it. I averred he was mistaken in this, telling him I had
already communicated with my Consul, and his reply to this was to
pull from his sleeve the hasty note I had written and bribed the
man at the gate to deliver. This man, he said, had at once brought
the communication to him, and he hoped I would acknowledge the
fruitlessness of further opposition.
I quickly saw that we were in a predicament, and that it would need all
my diplomacy to find a means of egress. However, I determined first
to impress upon Hun Woe the dangers of the plan he had outlined. If
the Emperor did what he proposed to do, that would bring upon Corea
the irretrievable disaster of invasion by both the United States
and England. It was not possible to keep assassinations secret.
Mr. Hemster’s great steamship was at this moment awaiting him at
Chemulpo. If no one returned, the captain of that boat had orders to
communicate at once with both the British and the American authorities.
I endeavored to flatter Hun Woe by telling him that an official of his
great learning and intelligence must realize what the result would be.
The good man sighed, but in the presence of his _entourage_ apparently
had not the courage to admit that Corea would come badly out of the
encounter. In fact, he said that the Emperor could defend his country
against the combined forces of the world; but whether he believed this
or not, I should hesitate to say.
I now changed my tactics, and told the Prime Minister that I was merely
Ambassador for Mr. Hemster, and that I would inform him of the offer
the Emperor had made. It was more than likely, I asserted, that the
proposal would be extremely gratifying to him; so we would postpone
further consideration until he had time to think over the matter.
I further suggested that we should have another interview with the
Emperor at the same hour next day, and with this the Prime Minister
joyously concurred. To assist the negotiations he told me that the
Emperor had referred to my objection of an existing Empress, but means
would be found to divorce that august lady, and this he wished me to
place before Mr. Hemster and his daughter. He seemed to imagine that
thus had been removed the last obstacle to the proposed union, and
I said I would put all this in the most favourable light before Mr.
Hemster. The conference which had begun so tempestuously therefore
ended in a calm that was extremely gratifying to the Prime Minister,
who quite evidently hoped that everybody would be reasonable, that the
flow of gold should not cease, and that the contest might end happily.
So, with many gestures and expressions of deep regard for myself and my
companions, the distinguished party withdrew.
I was anxious to see Mr. Hemster alone, so that I might communicate
to him the result of my interview with the Prime Minister, but this
intention was frustrated. Gertrude Hemster had nothing whatever to
occupy her mind, and the adage informs us that mischief is provided for
all such persons. She was already aware that this gorgeous deputation
had waited upon me, and it required all her father’s persuasion to
keep her from breaking in upon us and learning what was going on. The
curiosity of woman has before now wrecked many promising undertakings,
and this threatened to be the fate of Mr. Hemster’s plan. The young
lady was frank enough to say that she believed me to be playing a
double game; not interpreting correctly the message of the Emperor or
the sayings of the Prime Minister. She refused to incur the risk of
a forced exit from the Palace, and was sure that if the Emperor was
rightly spoken to we would all be allowed to march to the port with
a royal escort and the honours of war. She insisted that if I were
not a coward I would myself brave the dangers of the exit, go to the
American Consulate, and there get an interpreter who would be official,
and also bring the Consul himself. She was not going to be frightened
out of Seoul by a mud-colored heathen like the Emperor, and if only we
had treated him as she had done, there would have been no trouble.
I must admit that I agreed with the girl so far as calling in the
aid of the American Consul was concerned, and I told her I was quite
willing to force the gate and make a run for it to the little spot
of the United States which existed in Seoul. But her father could be
a determined man when he liked, and this time he put down his foot,
declaring firmly that he would not have the news of this fiasco get
abroad if he could help it. Curiously enough, Mr. Hemster seemed to
have more fear of the yellow press of America than of the yellow man
of Corea. His daughter, however, feared neither, and seemed in fact to
relish the publicity which this episode might give to her. Whether it
was bravery or recklessness on her part, I could not get her to see
that we were in any serious danger; but this did not matter, for on
appeal to her father to postpone the proposed exodus he proved adamant,
and for once the young lady was forced to acquiesce.
I took the pair of extra pistols, and, with ample ammunition, sought
out the two Japanese members of our party. I found that both of them
had served in the Japanese army and were quite capable of handling
firearms with effect. I then told them to say nothing to their Corean
comrades, but, as soon as the gates were open in the morning, to
bring ponies for the whole party to our door. The manner in which they
carried out this order showed their alertness to the exigencies of the
situation.
When we all emerged in the morning,--we four white people, our Chinese
cook and Japanese serving-boy,--ten ponies were at our door, two of
them being loaded down with heavy strings of cash which we had not
found occasion to use, because our dealings had been entirely with
higher classes and so we had had to employ silver and gold. But only
one Japanese man was there. When I asked him where the other fellow
was, he replied he was holding a revolver over the huddled heap of
Coreans so that they would not give the alarm. As soon as we were
mounted, he said he would call his comrade, who would instantly respond.
This proved a very wise precaution, and gave us some valuable minutes
before the Palace was roused. We had arrived at the gates ere the
sleepy guards realized what was upon them, and the first warning the
Palace received of our attempt was the wild firing of the useless
muskets which the guards possessed. We had determined not to shoot,
hoping that the guards would give way when they found we were resolved
to emerge; but their reckless firing, which luckily did no harm to any
of our party, made any further attempt at silence unnecessary, and
lucky it was for us that we were free to fire, because Mr. Hemster
whipped out his revolver at once and shattered the hand of a man who
attempted to close the gates. This wounded creature set up such a howl
that the guards immediately threw down their arms and fled, leaving
the way clear before us.
Now we were in the main street of Seoul, and if it had not been for Mr.
Hemster’s prohibition I would strongly have advised making directly
for the Consulate of either one nation or the other. However, his
orders were to press on to the western gate before the alarm should
extend through the city. This we did. Now that we were clear of the
royal gates, the guards seemed to have resumed their firearms and were
evidently determined to make the Emperor believe that they had been
extremely valorous, for a regular fusillade greeted our departure
down the main street of Seoul. Whatever commotion the firing may have
aroused in the Palace, it certainly had an extraordinary effect upon
the city itself, for it caused the population to pour in thousands from
the narrow lanes with which this human warren is intersected. There
seemed a danger that we might be stopped by the mere pressure of the
crowd, so I gave the word to whip up our steeds, and we dashed along,
regardless of whom we knocked over.
Just as we reached the gate on the Chemulpo road the great bell began
to ring, the bell which every night at sunset orders the closing of
the gates. The big doors were being slowly closed as we approached,
and here my two Japanese again gave striking proof of their value.
They dashed forward, and, in spite of the ringing of the bell, ordered
the guards to fling wide the portal, but upon the guards showing some
hesitation, the foremost Japanese at once shot one of them in his
tracks, whereupon the rest fled. We squeezed through, and the Japanese
proposed we should close the gates completely, so that the crowd might
be kept in, but this proved impossible, because they could be fastened
only on the inside, and we had no means of assuring ourselves that the
gates would remain shut. There was therefore nothing for it but a race
for Chemulpo, twenty-six miles away. Before we had gone a dozen yards
the pressure of the crowd opened the gates wide, and the howling mob
poured through like a resistless torrent.
I now re-arranged my party, asking Mr. Hemster to take the lead,
while the two Japanese and myself fought a retreating battle with the
multitude that followed us. The Corean man is a stalwart individual
with sturdy legs that are almost untiring in a race. While cowards
individually, they become dangerous in the mass, and I continually
urged our people to gallop as hard as they could, with the double
purpose of exhausting all but the most strenuous in our pursuit, and
of preventing the outskirts of the mob on either hand from outflanking
us. For the first three miles or so our revolver-shots kept them at a
respectful distance, but after five or six miles had been accomplished,
and the crowd showed no signs of fatigue, while our ammunition began
to run low, I realized that I must do something to save the rest from
capture.
Leaving the two Japanese as an efficient rearguard, I galloped forward
to Mr. Hemster, and gave him details of my plan, which I had some
difficulty in getting him to accept. In fact he did accept it only
on my assurance that there was no real danger to myself. Bidding a
hasty farewell to the ladies, I dropped again to the rear. Each of
the Japanese had tethered to his horse’s bridle a rope attached to a
pony carrying our strings of cash. I untied these ponies, and attached
them to my own mount, ordering the Japanese to take the van once more;
and, as they were residents of Chemulpo, and therefore knew the road
perfectly, I told them to lead the party as quickly as they could into
safety, promising them a large additional reward for doing so.
The rest now galloped on, leaving me standing in the middle of the
road, with three horses under my charge. The bellowing mob seemed
nonplussed by this movement, and, apparently fearing a trap of some
kind, came to a halt. There was not bravery enough among them even to
attack one man at close quarters, although they might have overwhelmed
him by simply moving in bulk upon him. Each of the two led-horses
carried something like twenty thousand sek, strung in ropes of five
hundred each, so knotted that the cash is divided into sections of a
hundred each. I took my pocket-knife and cut off the first knot, and,
grasping the two ends of the string, flung it lasso-wise around my
head, and then let go the cut end, causing the hundred cash to shoot
into the air like the bursting of a sky-rocket. These people, after
all, were merely like children with two dominant qualities, a love of
cruelty, and an unlimited avarice,--possibly avarice has the greatest
hold upon their affections, and this belief was the basis of my
adventure.
Now ensued the strangest battle that ever was fought by mankind, a
struggle which Mr. Hemster himself should have appreciated because
he had engaged in it time and again in his own country, a battle in
which one man with money stood against the bulk of the people. When
the shower of a hundred cash was flung above the heads of the mob
there ensued one of the wildest struggles it has ever been my fate to
witness. I cut the second knot, and flung the second lot of cash far
to the left, to check the advance of the crowd that way, which it very
effectually did. Then the third knot was severed, and the third lot of
coins went spinning through the air to the right. Even before the first
string was gone, my party had long since disappeared toward the west.
Of course this congregation of heathens could have availed themselves
at once of my whole available stock by merely pressing forward, but
this thought either never occurred to them, or they were too cowardly
to put it into practice. As soon as the flung cash was secured and the
scattered stock picked up, two and two fighting for the possession of
one miserable coin, a shout arose from them which was the cry of Oliver
Twist for “more.” And so I played David against that Goliath of a crowd
until I began to fear that my arm which whirled the sling would become
helpless through exhaustion.
My idea had been, of course, to put the whip to my horse and make
for the port after my party, but very soon this project proved to be
impossible. I was standing on a slight elevation in the road, and,
in spite of my throwing the coins right and left, the two wings of
this tatterdemalion army gradually enfolded me, and before my fortune
was more than half scattered I found myself completely outflanked
and surrounded. But no one made a dash; there was left a respectable
circular clear space about me, the circumference of which was never
nearer than twenty or thirty feet from where I stood. Moreover I was
thankful to see that even those to the west, who had a free way toward
Chemulpo, did not attempt to break toward the coast. They were all too
eager to get a share of the spoil to mind what became of the rest of
the party, and by the time we had been an hour or more at this flinging
of largesse every individual of them knew that pursuit was hopeless,
and by the same token I knew also that the least danger threatening me
was being carried back to Seoul. The crowd had become riotously good
natured, but I knew their changeableness too well to consider myself
safe on that account. They were as like as not to take me back to Seoul
in a hundred pieces. I began to think seriously of the future when I
came to the last string of cash on the pony beside me. There was still
twenty thousand on the other nag; but, when that was gone, this mob,
which had no sense of gratitude, were as like to cut my throat as not.
So when I came to the last hundred sek on the first pony, scattered
like grape-shot through the air, I took advantage of the struggle that
ensued to remount my own nag. There was at once a howl of rage at this,
especially from those to the west of me, who expected me to attempt
escape in that direction. They stiffened up, and shook fists and
sticks at this supposed intention on my part to cheat them of their
just dues. Never since the Corean kingdom was founded had there been
such a distribution of wealth as was now taking place. Heretofore the
office-holders had accumulated everything in sight, and naturally the
populace was indignant that this enchanting scattering of money should
cease while there was still a horseload of it within reach. I raised my
right hand for silence, and then raised my voice and addressed them:
“Gentlemen,” said I, “the next hurling of coin takes place at the gates
of Seoul. If you are good enough to march quietly with me, I shall
relieve the tedium of the way by an occasional contribution. So, my
braves, let us get back to the capital.”
Capital was what they were after, and so with a howl, which was their
nearest approach to a cheer, we set off for Seoul. Tired as my arm was,
I occasionally distributed five hundred cash before and behind me, also
to the right and left, keeping steadily on, however, until the city
was in sight. Then to my dismay, I saw that the great gate was closed.
The mob ahead of me had noticed the barred gate before I did, and set
up a wail like a lot of lost children. Instantly the cash distribution
was forgotten, and panic seized them. They were locked out, and no one
knew what might be happening inside. The tolling of the big bell still
boomed through the air, but only occasionally, bearing some resemblance
to a funeral knell. Because the gate was shut these people had not
reasoning powers enough to surmise that the other gates were shut
also, and in a magic way the huge mob began to dissolve and disappear,
scampering over rocks and stones to find out whether the whole city
was hermetically sealed or not. There was a group of people on the wall
above the gate, and someone had shouted that the northern port was
open. This statement was undoubtedly false, but the official who cried
it evidently thought it was safer to dismiss the mob as he could. In
a few minutes I found myself practically alone, and then was amazed
beyond measure to hear a voice from above the gate call down to me:
“For Heaven’s sake, Tremorne, is that you?”