Prince Min staggered back into the hall. Seven cuts had gashed his head open and one cheek had been carved out and hung down over his jawbone. His several arteries were cut and blood poured from him. Il-han sprang forward to catch the Prince as he fell, but he was not more quick than the American ambassador, who lifted Prince Min’s feet. Together they laid him down upon the cushions. The servants were wailing and running here and there in uselessness, but General Foote shouted to the American physician, Allen, and this man in a short time stopped the flow of blood with tourniquets of cloth torn from garments and held fast with the same chopsticks with which a few minutes before the guests had been eating the delicacies.
The Prince by now knew nothing. Whether he would live or die could not be told, but after some time the physician Allen declared that there was hope for his life, and he sent for medicines and for instruments to sew up his wounds, and thus the life was saved. Il-han stayed near throughout, and when at last there was some assurance that the Prince would live, he urged the American ambassador to return to his embassy.
“Your lady will be frightened to see you,” he said. “If you will permit me, I will go with you myself.”
The American accepted this and the two men then went on foot, for by now there was no bearer or any equipage to be found, and George Foulk followed. Total confusion was everywhere and Il-han did not tell the American that he feared this attempt at murder was only the beginning of new revolt against the Queen. Together they walked through the crowded streets, pushing their way between the people, the snow crunching and cracking under their feet, until they came to the Embassy. Here when the gates opened Il-han saw for the first time the lady Foote. She stood in the doorway of the house, her full skirts of crimson silk flowing about her, and he saw her clearly in the light of a lantern a servant held behind her.
She screamed when she saw her husband, for he was covered with blood.
“You are hurt!” she cried.
“It is not my blood,” he replied. “It is the blood of Prince Min. They have tried to murder him, but they have failed.”
So much Il-han could understand, and he prepared to withdraw, yet when he looked again at these two he was impressed by the intelligence he saw on their faces, and he remembered how good the lady had been and how she had kept the Queen from the folly of murder. He lingered a moment.
“Your Excellency,” he said to the ambassador, George Foulk translating. “I must warn you now that this is indeed the beginning of a fire which we may not be able to put down. Let me ask the King to send his royal guard here to escort you to the palace where we can protect you.”
Bloodstained as he was, the American was still proud. He drew himself to his height and he took his lady’s left hand and put it in the curve of his right elbow.
“I thank you, my friend,” he said, “but we must remain in our own place, my wife and I. In all circumstances I must insist upon the inviolability of my government’s embassy. Here there must be a center of peace, however the mob riots outside our walls.”
When George Foulk had repeated this in his own language, Il-han could only bow and withdraw. He looked back once, at the gate, and he saw those two, man and wife, standing side by side in the doorway. The woman’s face was as calm in determination as the man’s, and he could but envy them their faith in themselves and in their government.
… When he returned to his house, he found Sunia gone. His man servant waited for him, weeping and distracted.
“I begged her not to go, master,” the man wailed. “I told her that you would find your way home.”
“Surely she did not go in search of me!” Il-han exclaimed.
“She went to the Queen,” the man wailed. “She thought you might have gone to save the Queen.”
The tutor now ran out. “Sir,” he said, “it is the King who is in danger.”
“How do you know?” Il-han demanded.
“I am told — I am told,” the tutor said urgently. “Never mind how, but it is said that the King has asked the Japanese minister for help and Japanese soldiers have surrounded the palace. A battle is taking place at this very moment.”
Il-han turned at once. “Take care of my sons,” he commanded, and he ran into the street followed by his servant. On foot he made his way through the crowds now shouting and screaming, some for the King, some for the Queen, most of them only adding to the noise and madness. Steadily he pushed his way among them and between them, they too maddened to see him or care who it was that burrowed here and there and always toward the palace. At the palace gates he spoke to the chief guard and gave his name. All knew him as loyal to the King and allowed him to pass. He entered then and saw in the gardens before the palace the bodies of the dead, some bleeding into the snow beneath a pine tree, some lying on the ice of a frozen lotus pond, and others scattered, twisted and crumpled. He bent and searched each face as he passed, and recognized one and another. They were all followers of the Queen, upholders of her determination to stay with the Chinese and oppose the reformers. Pools of blood lay in every crevice and low place, on stones and frozen ground, as he made his way toward the palace, expecting as he went to see the Queen herself bound with ropes and dragged out to her death. Then he lifted his eyes by chance and in the distance beyond the palace walls he saw the American flag flying in the wintry wind. At this sight he took courage, and he wondered if the Queen, hiding somewhere inside her palace, saw that flag, too, and took courage with him.
Suddenly, before he could reach the entrance to the palace, he heard a fresh uproar in the streets, and the sound of cannon. He stopped and listened and heard Chinese voices crying their war cries, and he knew what had happened. Yuan Shih-k’ai, the Chinese general sent by the Empress Tzu-hsi to maintain the power of her throne over Korea, had ordered soldiers to protect the palace and the truebone royal King and Queen. What could this mean but a battle between Chinese and Japanese, here in the palace itself? Il-han ran into the palace then and into the King’s throne room. There the King sat on his throne, and by him sat the Queen, both in their royal robes, surrounded by a handful of Japanese soldiers.
“In Buddha’s name,” the Queen cried, “why are you here?”
“Majesty,” Il-han gasped, and threw himself before them, “I came to see if you were hurt.”
“Your wife was here first,” the Queen said, “and I sent her home again under guard. If I am to die, I die alone.”
“You will not die alone,” the King said.
Before he could speak another word, the doors burst open and the Chinese soldiers swarmed in, carrying foreign guns and short Chinese swords. At the sight of them in such number, Japanese soldiers fled, leaping through windows and crashing through doors. Hundreds of Chinese followed them as they struggled to get to the Japanese warship that was in the harbor, but the Chinese cut them down until few indeed reached the safety of their ship. Then in fury the Chinese fell upon the wives and children of all Japanese in the city and cut them to pieces, too, and threw the parts into the water surrounding the ship.
So violent was the battle that even the British left their quarters and ran to the Americans for safety, and in that whole city only the American flag still waved in the wintry wind. Inside the Embassy the Americans took counsel, for they believed that they too would be attacked in the senseless frenzy of the mob, and they planned that if the mob broke through the gates and tore down the flag, only the lady Foote could save them. She alone was well loved by the people, for all knew how she had persuaded the Queen not to kill the families of those who had rebelled against her, and how she had done this by reminding the Queen of her own gods. If the mob broke in, therefore, it was planned that the lady Foote would sit in a chair in the middle of an empty room with all the valuable documents beside her, and she would ask the people to spare her and for her sake all her fellow citizens. This Il-han did not know until afterwards, when George Foulk told him. For in the end the mob did not enter the American Embassy, and the flag continued to wave above its walls.