But you do not know where the yacht is anchored,” I babbled. “It is three miles and more from here, and, anyway, alone on this road at night—impossible!”

I can never forget the dramatic quality of that meeting in the darkened guest room of this real Korean patriot. We—Bethell and I—had come like thieves in the night, and like thieves we sat about the single rushlight, which stood on an inlaid teak stand amid the tobacco jars and the dull-gleaming amber seals of the prince’s office, and spoke in whispers. Oh, no, my friend,” she said, laughing up at me, her eyes dancing with the surge and rush of the big hazard we were playing. “I will not allow you to say, ‘The carriage waits,’ in this little melodrama. When your cue comes you will have the spotlight all to yourself; but in the meantime ——”

About Nick Sharratt

I closed my fingers over the hand and tried to read something besides the impersonal earnestness in her eyes. But I am sure, Mr. Hagiwara, that you are not so terrible a monster as you have been painted. Surely, you will not growl at a poor portrait painter who comes to seek your protection in this terribly barbarous court.” I had completely forgotten the garden party in the swirl of events, though, as an official of the Korean government, I had been formally invited several days before. A simple celebration of the Japanese emperor’s birthday we had supposed it would be—the Girl and I; now it was plain that in honor of Japan’s greatest statesman the event had been planned. The emperor seemed ready for the flight, he said in the first breath, but we must make haste while he was in a favorable mood. The old codger had at first been terrified out of his stuffed boots at the thought of attempting to escape the all—seeing eye of the Japanese; had sworn that they would catch him and cut his heart out. But the Girl had played on his fears as on a stringed instrument, Prince Min Yung declared. She had painted for him with words, even as she wielded her brush on canvas, the picture of the impending rape of the empire by Ito; he, the emperor, in chains and transferred to some Japanese prison; the country drenched in blood, and his subjects enslaved. The guitar arrived today, about half an hour after I got off work, and I have played for about an hour and a half already. My fingers are so sore it hurts to type.

The Japanese bubbled and gurgled in his effort at denial. Never, never had he entertained such a thought. It was impossible. Beyond belief. Something big, Billy,” Bethell whispered hoarsely as the door closed behind us. “Whopping big; and she, the Girl, and I will need you. Come!” The clear, lilting notes of her speech, and the heavy, blurred accents of a voice I knew instantly to be Hagiwara’s, drew steadily nearer, until finally I judged by the sound that they had paused directly below the library balcony whereon I was standing. I was placed in the very willing position of an eavesdropper. Upon my return from Chemulpo to Seoul, I went directly to the palace, for it was necessary that I should have a conference with the Japanese adviser of the treasury upon matters concerning the customs.No—I go to Shanghai. It is not—that I am afraid. But—but that I have failed, and that-I would—yes, I would die rather than face the humiliation! Hagiwaras na-nasty grin and—and—oh, you understand, my friends!”

We both enjoyed the ending, with a garden party and surprise antagonist who needs defeating, and the neighbouring family the King and Cat become friends with. Off we galloped, pell-mell down the thin ribbon of roadway for the yacht, six miles away—Bethell on the left side of his majesty, the prince on the right. The latter was hampered by a great chest, wrapped in silk, which he carried under his arm. Nothing else, was that, than a treasure box; therein fleeing royalty was taking with him all of his crown jewels that were not already in pawn.Oh, Billy,” she said with a little gasp and dropping the playful formality of the mister, “pray for me that I may keep Hagiwara here for another hour. The crisis is on at the palace. Hagiwara possesses a dreadful sixth sense of premonition, and he has been trying to make a break for the old emperor’s audience chamber ever since I arrived. He must not; he ——”

The day after the emperor signed away Korean independence at the point of the bayonet it was reported that Prince Min Yung had “committed suicide” in his home. At least, that was the official report. The emperor was eager as a child to find excuse for keeping the Girl longer in his presence. I did not blame him, poor old beggar, for trying to keep a sunbeam in that musty old audience chamber, whose very walls whispered plots. But his visitor knew the value of a pleasure deferred, and she made a graceful excuse for withdrawing from the presence of the Little Nephew of Heaven. She was not allowed to go, however, until his majesty had instructed one of his chamberlains to show the radiant American stranger the beauties of his deer park and summer pavilion.Then, on the third night, came the message from the palace. How Prince Min Yung had contrived the circuitous channel of its delivery passed my comprehension, for it was one of Bethell’s printers who tiptoed in the bar from a rear entrance and whispered something in the vernacular into the editor’s ears. Bethell’s eyes snapped. Bethell left the barroom with a queer crease of perplexity between his eyes, albeit he grinned in triumph over me. He was gone almost an hour, while Looie and I speculated wildly over glasses of Fernet Blanca as to the identity of the mysterious, red-headed girl and what her mission in Seoul might be. I can see now the look of wonder that flashed into the tired eyes of old Bugs as the Vision of gently undulating gossamer and silk, topped with the red-gold coils and the trailing white plumes, flowed-that's the word—down the long room and paused with a deep curtsy before the steps of the throne. I think we'd want to read another story about the pair and their new life - there was unexplored story with the castle servants, and it would be lovely to see how a King copes with other aspects of 'normal' life.