and started up to find that the Japanese were already leaving. They had
resolved to fight their way to the sea. "I do not know who it was called
me," said So, afterwards. "Certainly it was none of the men in the
Legation. I sometimes believe that it must have been a voice from the other
world." Had he wakened five minutes later, the mob would have caught him
and torn him to bits.

The Japanese blew up a mine, and, with women and children in the centre,
flung themselves into the maelstrom of the howling mob. The people of Seoul
were ready for them. They had already burned the houses of the Progressive
statesmen, Kim, Pak, So and Hong. They tried, time after time, to rush the
Japanese circle. The escaping party marched all through the night, fighting
as it marched. At one point it had to pass near a Chinese camp. A cannon
opened fire on it. At Chemulpo, the coast port twenty-seven miles from
Seoul, it found a small Japanese mail steamer, the _Chidose Maru_. The
Koreans who had escaped with the party were hidden. Before the _Chidose_
could sail a deputation from the King arrived, disclaiming all enmity
against the Japanese, but demanding the surrender of the Koreans. Takezoi
seemed to hesitate, and the reformers feared for the moment that he was
about to surrender them. But the pockmarked captain of the _Chidose_ drove
the deputation from the side of his ship, in none too friendly fashion, and
steamed away.

The reformers landed in Japan, expecting that they would be received like
heroes, and that they would return with a strong army to fight the Chinese.
They did not realize that the revolutionist who fails must look for no
sympathy or aid.

The Japanese Foreign Minister at first refused even to see them. When at
last they secured an audience, he told them bluntly that Japan was not