While threatened with insanity and complete blindness, and hourly
from his wounds suffering a pain drugs could not master, he
dictated for the _Century Magazine_ the only complete account of
the battle of the Yalu. In a letter to Mr. Richard Watson Gilder he
writes: "...my eyes are troubling me. I cannot see even what I am
writing now, and am getting the article under difficulties. I yet
hope to place it in your hands by the 21st, still, if my eyes grow
worse------"

"Still, if my eyes grow worse------"

The unfinished sentence was grimly prophetic.

Unknown to his attendants at the hospital, among the papers in his
despatch-box he had secreted his service revolver. On the morning
of the 11th of February, 1897, he asked for this box, and on some
pretext sent the nurse from the room. When the report of the pistol
brought them running to his bedside, they found the pain-driven
body at peace, and the tired eyes dark forever.

In the article in the _Century_ on the battle of the Yalu, he had
said:

"Chief among those who have died for their country is Admiral
Ting Ju Chang, a gallant soldier and true gentleman. Betrayed by
his countrymen, fighting against odds, almost his last official act
was to stipulate for the lives of his officers and men. His own he
scorned to save, well knowing that his ungrateful country would
prove less merciful than his honorable foe. Bitter, indeed, must