and blocking his plans. He had been brought to Peking to be tied
up; he was constantly being denounced; and even his all powerful
patroness, the old Empress Dowager, who owed so much to him,
suffered from constant premonitions that the end was fast
approaching, and that with her the Dynasty would die.

In the Autumn of 1908 she took sick. The gravest fears quickly
spread. It was immediately reported that the Emperor Kwanghsu was
also very ill--an ominous coincidence. Very suddenly both
personages collapsed and died, the Empress Dowager slightly before
the Emperor. There is little doubt that the Emperor himself was
poisoned. The legend runs that as he expired not only did he give
his Consort, who was to succeed him in the exercise of the nominal
power of the Throne, a last secret Edict to behead Yuan Shih-kai,
but that his faltering hand described circle after circle in the
air until his followers understood the meaning. In the vernacular
the name of the great viceroy and the word for circle have the
same sound; the gesture signified that the dying monarch's last
wish was revenge on the man who had failed him ten years before.

An ominous calm followed this great break with the past. It was
understood that the Court was torn by two violent factions
regarding the succession which the Empress Tzu-hsi had herself
decided. The fact that another long Regency had become inevitable
through the accession of the child Hsuan Tung aroused instant
apprehensions among foreign observers, whilst it was confidently
predicted that Yuan Shih-kai's last days had come.

The blow fell suddenly on the 2nd January, 1909. In the interval
between the death of the old Empress and his disgrace, Yuan Shih-