Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/208

 military and other officers took their departure, and a very strained situation was relieved for the time being.

The summer of this year furnished Seoul with some excitement in the shape of a discovered conspiracy to force the King to abdicate, place the Crown Prince on the throne, and institute a new era in Korean history. The plot, if such it may be called, was badly planned and deservedly fell through. It was one of the foolish moves called out by the excitement engendered in the Independence movement. An Kyung-su, ex-president of the Independence Club, was the party mainly implicated, and he saved himself only by promptly decamping and putting himself into the hands of the Japanese.

August saw the fall of Kim Hong-nyuk, the former Russian interpreter, who ruffled it so proudly at court on account of his connection with the Russian legation. For a year he had a good time of it and amassed great wealth; but when the Russians withdrew their influence in March of this year, Kim lost all his backing, and thenceforward his doom was as sure as fate itself. The genuine noblemen whose honours he had filched were on his track, and in August he was accused, deposed and banished. This did not satisfy his enemies, however; but an opportunity came when, on the 10th of September, an effort was made to poison the Emperor and the Crown Prince. The attempt came near succeeding, and in the investigation which followed one of the scullions deposed that he had been instructed by a friend of Kim Hong-nyuk to put something into the coffee. How Kim, away in banishment, could have had anything to do with it would be hard to tell. He may have conceived the plan, but the verdict of a calm and dispassionate mind must be that he probably knew nothing about it at all. However, in such a case someone must suffer. The criminal must be found; and it is more than probable that those who hated Kim Hong-nyuk thought he would make an excellent scapegoat. He was tried, condemned and executed.

The month of September witnessed better things than these, however. The Japanese obtained their concession for the Seoul-