The whole affair did not occupy much more than an hour. The Crown Prince saw his mother rush down a passage followed by a Japanese with a sword, and there was a general rush of assassins for her sleeping apartments. In the upper story the Crown Princess was found with several ladies, and she was dragged by the hair, cut with a sword, beaten, and thrown downstairs. Yi Kyöng-jik, Minister of the Royal Household, seems to have given the alarm, for the Queen was dressed and was preparing to run and hide herself. When the murderers rushed in, he stood with outstretched arms in front of Her Majesty, trying to protect her, furnishing them with the clue they wanted. They slashed off both his hands and inflicted other wounds, but he contrived to drag himself along the veranda into the King’s presence, where he bled to death. The Queen, flying from the assassins, was overtaken and stabbed, falling down as if dead, but one account says that, recovering a little, she asked if the Crown Prince, her idol, was safe, on which a Japanese jumped on her breast and stabbed her through and through with his sword. Even then, though the nurse whom I formerly saw in attendance on her covered her face, it is not certain that she was dead, but the Japanese laid her on a plank, wrapped a silk quilt round her, and she was carried to a grove of pines in the adjacent deer park, where kerosene oil was poured over the body, which was surrounded by faggots and burned, only a few small bones escaping destruction. Thus perished, at the age of forty-four, by the hands of foreign assassins, instigated to their bloody work by the Minister of a friendly power, the clever, ambitious, intriguing, fascinating, and in many respects lovable Queen of Korea. In her lifetime Count Inouye, whose verdict for many reasons may be accepted, said, “Her Majesty has few equals among her countrymen for shrewdness and sagacity. In the art of conciliating her enemies and winning the confidence of her servants she has no equals.” A short time after daylight the Tai-Won-Kun issued two proclamations, of which the following sentences are specimens:-- 1st, “The hearts of the people dissolve through the presence in the Palace of a crowd of base fellows. So the National Grand Duke is returned to power to inaugurate changes, expel the base fellows, restore former laws, and vindicate the dignity of His Majesty.” 2nd, “I have now entered the Palace to aid His Majesty, expel the low fellows, perfect that which will be a benefit, save the country, and introduce peace.”