thus thwarted, but as the hours passed it became evident that the men outside would not be able to effect an entrance. The shouts gradually died away, and at last the crowd dispersed, leaving in the hands of the palace guard three or four men who had scaled the wall but had not been followed by their confrères.
In view of the attitude of the Tokyo government, the Japanese in Seoul were now entirely quiescent, and the government was standing on its own base. The Cabinet held its own by virtue of the palace guard, which was composed of the soldiers trained by the Japanese. This Cabinet and guard held together from necessity, for both knew that should their power fail they would be denounced as traitors, and under the circumstances could expect little help from the Japanese. The Cabinet had to make a show of investigating the attack of the 5th of October, and someone must be killed for having murdered the Queen. At the same time punishment was to be meted out to the principals in the attempt on the palace on the 28th of November.
Three men were arrested and charged with being directly implicated in the crime of regicide. Of these one was certainly innocent, and while the second was probably privy to the crime, being a lieutenant of the Japanese-trained troops, there was no evidence adduced to prove his actual participation in the act of assassination. As a fact, the court did not know and never discovered who the actual perpetrators were. The three men were executed before the end of the year.
Though only three men were arrested in connection with the assassination of the Queen, thirty-three men were arrested in connection with the comparatively trivial affair of the 28th of November. Their trial proceeded simultaneously with that of the other three. Two of them were condemned to death, four to exile for life, and four to three years' imprisonment. To show the kind of evidence on which these convictions were based, we will cite the case of Prince Yi Cha-sun, who was proved to have gotten hold of some compromising documents and to have shown them
