t ever once having been degraded. One day
when he was in the palace the Emperor unburdened his heart to him,
thinking that what he said would never reach the ears of his enemies.

"You have no idea," said the Emperor, "what I suffer here."

"Indeed?" was the only reply of the official.

"Yes," continued the Emperor, "I am not allowed to speak to any one
from outside. I am without power, without companions, and even the
eunuchs act as though they are under no obligations to respect me. The
position of the lowest servant in the palace is more desirable than
mine." Then lowering his voice he continued, "But there is a day of
reckoning to come. The Empress Dowager cannot live forever, and if ever
I get my throne again I will see to it that those who put me here will
suffer as I have done."

It is not unlikely that this conversation of the Emperor reached the
ears of Yuan Shih-kai. Walls have ears in China. Everything has ears,
and every part of nature has a tongue. If so, here was the occasion for
the last plot in the drama of the Emperor's life, and next to the last
in the official life of Yuan Shih-kai.

The problem is to so manipulate the laws of nature as to prevent the
Emperor outliving the Empress Dowager, and not allow the world to know
that you have been trifling with occult forces. He must die a natural
death, a death which is above suspicion. He must not die one day after
the Empress Dowager as that would create talk. And he ought to die some
time before her. The death fuse is one which often burns very much
longer than we expect--was it not one of the English kings who said "I
fear I am a very long time a-dying, gentlemen"--and sometimes it burns
out sooner than is intended. There were two imperial death fuses
burning at the same time in that Forbidden City of Peking. The Empress
Dowager had "had a stroke." Hers was undoubtedly nature's own work. But
the enemies of Yuan Shih-kai tell us that the Emperor had "had a
Chinese doctor," to whom the great Viceroy paid $33,000 for his
services. We are told that the Empress Dowager in reality died first
and then the Emperor, though the Emperor's death was first announced,
and the next day that of the Dowager.

What then are we to infer? That the Emperor was poisoned? Let it be so.
That is what the Japanese believed at the time. But who did it? Most
assuredly no one man. One might have employed a Chinese physician for
him, but the last man whose physician the Emperor