“Stand by me,” I told Kim, “and whatsoever you wish shall be yours.  Have you a wish?”

“I would command the Tiger Hunters of Pyeng-Yang, and so command the palace guards,” he answered.

“Wait,” said I, “and that will you do.  I have said it.”

The how of the matter was beyond me.  But he who has naught can dispense the world in largess; and I, who had naught, gave Kim captaincy of the palace guards.  The best of it is that I did fulfil my promise.  Kim did come to command the Tiger Hunters, although it brought him to a sad end.

Scheming and intriguing I left to Hamel and Yunsan, who were the politicians.  I was mere man and lover, and merrier than theirs was the time I had.  Picture it to yourself—­a hard-bitten, joy-loving sea-cuny, irresponsible, unaware ever of past or future, wining and dining with kings, the accepted lover of a princess, and with brains like Hamel’s and Yunsan’s to do all planning and executing for me.

More than once Yunsan almost divined the mind behind my mind; but when he probed Hamel, Hamel proved a stupid slave, a thousand times less interested in affairs of state and policy than was he interested in my health and comfort and garrulously anxious about my drinking contests with Taiwun.  I think the Lady Om guessed the truth and kept it to herself; wit was not her desire, but, as Hamel had said, a bull throat and a man’s yellow hair.

Much that pawed between us I shall not relate, though the Lady Om is dear dust these centuries.  But she was not to be denied, nor was I; and when a man and woman will their hearts together heads may fall and kingdoms crash and yet they will not forgo.

Came the time when our marriage was mooted—­oh, quietly, at first, most quietly, as mere palace gossip in dark corners between eunuchs and waiting-women.  But in a palace the gossip of the kitchen scullions will creep to the throne.  Soon there was a pretty to-do.  The palace was the pulse of Cho-Sen, and when the palace rocked, Cho-Sen trembled.  And there was reason for the rocking.  Our marriage would be a blow straight between the eyes of Chong Mong-ju.  He fought, with a show of strength for which Yunsan was ready.  Chong Mong-ju disaffected half the provincial priesthood, until they pilgrimaged in processions a mile long to the palace gates and frightened the Emperor into a panic.

But Yunsan held like a rock.  The other half of the provincial priesthood was his, with, in addition, all the priesthood of the great cities such as Keijo, Fusan, Songdo, Pyen-Yang, Chenampo, and Chemulpo.  Yunsan and the Lady Om, between them, twisted the Emperor right about.  As she confessed to me afterward, she bullied him with tears and hysteria and threats of a scandal that would shake the throne.  And to cap it all, at the psychological moment, Yunsan pandered the Emperor to novelties of excess that had been long preparing.

“You must grow your hair for the marriage knot,” Yunsan warned me one day, with the ghost of a twinkle in his austere eyes, more nearly facetious and human than I had ever beheld him.