Chapter 30  Epilogue

 The Glory Hotel had been razed to the ground; nothing remained, but a pile of burnt, charred rubble, and the thick smell of smoke lingered in the air, days after the massive fire had been put out. Here and there, an ember still burnt, and would spark into life whenever a soft wind blew, and stirred it. Clouds of dust and ash hovered in the air, reluctant to disperse, and turned the sky a hazy ashen-grey, so that the sun was obscured, and day appeared to be night; and when the first rains fell, the ground turned black, and the smell of soot and smoke and burnt flesh clung to those who had been assigned the grim task of locating and collecting the remains of those that had perished in the fire. 

Kudo Hina, the owner of the Glory Hotel, was named as the person who had set the Glory Hotel on fire; a red shoe was found in the ashes, and many came forth to testify that she had worn it on the night of the fire. She had left behind a suicide note, in which she detailed that she, and she alone, had been responsible for setting the hotel on fire.

Eugene Choi, the black-haired American, was killed in a runaway train to Pyeongyang, gunned down by Japanese soldiers after taking a wealthy Japanese businessman on board hostage. Eugene was buried in a foreign cemetery in Joseon, under the special instructions of his former chief, General Kyle Moore, of the American Consulate of Japan.

Kim Hee Sung was beaten to death in a grimy cell for having printed a series of subversive newspapers which were deemed to incite revolution against the Japanese Government of Joseon.

Go Ae Shin, who was on the same train as Eugene Choi, and was rumoured to have been secretly married to him, vanished without a trace, and was believed to have relocated to Manchuria, the new base of the Righteous Army, where she continued to lead, and train the members of the Righteous Army.

Hwang Eun San was ambushed in the hills by Japanese soldiers, and died with several members of the Righteous Army.

Gu Dong Mae was slashed to death by the members of the Musin Society, and his body paraded, and dragged by ropes through the streets of Hanseong; he had lived violently most of his life, and no one was surprised that he had come to a violent end.

What was surprising was that when they lowered his body from the bridge where they had strung him, they found a most peculiar expression on his battered face: there was a smile upon his lips, which led many to sigh, and say, that perhaps, just perhaps, he had found peace within himself in the final moments...

                                                                The End