That was two years ago.
The villages are charred ruins now. Some of them have never been rebuilt. The murdered people of these villages have gone back to dust.
The Japanese think that the fires are out. They thought, when the flames of those burning villages ceased leaping into the skies; and at last were but smouldering embers; that the flames had died. But the Japanese were wrong, for on that very day, the Flames of Freedom began to burn in Korean hearts and souls! And from that day to this; those flames have been rising higher and higher. These are Flash-Lights of Flame that, as the years go by; mount, like beacon lights of hope on Korean hills, to light the marching dawn of Korean Independence.
* * * * * *
A beautiful Korean custom that used to be; flashes a flame of fire across the screen of history.
In the old days the Korean Emperor used to have signals of fire flashed from hill to hill running clear from the Chinese border to Seoul, the Korean capital. This signal indicated that all was well along the borders and that there was no danger of a Chinese invasion from the north.
Korea has always been a bone of contention between China, Russia and Japan. Consequently this little peninsula has always walked on uneasy paths, which is ever the fate of a buffer state.
Never did a Korean Emperor go to sleep in peace until he looked out and saw that the signal fires burned on the beautiful mountain peaks surrounding the city of Seoul; fires indicating that the borders were safe that night and that inmates of the palace might rest in peace and security.
"It must have been a beautiful sight to have seen the light flashing on the mountain peak there to the north," I said to an eighty-year old Korean patriarch.
"It meant peace for the night," he answered. "It was beautiful. I often long to see those fires of old burning again on yonder mountain."