Читать книгу The Minister of Evil: The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia - Le Queux William - Страница 3

I confess that I felt my position to be absolutely hopeless.

I was a political suspect, and therefore I knew full well that to attempt to communicate with anyone outside was quite impossible. The Chief of Police of Kazan, honestly believing that he was doing his duty and unearthing a subtle plot against the life of the Empress, on account of the revolver in my possession, had condemned me to imprisonment in the Fortress of Schlüsselburg. Its very name, dreaded by every Russian, recurred to me as I recollected Kouropatkine's significant words. Had he not threatened that, if I revealed one single word of the secret doings of the holy Starets, my tongue would be cut out within those grim dark walls of that prison of mystery?

We Russians had from our childhood heard of that sinister fortress, the walls of which rise sheer from the black waters of Lake Ladoga—that place where the cells of the political prisoners, victims of the thousand and one intrigues of the Russian bureaucracy, consequent upon the autocracy of the Tsar, are deep beneath the lake's surface, so that they can—when it is willed by the Governor or those higher Ministers who express their devilish desire—be flooded at will.

Hundreds of terrified, yet innocent and nameless victims of Russia's mediæval barbarism, persons of both sexes—alas! that I should speak so of my own country—have, during the past ten years of enlightenment, stood in their narrow dimly-lit oubliette and watched in horror the black tide trickle through the rat holes in the stone floor, slowly, ever slowly, until water has filled the cell to the arched stone roof and drowned them as rats in a trap.

And all that has been done by the accursed German wirepullers in the name of the puny puppet who was Tsar, and from whom the truth was, they said, ever carefully hidden.

The Kazan police treated me just as inhumanly as I expected. By my own experience as an official in the Department of Political Police, and knowing what I did in consequence, I was expecting all this.

Four days I spent in that gloomy, but not very uncomfortable cell in Kazan, when, on the fifth morning, I was taken, handcuffed to another prisoner who I found afterwards had murdered his wife, to the Volga steamer which, after twelve hours of close confinement, landed us at Nijni.

A hundred times I debated within myself whether it were best to remain silent, and not reveal my past career in the Department of Political Police, or to state the absolute facts and struggle by that means to obtain a hearing and escape.

One fact was patent. General Kouropatkine and Boris Stürmer both trusted in my silence, while the rascal monk had found in me a catspaw who had remained dumb. In truth, however, my secret intention was to watch the progress of events. Of the latter, Rasputin had, of course, no suspicion. If I were—as I had already proved myself—his willing assistant, then he and his friends might endeavour to save me.

Such were my thoughts as I sat in the train between two police agents on the interminable journey from Nijni to the capital.

On arrival at the Nicholas Station the murderer to whom I was manacled and myself were shown no consideration. We had been without food for twelve hours, yet the three men in charge, though they ate a hearty meal in the buffet, gave us not a drink of water. Humanity is not in the vocabulary of our police of Russia when dealing with political suspects, so many of whom are entirely innocent persons who have proved themselves obnoxious to the corrupt bureaucracy.

We had two hours to wait in Petrograd, locked in one of the waiting-rooms where we were at last given a hunk of bread and a piece of cold meat. Then we were driven out to Schlüsselburg in a motor-car, arriving there in the grey break of dawn and being conveyed by boat to the grim red-brick fortress which rose from the lake.

Stepping from the boat on to the floating landing-stage we were conducted by armed warders through the iron gate and along innumerable stone corridors where, ever and anon, we passed other warders—men who, criminals themselves, spent their lives in the fortress and were never allowed to land in order that they might not reveal the terrible secrets of that modern Bastille. Those who would form a proper opinion of our Empire should remember that this horrible prison was at the disposal of each of the Ministers and their sycophants, and that hundreds of entirely innocent people of both sexes had for years been sent there out of personal spite or jealousy, and also in the furtherance of Germany's aims for the coming war.

Within those dark, gloomy walls, where many of the dimly lit cells were below the lake, hundreds of patriotic Russians had ended their lives, their only offence being that they had been too true to their Emperor and their own land!

Ever since my childhood I had been taught to regard Schlüsselburg as an inferno—a place from which no victim of our corrupt bureaucracy had ever emerged. Only His Excellency the Governor and the under-Governor had for years landed from that island fortress. To all others communication with the outside world was strictly forbidden. Hence I was fully aware that now I had set foot in the hateful place my identity had become lost, and only death was before me.

And such deeds were being done in the name of the Tsar!

At the time I believed in His Majesty, feeling that he was in ignorance of the truth. Nowadays I know that he was, all the time, fully aware of the crimes committed in his name. Hence, I have no sympathy with the Imperial family, and have welcomed its well-deserved downfall.

Into a small room where sat an official in uniform I was ushered, and later, after waiting an hour, was compelled to sign the big leather-bound register of prisoners. Already my crime had evidently been written down in a neat official hand, yet I was given no opportunity to read it.

"Enough!" said the big bearded officer with a wave of the hand. "Take him to his cell—number 326."

Whereupon the three men who had conveyed me there bundled me down two steep flights of damp stone steps, worn hollow by the tread of thousands of those who had already gone down to their doom, into a corridor dimly lit by oil-lamps—a passage into which no light of day ever penetrated.

There we were met by an evil-looking ex-convict who carried a key suspended by a chain.

"Three-two-six!" shouted one of my guardians, whereupon the gaoler opened a door and I was thrust into a narrow stone cell, the floor of which was an inch deep in slime, faintly lit by a tiny aperture, heavily barred, about ten feet above where I stood.

The door was locked behind me and I found myself alone. I was in one of those oubliettes which at the will of my captors could be flooded!

I held my breath and glanced around. Within me arose a fierce resentment. I had acted honestly towards my scoundrelly employers—though, be it said, my object was one of patriotic observation—yet they had allowed me to become the victim of the secret police who would, no doubt, obtain great kudos, and probably a liberal douceur, for having unearthed "a desperate plot against Her Majesty the Empress!"

That there was a plot was quite true—but one unsuspected by the Chief of Police of Kazan.

My paroxysm of anger I need not here describe. Through the hours that passed I sat upon the stone seat beside the board that served me as bed, gazing up at the small barred window.

Clap—clap—clap was the only sound that reached me—and with failing heart I knew the noise to be that of waves of the lake beating upon the wall within a few inches of my window, the dark waters which in due time would no doubt rise through my uneven floor and engulf me. Big grey rats ran about in search of fragments of food—of which there was none. I was a "political," and my food would certainly not be plentiful.

In those awful nerve-racking hours, never knowing when I might find my floor flooded as signal of a horrible death, I paced my cell uttering the worst curses upon those who had employed me, and vowed that if they gave me the grace—for their own ends—to escape I would use my utmost endeavours to destroy them.

I did not blame the Okhrana or the Chief of Police of Kazan. They had both acted in good faith. Yet I remembered that I was the catspaw of Kouropatkine and of Stürmer, either of whom could easily order my release. And that was what I awaited in patience, although in terror.

Days went by—hopeless, interminable days. The lapping of the waters above me ever reminded me of the fate that had been of the many hundreds who had previously occupied that same fearsome oubliette and had been drowned, deliberately murdered by those into whose bad graces they had fallen.

When the grey streak of light faded above me the gruff criminal in charge would unbolt my door and bring me a small paraffin lamp to provide me with light and warmth for the night. When the lamp was brought each night I thought of Marie Vietroff whose name was still upon everyone's lips. The poor girl, arrested though innocent as I had been, had been confined in a cell in the fortress of Peter and Paul, and her fate was known in consequence of certain revelations admitted by the Assistant Public Prosecutor. This official, the tool of higher and more corrupt officials, had admitted that the girl, though entirely innocent of any crime, had been arrested out of spite and sent to the fortress where, to escape a doom more horrible than death itself, she had emptied the oil from her lamp over herself while in bed, and then set fire to it.

Often, even in that deep oubliette, the sounds of woman's shrieks reached me, and each time I thought of the girl-victim of an official's revenge.

Days passed—so many that I lost count of them—until I had abandoned hope. The scoundrels whom I had served had forsaken me now that I had served their purpose. Rasputin had fascinated the Empress by that mesmeric glance of his, and it had probably been deemed wiser that my mouth should be at once closed. At any moment I might discover the water oozing up between those green slime-covered stones.

One day, however, at about noon the gruff uncommunicative peasant who was my gaoler—a man incarcerated for murder in Moscow—unlocked the door and bade me come out.

In surprise I was taken along the corridors to that same small room in which I had put down my name in that Book of Fate they called the Prison Register, and there the same official informed me that it was desired to interrogate me at the Ministry of the Interior in Petrograd.

Another interrogation! My spirits rose. If my captors meant to have the truth, then they should have it. I would expose the plot, let me be believed or disbelieved.

Escorted by two agents of police, I was taken out into the dazzling light of day back to Petrograd, and to the Ministry of the Interior, where in a private room—one that was in a wing of the great building familiar to me—I was left alone.

I had only been there for a few minutes, looking out of the window in wonder, when the door opened, and before me stood the goat-bearded man Boris Stürmer.

"Welcome back, my dear Rajevski!" he exclaimed, coming towards me and shaking my hand warmly. "We only knew yesterday where you were. Those fools in Kazan spirited you away, but that idiot the Chief of Police has been to-day dismissed the service for his meddling. I do hope you are none the worse for your adventure," he added with concern.

"Surely Grichka knew of my arrest!" I said. "Did he not inquire?"

"He did not dare to do so openly, lest he himself should be implicated," replied the German. "We were compelled to wait and inquire with due judiciousness. Even then we could not discover whither you had been sent—not until yesterday. But it is all a mistake, my dear Rajevski—all a mistake, and you must overlook it. The Father is eagerly awaiting your return."

"I must first go home and exchange these dirty clothes," I remarked.

"Yes. But first accept the apologies of the General and myself. You, of course, knew that we should extricate you—as we shall again, if any other untoward circumstances happen to arise. Recollect that we can open any door of prison or palace in Russia," and then he smiled grimly as I took my leave.

I returned to my own rooms to find that they had, during my absence, been searched by the police, and some of my correspondence, of a private and family nature, had been taken away. At this I felt greatly annoyed, and resolved to obtain from Kouropatkine immunity from such domiciliary visits in future.

Upon my table lay a letter which had, I was told, arrived for me that morning. On opening it I found that it was from the head office of the Azof-Don Commercial Bank, in the Morskaya, officially informing me that a sum of fifty thousand roubles had been placed to my credit there by some person who remained anonymous.

The present was certainly a welcome one, made no doubt as reparation for the inconvenience I had suffered.

Half-an-hour later I arrived at the Poltavskaya where old Anna admitted me, and I at once went to the monk's sanctum.

Rasputin sprang from his chair and, seizing both my hands, cried:

"Ah! my dear Féodor! So here you are back with us! This relieves my mind greatly."

"Yes," I said. "Back from the grave."

"The infernal idiots!" declared the monk, his wide-open eyes flashing as he spoke. "I will see that it does not occur again. But you quite understand, Féodor, that it was not wise to reveal that I had gone to Kazan on purpose to pray in the Empress's presence."

I smiled, and said:

"Somebody has placed fifty thousand roubles to my account at the Azof-Don Bank."

In turn the rascal smiled, and said:

"You need not seek its source. It is out of the Government funds, and is yours. Keep a still tongue, and there may be other payments." Then, turning to his table, he showed me quantities of correspondence which had been left unattended in my absence, and urged me to get to work, adding: "I have to be at the Baroness Tchelkounoff's this afternoon, and there is a séance here to-morrow—five neophytes to be initiated."

So five more silly, neurotic and, of course, wealthy women were to be initiated into the mysteries of the mock saint's religion. Grichka had no use for those whose pockets were not well lined, for he was accumulating vast sums from those weak, fascinated females who believed in his divinity as healer and spiritual guide.

Presently I seated myself at the table and recommenced my secretarial duties, while he went forth. In many letters were drafts for subscriptions for Rasputin's convent in far-off Pokrovsky in Siberia, a place which no one had ever visited, yet in support of which he had obtained hundreds of thousands of roubles. I might here state that later on, when I visited Pokrovsky, I found the wonderful convent, of which he told me such pious stories, consisted of a plain house cheaply furnished in which lived his peasant wife and children, together with twelve of his chosen sister-disciples, foolish women who had made over their money to him and devoted their lives to piety as set forth in his new "religion."

A fortnight passed. Of Kouropatkine we saw little. He had, at last, assisted by the traitor Stössel and at Germany's instigation, succeeded in forcing war with Japan, and the streets of the capital were filled with urging, enthusiastic crowds bent upon pulling the Mikado from his throne.

Kouropatkine had, according to what Rasputin told me, assured the Emperor that the victory would be an easy one, and that the Japanese would fly at first sight of our troops. The General had quite recently returned from the Far East, and had presented a personal report to the Tsar describing Japan's war preparations. He had declared that if Russia meant victory she must strike at once. Hence war was declared; you know with what disastrous results to both the Army and Navy of Russia.

It was, however, on the day before the declaration of war that Rasputin's real triumph came. The Empress, who had been searching Russia high and low for the pious Father beside whom she had knelt in Kazan, had at last discovered him, and he received a command to an audience at the Palace of Tsarskoe-Selo.

The monk, his eyes shining with glee, showed me the letter from Count Fredericks, Minister of the Court, and said: "You must accompany me, Féodor."

At noon on the day appointed we therefore left Petrograd together. The monk wore, in pretended humility, his oldest and most rusty robe—though beneath it, be it said, his under garments were of silk of the finest procurable in the capital—while suspended by a thin brass chain around his neck was a cheap enamelled cross. He was unkempt, unwashed, his face sallow and drawn, yet those wonderful brilliant eyes stared forth with uncanny intensity of expression. His hands were grimy, and his long tapering finger-nails had not been cleaned for weeks. Such was the man whom Alexandra Feodorovna, fascinated by his glance, had called to her side.

On arrival at the station of Tsarskoe-Selo we found one of the Imperial carriages awaiting us, with footman and coachman in bright blue liveries, with outriders.

Two flunkeys, also in blue, advanced, and, placing their hands beneath the saint's arms, lifted him into the carriage, an honour always paid to those who are special guests of His Majesty the Tsar. As for myself I climbed in afterwards, smiling within myself at the spectacle of the unwashed monk being lifted in as though he were an invalid. With us was an officer in uniform and a civilian—an agent of the Okhrana.

The moment we had seated ourselves the Imperial servants took off their cocked hats and replaced them crosswise on their heads as sign that within the carriage was a guest of His Majesty, and in order to signal to passers-by as we drove along to remove their hats or salute.

Rasputin had already been given instructions by General Erchoff, Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod, as to how we should act in the presence of Her Imperial Majesty. We had both attended before him, Rasputin well knowing that Erchoff was one of his most bitter enemies, but who on account of the Tsaritza's interest was now posing as a friend.

After our drive back to Rasputin's house the monk, flinging himself into a chair and lighting a cigarette, thoughtfully remarked:

"That puppet Erchoff will later on regret that he denounced me a year ago. His term of office is at its limit."

The mock saint was possessed of an almost supernatural intuition. In everyday life he would tell me of things that would happen socially and politically, and sure enough they would happen. The gift of looking into the future is given to a few men and women in the world, those persons who sometimes when they look into the face of another hold their breath and remain silent, because they see death written upon the countenance before them. This curious faculty was possessed by Rasputin to a very marked degree—a faculty which has puzzled scientists through all the ages, a faculty which usually runs side by side with an overweening vanity and an amazing self-consciousness. Sometimes the possessor of that most astounding and mysterious intuition is also possessed of a humble and retiring disposition. But it is seldom.

Grichka, as all Russia called him, was an outstanding personality, clever, scheming, and as unscrupulous as he was avaricious. His mujik blood betrayed itself every hour.

Even as we sat there in the Imperial carriage as we drove to the Palace, he smiled with self-conscious sarcasm when the people saluted or doffed their hats to him as an Imperial guest.

At last we arrived before huge prison-like gates, which opened to allow us to pass, sentries saluted, the doors swung back again, and we found ourselves in the great well kept park of the Alexander Palace.

I saw two civilians walking together along the drive, which led into a wood. They were agents of the secret police patrolling the grounds, for every precaution was being taken to guard the persons of Their Majesties. The death of the girl Vietroff had aroused the indignation of Russia to such an extent that the atmosphere was charged with anarchism.

Our road lay through woods, past a model dairy. Thence we went past two large farms, and out into open meadow lands, everything being kept most spick-and-span by the hundreds of servants.

The system of defence of Tsarskoe-Selo struck me as amazingly well designed. The road we had driven along seemed to be a maze, for twice we had left what appeared to be the main road, and passing three guard-houses—small fortresses in themselves, in case of an attack by the revolutionists—we at last arrived before the main entrance of the royal residence, guarded by a detachment of fierce-looking Kubansky Cossacks. These were drawn up standing at the salute, with their officers, as we approached. It was surely a picturesque guard of honour, with their quaint, old-fashioned pointed headgear, their smart comic-opera tunics, and their long, shiny boots.

In a great high white wall is an elegant gate of delicately wrought ironwork, with the usual striped sentry boxes on either side. Around are seated Chinese statues in bronze, each upon its pedestal. Over the gateway is the Imperial cipher in bronze, and beyond in the holy of holies is the long two-storied palace of Tsarskoe-Selo, that spot forbidden to all save to the guests of Their Majesties.

I give this in detail because few outsiders, very few indeed—save ambassadors and other jackanapes in uniform—had, until the arrest of the Romanoffs, ever trod within the hallowed precincts of the palace-fortress, the bomb-proof home of the incompetent weakling who had been crowned Tsar of All the Russias.

As we passed through that last gate I saw before us a building very much like a French château of the sixteenth century, a long low building with sloping slated roofs, few chimneys, and a clock—which, by the way, had stopped—high over the entrance.

Everywhere since we had entered the Imperial domain all was most scrupulously well kept. Not a gravel stone was out of place. Gangs of men were, indeed, kept to rake over instantly the gravel drives so as to obliterate the track of the wheels of the carriages.

At last with due pomp we drew up before the long portico of the comfortable but not imposing house in which lived Their Imperial Majesties.

As we descended an attendant took Rasputin's staff, when instantly there came forward a lieutenant of Cossacks, a curiously crafty-looking fellow, who asked us if we desired to wash, or wished for a drink or for food.

The fellow was repulsive, even to the charlatan himself. The latter gazed at him, and replied in his deep, serious tones:

"I am here to see our Empress. I have no need for thy ministrations."

At this rebuke the evil-looking officer looked daggers, and seeing that I was but a menial as secretary he did not deign to address me.

A few seconds later we were taken in charge by the "skorochodi," servants who are so intelligent that they are nicknamed the "quick-walkers." The palace contains hundreds of servants and hangers-on, but these are the ones picked to take visitors through the semicircular built palace to audience of either the Tsar or his spouse.

Through a long corridor we were conducted past the doors of a number of rooms. At each were two sentries, one a big Abyssinian negro in blue and gold—called an "Araby" in the palace—and the other a stolid Cossack sentry with his fixed bayonet.

At the end of the corridor we were met by one of the Emperor's personal servants who came forward in all humility, and bowing before Rasputin, asked.

"Can I be of service, Father, before you have audience?"

Both of us were surprised. Here, in the midst of all the pomp and ceremony was an ordinary Russian peasant, as unlettered and as uncouth as Rasputin himself, and a personal attendant of his Majesty.

He ushered us into a pretty room, with a long balcony upholstered in pale grey silk, with thick soft carpet to match, an apartment which might have been the boudoir of the Empress herself.

"I am here at Her Imperial Majesty's command," replied the Father, ready for the crowning of the slow and subtle plot which Stürmer had engineered with Kouropatkine. "She desires to speak with me."

Next instant the servant, who no doubt knew of Grichka's wonder-working with his mock miracles, threw himself upon his knees, and craved:

"Oh, our Father, I beseech thee to place thy blessing upon me, and upon my wife and my invalid child. The doctor who came yesterday said that she is suffering from phthisis, and that the case is serious. I beg of thee to cure her."

"Thy name?" he asked quickly, looking straight into his face with those wonderful eyes.

"Aivasoff—Ivan Aivasoff."

"Whence do you come?"

"From Ossa, in the Government of Perm."

"And you are His Majesty's valet, eh?"

"I am one of His Imperial Majesty's valets. He told me that the Tsaritza had commanded you here, and that I was to introduce you and your secretary, Féodor Rajevski."

Rasputin halted, and assuming his most pious demeanour—that same attitude which had attracted Petrograd society—and incidentally extracted hundreds of thousands of roubles from its pockets—crossed his hands, muttered some words, and bestowed his blessing upon the Tsar's body servant.

A minute later the man Aivasoff straightened himself and, pointing to a door on the opposite side of the room, asked:

"Are you both ready? The Tsaritza is awaiting you."

Rasputin, though pretending to be careless of his personal appearance, stroked his long beard, and then announced his readiness to pass into the presence of the Empress.

"You will go first, and bow," said our attendant. "Your secretary will remain within the door with hands crossed before him," he said.

Then with his knuckles he rapped thrice upon the white enamelled door, and, turning the handle of the lock, entered, walking before to announce us.

In front I saw a deep glow of electricity shaded with daffodil silk, a pretty artistic room with high palms, choice cut flowers, and soft luxurious couches upholstered in grey and gold brocade. There sat two ladies, one of whom was in a silk gown of bottle green, which was, no doubt, the latest creation of the Rue de la Paix—the Empress—while the other, who was in elegant black, I afterwards recognised as her bosom friend who had accompanied her to Kazan, Mademoiselle Zéneide Kamensky.

Ivan Aivasoff bowed low as he uttered his stereotyped words of introduction. He was one of those ignorant persons with whom the unscrupulous bureaucrats had surrounded the person of the Tsar. He was an honest, well-meaning fellow from the Urals, who had been selected to pose as a palace official, and to act just as I was acting, as the tool of others; a peasant chosen because he would naturally be less affected by revolutionary and progressive influence.

Aivasoff was, as I afterwards learnt, but one of many peasants in immediate contact with the Emperor and Empress, the other servants being German.

As we bowed before the two ladies they rose smiling, while the Father with raised hands pronounced upon them his blessing in that pious, slightly hoarse, but deeply impressive voice of his. Then, after the Empress had welcomed him he fixed her with that impelling, hypnotic gaze of his, and in pretence of never having met her before, exclaimed:

"O Gracious Lady, I have come here at thy bidding, though I am but a poor and unlettered wanderer, unfamiliar with palaces. My sphere is in the houses of the very poor in order to direct, to advise, and to succour them. Such is God's will."

"Already, Father, we have heard of you," responded the Empress, fascinated by the extraordinary thraldom of his gaze. "Your great charitable works are well known to us, as they are known through the length and breadth of our Empire. It is said by many that you have been sent unto us as saviour of Russia."

"Yes—it is so, by God's Almighty grace," the mock saint said, bowing low at the Empress's words, while Mademoiselle Kamensky exchanged inquiring glances with myself.

That scene was, indeed, a strange one, the dirty, unkempt monk in his faded, ragged habit, greasy at collar and sleeves, his black matted beard sweeping across his chest, and his hair uncombed, standing erect and rather imperious, posing as a Divine messenger, in that luxurious private apartment of the Empress herself.

"It is but right that you, as our spiritual guide, should be in direct touch with the Emperor and myself," she said, without, however, referring to the meeting at Kazan, to which I had certainly expected she would allude. "From our friend Stürmer I have learnt much concerning your good works, Father, and I wish to support them financially, if I may be permitted, just as I did those of Father Gapon."

"Truly I thank thee, O Lady," he replied, bowing low again. "My convent at Pokrovsky is in urgent need of funds."

"Then I shall give orders for you to receive a donation immediately," she said in a low voice, and with that pronounced German accent which always reminded those with whom she came into contact that she was not a true-born Russian. "Stolypin, too, has told me of the wonderful miracle you performed in Warsaw."

I knew of that miracle, an outrageous fraud which had been perpetrated upon an assembly of ignorant peasants by means of a clever conjuring trick in which Rasputin's friend, the chemist Badmayev, and another, had assisted. Stürmer had been laughing heartily over it at Rasputin's house on the previous night.

"God hath given me strength," replied the monk simply, and with much humbleness. "I am His servant, sent by Him unto Russia as her guide and her deliverer. As such I am before thee."

As he stood there with devout piety written upon his sallow, shrunken countenance, he certainly presented a most saintly, picturesque appearance, his attitude being that of a most humble ascetic of the Middle Ages. Saint Francis of Assisi could not have been humbler.

That Her Majesty was much impressed by the crafty charlatan was quite apparent. In that strange jumble of quotations from the Scriptures which he so often used, he declared to her that by Divine command he intended to guide Russia in her forthcoming progress and prosperity, so that she should rise to become the all-powerful nation of Europe.

"It is well, O Lady, that thou hast sent for me," he added. "I am thy most devoted servant. I am entirely in thy hands."

And again crossing his begrimed hands upon his breast he raised his eyes to Heaven, and repeated his blessing in that same jumbled jargon which he used at the weekly séances of the sister-disciples.

"O Father, I sincerely thank you," replied Her Majesty at last. "The Emperor is unfortunately away in Moscow, but when he returns you must again come to us, for I know he will welcome you warmly. We are both striving for the national welfare, and if we receive your goodwill we shall have no fear of failure."

"There are, alas! rumours of plots against the dynasty," said Rasputin. "But, O Lady, I beg of thee to heed these my words and remain calm and secure, for although attempts may be made, desperate perhaps, it is willed that none will be successful. God in His grace is Protector of the House of Romanoff, to whom a son will assuredly soon be born."

Alexandra Feodorovna held her breath at hearing those words. That scene before the shrine of Our Lady of Kazan was, no doubt, still vivid in her mind.

"Are you absolutely confident of that?" she asked him in breathless suspense.

"The truth hath already been revealed unto me. Therefore I know," was his reply. "I know—and I here tell thee, O Lady. The Imperial House will have a son and heir."

That prophecy, duly fulfilled as it was later on, caused the Empress to regard the dissolute "saint" as a "holy" man. In that eventful hour at Tsarskoe-Selo the die was cast. The Empress had fallen irrevocably beneath the spell of the amazing rascal, and the death-knell of the Romanoffs as rulers had been sounded.

When we backed out of the Empress's presence the peasant Ivan, who had introduced us, handed us over to the Tsar's chief valet, an elderly grey-bearded man in the Imperial livery, a man whose name we understood was Tchernoff, and who had been valet of the old Emperor Alexander III.

The Starets left the palace full of extreme satisfaction, and indeed, when an hour later we were alone together in the train returning to Petrograd, he grinned evilly across at me, and said meaningly:

"Alexandra Feodorovna did not forget our meeting at Kazan, though she did not allude to it. Ere long, though she is Empress, I intend that she shall sit at my feet and do my bidding!"

And he chuckled within himself as was his peasant's habit when mightily pleased.

Truly, that meeting with the Tsar's valet Tchernoff was quite as fateful to Russia as the meeting with the neurotic spiritualistic Empress herself.