econcile themselves
with the existing state of violence and slavery. Thereupon awakened a
last hope--the hope of a drowning man who clutches at a straw: a little
group of heroic and self-sacrificing individuals might accomplish with
their own strength the difficult task of freeing Russia from the yoke
of autocracy. They had to do it themselves, because there was no other
means. But would they be able to accomplish it? For them that question
did not exist. The struggle of that little group against autocracy was
like the heroic means on which a doctor decides when there is no longer
any hope of the patient's recovery. Terrorism was the only means that
remained, and it had the advantage of giving a natural vent to pent-up
feelings, and of seeming a reaction against the cruel persecutions of
the Government. The party called the Narodnaya Volya (National Will)
was accordingly formed, and during several years the world witnessed
a spectacle that had never been seen before in history. The Narodnaya
Volya, insignificant in numbers but strong in spirit, engaged in single
combat with the powerful Russian Government. Neither executions, nor
imprisonment with hard labour, nor ordinary imprisonment and exile,
destroyed the energy of the revolutionists. Under their shots fell,
one after the other, the most zealous and typical representatives of
arbitrary action and violence. . . ."

It was at this time, in 1877, when propaganda and agitation among the
masses were being abandoned for the system of terrorism, but before any
assassinations had taken place, that I accidentally came into personal
relations with some prominent adherents of the revolutionary movement.
One day a young man of sympathetic appearance, whom I did not know and
who brought no credentials, called on me in St. Petersburg and suggested
to me that I might make public through the English Press what he
described as a revolting act of tyranny and cruelty committed by General
Trepof, the Prefect of the city. That official, he said, in visiting
recently one of the prisons, had noticed that a young political prisoner
called Bogolubof did not salute him as he passed, and he had ordered him
to be flogged in consequence. To this I replied that I had no reason to
disbelieve the story, but that I had equally no reason to accept it as
accurate, as it rested solely on the evidence of a person with whom I
was totally unacquainted. My informant took the objection in good part,
and