noted physicians in Europe.

Badmayev, a small, ferret-eyed man, his features of Tartar cast, came and
dined with us, after which Rasputin signed a cheque for twenty-eight
thousand roubles, a sum to which "the doctor" was entitled under an
agreement. Well did I know that the sum in question was payment for his
active assistance in supplying certain drugs of which the monk in turn
declared that he himself held the formula. The drugs--which he pretended
to be the secret of the priests of Tibet--were those which he doled out
in small quantities to his sister-disciples, and which produced
insensibility to physical pain, drugs which were so baneful and
pernicious that the monk always warned me against them, and never took
any himself.

After dinner, at which they both drank deeply of champagne, the monk and
his friend went out to spend the evening at a low-class variety theatre,
while I was left alone until midnight.

In consequence I visited some friends in the Ivanovskaya, and returned to
Rasputin's at about a quarter-past twelve. Twenty minutes later he
returned in a hopeless state of intoxication; therefore I did not speak
to him till next morning.

Such was the fellow's vitality that he was up before six o'clock. At
seven he went out, and returned about nine, when he called me to his den.

"Feodor," he said, "I wish you to leave to-day for Vilna, and go to the
Palace Hotel there. Remain until a friend of ours named Heckel calls upon
you."

"Who is Heckel?" I asked, surprised at being sent upon such a long
journey in that sudden manner.

"A friend of Hardt and myself. Do not be inquisitive--only obey. When
Heckel calls please give him this letter," and he handed me a rather
thick letter in an official cartridge envelope of the Imperial Ministry
of Foreign Affairs. "Heckel will tell you that he is from 'Father
Gregory.' He is tall, fair, and rather slim--a German, as you may guess
from his name. Your train leaves at two-forty this afternoon. Be careful
of that letter and to whom you deliver it in secret. Heckel, after
finding you at the hotel, will produce an English five-pound note and
show it to you. That will be his passport. If he does not do so, then do
not give him the letter."

That afternoon I left for Vilna by the Warsaw express, and after a long
journey through the endless pines and silver birches duly arrived at the
hotel indicated, and there awaited my visitor. He arrived next day, a
fair-haired, sl