he could communicate direct with
Potsdam. Indeed, so many people believed this that, after the Tsar's
abdication, every nook, corner and garret of Tsarskoe-Selo was searched,
but without success. Stuermer, Fredericks, Protopopoff, the poison-monger
Badmayev, Anna Vyrubova, and half-a-dozen others, who formed the dark and
sinister forces that were rapidly hurling Russia to her doom, were that
day as anxious and terrified as the Empress herself. Well they knew that
if Miliukoff, armed with those incriminating documents--the exact nature
of which they knew not--spoke the truth in the Legislature, then a storm
of indignation would sweep over them in such a manner that they could
never withstand it.

Rasputin, thus summoned, went at once to the palace, and I accompanied
him. He proceeded straight to the Emperor's private room, while I waited
in a room adjoining.

I heard their voices raised. The Emperor's was raised in protest; that of
the monk in angry threats.

"If thou wilt not postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine
own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary
deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the
nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I
shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day
of Russia's doom will dawn."

"The people are clamouring for the reopening of the Duma," replied the
Emperor weakly. "I can do nothing else but submit."

"I have had a vision," declared the monk. "Last night there was revealed
unto me the dire result of thy folly. I saw thee, the victim of thy
nation's anger, dethroned, degraded and imprisoned."

But even that lie failed to induce the Tsar to alter his decision, and
naturally so, for he was afraid of the dark cloud which he saw rising,
and which he believed to be due to the long adjournment of the Duma.
Hence he was afraid to take the monk's advice.

Again I heard both men's voices raised in hot argument.

"I am Emperor!" cried the Tsar at last, angrily, in a high, shrill tone,
"and I refuse to be thus dictated to!"

Next second there was a loud crash of glass, and I heard Rasputin shout:

"Thou refuseth to listen to good counsel! As I have smashed that bowl, so
will the people, I tell thee, rise and smash the House of Romanoff!"

With those words he turned, and a moment later rejoined me, his face
flushed with anger, and his knotted fingers clenched.

H