tuermer, 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 wa