ere plainly in a hurry,
whatever their business there might be.

The Tzesarevitch, kneeling beside his mother, got up from his knees
with visible difficulty. The Empress also rose, leisurely, supporting
herself by one hand resting on the prie-dieu.

Then several young girls, who had been kneeling behind her at their
devotions, stood up and turned to stare at the oncoming armed men, now
surrounding them.

The officer carrying the naked sword, and reeking with fumes of
brandy, counted these women in a loud, thick voice.

"That's right," he said. "You're all present--one! two! three! four!
five! six!--the whole accursed brood!" pointing waveringly with his
sword from one to another.

Then he laughed stupidly, leering out of his inflamed eyes at the five
women who all wore the garbs of the Sisters of Mercy, their white
coiffes and tabliers contrasting sharply with the sombre habits of the
Russian nuns who had gathered in the candle-lit dusk behind them.

"What do you wish?" demanded the ex-Empress in a fairly steady voice.

"Answer to your names!" retorted the officer brutally. The other
officer came up and began to fumble for a note book in the breast of
his dirty tunic. When he found it he licked the lead of his pencil and
squinted at the ex-Empress out of drunken eyes.

"Alexandra Feodorovna!" he barked in her face. "If you're here, say
so!"

She remained calm, mute, cold as ice.

A soldier behind her suddenly began to shout:

"That's the German woman. That's the friend of the Staretz Novykh!
That's Sascha! Now we've got her, the thing to do is to shoot
her----"

"Mark her present," interrupted the officer in command. "No
ceremony, now. Mark the cub Romanoff present. Mark 'em all--Olga,
Tatyana, Marie, Anastasia!--no matter which is which--they're all
Romanoffs----"

But the same soldier who had interrupted before bawled out again:
"They're not Romanoffs! There are no German Romanoffs. There are no
Romanoffs in Russia since a hundred and fifty years----"

The little Tzesarevitch, Alexis, red with anger, stepped forward to
confront the man, his frail hands fiercely clenched. The officer in
command struck him brutally across the breast with the flat of his
sword, shoved him aside, strode toward the low door of the chapel
crypt and jerked it open.

"Line them up!" he bawled. "We'll settle this Romanoff dispute once
for all! Shove them into line! Hurry up, there!"

But there seemed to be some confusion