onsequences. So far as we could ascertain, the whole of the
crew had perished.

I confess that their fate did not cost me any very great pang, after
the first natural shock of horror had passed. They owed their death
to their own lack of courage, which had caused them to take refuge in
the lowest part of the ship, where the full force of the explosion
came. The captain and I, thanks to our position on the bridge, had
escaped with a comparatively mild shaking.

The steersman would have escaped also, in all probability, had he
been sober.

In a very short time after the captain had joined me, our eyes were
gladdened by the sight of a launch issuing from the fort to our
assistance.

The officer in charge had thoughtfully provided blankets and a flask
of wine. Thus comforted, I was not long in fully recovering my
strength, and by the time the launch had set us on shore my comrade
in misfortune was also able to walk without difficulty.

The lieutenant who had picked us up showed the greatest consideration
on learning that we had been blown up in an attempt to run a cargo of
coal for the benefit of the Russian fleet. On landing we were taken
before Admiral Makharoff, the brave man whom fate had marked out to
perish two months later by a closely similar catastrophe.

The story which I told to the Admiral was very nearly true, though of
course I suppressed the incidents which had taken place in Tokio.

I said that I had been charged to deliver a private communication
from the Czar to the Mikado, sent in the hope of averting war, that I
had arrived too late, and that, having to make my way back to
Petersburg, I had meant to do a stroke of business on the way on
behalf of his excellency.

My inspector's uniform, which I had resumed on leaving Yokohama,
confirmed my words, and Admiral Makharoff, after thanking me on
behalf of the navy for my zeal, dismissed me with a present of a
thousand rubles, and a permit to travel inland from Port Arthur.

Needless to say I did not forget to say good-by to my brave
Englishman, to whom I handed over the Russian Admiral's reward, thus
doubling the amount I had promised him for his plucky stand against
the mutineers.

I have hurried over these transactions, interesting as they were, in
order to come to the great struggle which lay before me in the
capital of Russia.

CHAPTER XV

THE ADVISER OF NICHOLAS II

By the second week in March I was back in Petersburg.

On the