selves."

"Ask if it is Madame Blavatsky," said the Czar.

We learned that the apostle of theosophy was indeed present.

"Would you like to hear from any other spirits?" M. Auguste asked the
company.

"I should be glad of a word with Bismarck," I suggested.

In five minutes the Iron Chancellor announced himself. His rap was
sharp, quick and decided, quite a characteristic rap.

"Ask if he approves of the present policy of the German Emperor?"

A hearty rap. Evidently the spirit had greatly changed its views in
the other world.

"Ask if he remembers telling me, the last time I saw him, that Russia
was smothering Germany in bed?"

"Do you refuse to answer that question?" M. Auguste put in adroitly.

An expressive rap.

"Will you answer any other questions from this gentleman?"

Then the spirit of Bismarck spoke out. It denounced me as a worker of
evil, a source of strife, and particularly as one who was acting
injuriously to the Russian Empire. I confess M. Auguste scored.

"In his lifetime he would have said all that, if he had thought I was
working in the interest of Russia and against Germany," I remarked in
my own defence.

The spirit of the Iron Chancellor was dismissed, and that of Madame
Blavatsky recalled.

It was evident that the Czar placed particular confidence in his late
subject. Indeed, if the issues at stake had been less serious, I
think I should have made an attempt to shake the Emperor's blind
faith in the performances of M. Auguste.

But my sole object was to read, if I could, the secret plans and
intentions of a very different imperial character, whose agent I
believed the spirit to be.

M. Auguste, I quickly discovered, was distracted between fear of
offending Nicholas by too much reserve, and dread of enabling me to
see his game. In the end the Czar's persistence triumphed, and we
obtained something like a revelation.

"Tell us what you can see, that it concerns the Emperor to know," M.
Auguste had adjured his familiar.

"I see"--the reply was rapped out with irritating slowness--I quite
longed for a slate--"an English dockyard. The workmen are secretly at
work by night, with muffled hammers. They are building a torpedo
boat. It is to the order of the Japanese Government. The English
police have received secret instructions from the Minister of the
Interior not to interfere."

"Minister of the Interior" was a blunder. With my knowledge of
English politics I am able to say t