rate the plot, so that the purpose of waiting until the
czar and his son might be slain together was abandoned. It was not known
which street the czar would take. If he took the one, the mine was to be
exploded; if the other, the bombs were to be thrown.

Two men, Resikoff and Elnikoff, the latter a young man completely under
Sophia's influence, were to throw the bombs. She took a position from
which she might signal the approach of the carriage. As it proved, the
Catharine Canal route was taken. The carriage approached. Everything
wore its usual aspect. There was nothing to excite suspicion. Suddenly a
dark object was hurled from the sidewalk through the air and a
tremendous report was heard. Resikoff had flung his bomb. A baker's boy
and the Cossack footman of the czar were instantly killed, but the
intended victim was unhurt and the horses were only slightly wounded.
The coachman, who had escaped injury, wished to drive onward at speed
out of the quickly gathering crowd, but Alexander, who had seen his
footman fall, insisted on getting out of the carriage to assist him. It
was a fatal resolve. As his feet touched the ground, Elnikoff flung his
bomb. It exploded at the feet of the czar with such force as to throw
men many yards distant to the ground, but proved fatal to only two,
Elnikoff, who was instantly killed, and Alexander, who was mortally
wounded, his lower limbs and the lower part of his body being
frightfully shattered. He survived for a few hours in dreadful pain.

Terrible as was the crime, it was worse than useless. The proposed
rising did not take place. A new czar immediately succeeded the dead
one. The hoped-for constitution perished with him upon whom it depended.
The Nihilists, instead of gaining liberal institutions, had set back the
clock of reform for a generation, and perhaps much longer. Of the
conspirators, one of the men was killed, one shot himself, and two
escaped; the other four were executed. Of the women, Sophia was
executed. She knew too much, and those who had betrayed to her the
secrets of the court, fearing that she might implicate them, privately
urged the new czar to sign her death-warrant. She held her peace, and
died without a word.

_THE ADVANCE OF RUSSIA IN ASIA._

The Emperor of Russia, lord of his people, absolute autocrat over some
one hundred and twenty-five millions of the human race, to-day stands
master not only of half the soil of Europe but of more than a thi