lake alive.

Rasputin was at that moment occupied by two matters--first, the fierce
antagonism of Vorontsof Dachkof; and secondly, his avariciousness
concerning the concession for gambling at that pretty little town east of
Odessa.

So wide was the monk's influence that, hearing at that moment that the
King of the Hellenes had granted to another British syndicate a
concession to open public gaming-tables in Corfu, Rasputin had already
been to Stuermer, the President of the Council, and contrived to have
diplomatic pressure brought through Prince Demidoff, Russian Minister at
Athens, to bear upon the King to cancel the concession as opposed to
public morals! This view Rasputin contrived to have supported by the
Wilhelmstrasse, because the Kaiser had his spring palace in the vicinity,
and, with his mock piety, he discountenanced any Temple of Fortune. The
result was that the Corfu casino was prohibited.

Thus the Otchakov scheme was the only one in Europe. San Sebastian was
declared by the monk to be only on a par with Ostend, and Otchakov was to
be the great rival of Monte Carlo, with more varied and added
attractions.

In that room, while he was hearing me through, Protopopoff, who had been
making a report to the Emperor, joined us, and listened to what I had to
say.

"I was looking at Yakowleff's _dossier_ to-day, as you wished," remarked
the Minister to the monk. "He seems a very honest, clean-living man for a
financier. There are no suspicions of disloyalty, or even of anything."

"Then they must be made," declared Rasputin. "I intend to hold that
concession. He would never have had it had it not been for Dachkof. But
the latter is already out of favour. The Emperor has promised me to
dismiss him to-morrow. His Majesty prefers cheerful people, not men who
are pessimists," he laughed.

Indeed, next day the count, who was one of the most loyal and devoted
servants of the Romanoffs, and who had risked everything in an attempt to
open the Emperor's eyes, was actually dismissed. Such was the power of
Rasputin.

But the plot against Yakowleff to dispossess him of the concession for
Otchakov was a much more deeply-laid and evil one. The financier had
returned to Petrograd, flushed with his success with his moneyed friends
in London. Already news had gone round that a wonderful casino was to be
built to eclipse Monte Carlo, and he had given an interview to the
_Novoye Vremya_ concerning it.

One afternoon, while