omen, who, seated on forms as
school-children might sit, had assembled to assist at the admission of
Countess Yakimovitch to the secret and disgraceful cult of the
blasphemous charlatan.

The date was September the 7th, 1914.

Russia had been at war with Germany for a month, and the Press of the
Allies was full of cheerful optimism regarding what one of your London
journalists had called "the Russian steam-roller." We in holy Russia
believed in "the mills of God," and the nation as a whole was confident
that it could resist the Teuton invasion.

The neophyte, beneath the extraordinary hypnotism of the "saint," felt
the dirty fingers upon her brow, as, in a strange jargon of religious
phrases and open blasphemy, he pronounced a kind of benediction upon her,
adjuring her carefully to preserve the secrets of the sect "from your own
mother and father, sister, brother, husband and child." Then he added:
"In me, Gregory Rasputin, you see the One sent by Heaven as the Healer
and Deliverer of Russia from the hands of the oppressor. To me the
Emperor, but an earthly king, hath delegated his imperial powers. I am
the saviour of Russia. Believe in me and in my teachings and ye shall
have life, health and prosperity--with the life beyond the grave.
Disobey, and thou shalt be eternally damned, together with all thy
family. I, Gregory Rasputin, who hath been sent to thee as saviour," he
added, "take unto me as sister Paula Vladimirovna to be my disciple!"

"May God forbid!" cried a woman's voice from among those assembled. "Let
us end this blasphemy!"

The effect was almost electrical. Rasputin started, and gazed at the rows
of elegantly-dressed women, his disciples, and the few good-looking young
women whom he had invited to be present.

"Yes," went on a young and pretty woman seated at the back of the little
audience. "I repeat those words!"

Startled myself at the boldness of the young lady, I saw that she was
dark, extremely good-looking, and refined. Rasputin had met her a week
before at the salon of old Countess Lazareff, and she having expressed a
desire to know more of the secret cult of which so many curious rumours
were rife in Petrograd society, he had allowed Madame Trevetski, the wife
of the ex-Commander-in-Chief in the Caucasus, to bring her that
afternoon.

Now, it must be said that no lady was admitted to those weekly reunions
of the sister-disciples unless she first had the full approval of the
Starets. She