Verkhotursky Monastery, and many were the women over whom he
exercised his weird, uncanny fascination.

"Believe in me and you will receive God's blessing," was his constant
blasphemous declaration to every woman whose looks were even passable.
"Doubt me and you will be damned."

By Russia's millions in the provinces he was looked upon as the holy man
sent by God to the Tsar. Did not the "saint" eat at the Emperor's table,
and did he not prompt His Majesty in fighting the Germans? None ever
dreamed that the unkempt miracle-worker, whose fascination for women was
so astounding, was the secret ambassador of the Assassin of Potsdam.

Two of those companions of his nightly drinking bouts at Perm were named
Rouchine and Yepantchine, brawny fellows whose evil life was almost as
notorious as Rasputin's. Rouchine had been a conjurer before he adopted a
"holy" life, and by reason of his knowledge of magic and illusions he
frequently assisted the Starets in performing those "miracles" that so
astounded the mujiks who witnessed them with open mouths.

Whenever things grew a little dull, or Rasputin believed that his
divinity was being doubted, he would calmly announce:

"I have had a vision. Last night the Holy Virgin appeared unto me and
declared that I must again perform a miracle so that the world should be
made aware that God, through me, is protecting our dear nation Russia."

Instantly the news would spread from mouth to mouth--Rasputin's name
being forbidden to be mentioned in the newspapers--that the Starets was
about to perform a miracle, and thousands would assemble in some open
place, where one of Rouchine's conjuring tricks would be performed.

By this time so deeply had Rasputin corrupted the Russian Church in its
centres of power and administration that half the highest ecclesiastical
dignitaries were of his creation, his fellow-thief in Pokrovsky having
been appointed to a bishopric.

Very naturally, Rasputin had made many enemies. His overbearing vanity,
his relentlessness in dealing with any who stood in his path, and the
exposure of his use of _agents-provocateurs_ in securing the conviction
and imprisonment of anyone who displeased him, had aroused against him a
fierce hatred in certain quarters both in Petrograd and Moscow. Many of
those who had sworn to be avenged were wronged husbands and fathers, a
number of whom it had been my duty to endeavour to pacify even at
personal risk to myself as the rascal'