named Fournier, had been summoned, having, of course, been
administered palm-oil to the tune of some thousands of roubles to give a
"message from the dead" in the terms required by the wire-pullers in
Potsdam.

I was not present at the seance, but later that night, when Rasputin was
sitting alone with me over a bottle of champagne which an "Araby" flunkey
had brought him, he revealed that the "message" from the Tsar's dead
father had been precise and much to the point.

"Nicholas, I speak unto thee," the spirit had said. "Though thou art
brave and thine armies are brave, yet thine enemies will still encompass
thee. Loss will follow upon loss. The great advance will soon become a
retreat, and the hordes of William will dash forward and Poland will
become German. Yet do not be afraid. Trust in the good counsel of thy
wife Alexandra Feodorovna and in thy Father Rasputin, whom Heaven hath
sent to thee. Believe no evil word of him, and let his enemies be swept
from his path. Such is my message to thee, O my son!"

As Rasputin repeated those words with mock solemnity, he laughed grimly.

The pity of it was that Nicholas, Tsar of All the Russias, believed in
those paid-for messages, uttered by those presented to him as mediums and
able to call up the spirit of his lamented father.

"Poor idiot!" Rasputin remarked, first glancing to see that the door was
closed. "He must have something to occupy his shallow brain. That is why
the Empress arranges the sittings. But Feodor," he added, "I must see
this enemy of mine, Ivan Naglovski. He is not a person to be disregarded,
and it seems from what you told me he has a number of important friends.
We will discuss the matter to-morrow."

He afterwards dismissed me with a wave of his dirty hand, and I retired
to bed in a room at the farther end of the long softly carpeted corridor.

At noon next day we had news of a terrible disaster. Precisely at
half-past eleven the city of Petrograd had been shaken to its foundations
by a terrific explosion, followed by half a dozen others, which shattered
windows and blew down signs and chimneys in all parts of the city. At
first everyone stood aghast as explosion followed explosion. Then it
transpired that the great munition works at Okhta, across the Neva,
opposite the Smolny Monastery, had suddenly blown up, and that hundreds
of workers had been killed and maimed and the whole of the
newly-constructed plant wrecked beyond repair.

I was ju