dle--he thrust it
into the contents of the tin and injected the virus into the meat.

Afterwards, with a small soldering-iron he closed the puncture.

"That tin, infected as it is, is sufficient to cause an epidemic which
might result in thousands of deaths," declared the Hun professor proudly.

His assistant then took a bottle of beef extract, which in Russia is
popular with all classes in preparing their cabbage soup, and refilling
the syringe, plunged the needle through the cork, afterwards placing a
spot of melted resin upon the puncture.

"You see how simple it is!" laughed the professor, addressing the
"saint." "All that now remains is for a firm in Petrograd to buy the
consignment and arrange for it to be sold to wholesale dealers in Vologda
and Nijni. This we expect you to arrange."

"I certainly will," replied Rasputin promptly. "Truly, the idea is a most
ingenious one--a disease which is as yet unknown!"

We remained in Stockholm for four days longer. The professor and his
assistants were working strenuously, we knew, preparing death for the
population of those two Russian towns.

One afternoon, after he had lunched with us at the hotel, he said:

"If our experiment is successful, then we mean to repeat it from South
America to England. It is therefore most important that news of the
epidemic does not reach the ears of the Allies. You will point out that
to the Minister Protopopoff. When the plague breaks out the censorship
must be of the strictest."

Rasputin nodded. He quite understood. He hated the British just as
heartily as did the Tsaritza.

A week later we were back at Tsarskoe-Selo, and the monk--who pretended
to have been on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Tver--made to the Empress a
full report of his journey to Potsdam. He also told her of the diabolical
plot to sweep off the population of Vologda and Nijni as an experiment,
in order to see how Hun "science" could win the war.

Protopopoff came to Rasputin's house half-a-dozen times within the next
three days, and it was arranged that a firm of importers, Illine and
Stroukoff, of Petrograd, should handle the consignment of preserved meat.
Both partners in the firm were in the pay of the Ministry of the
Interior, hence it was not difficult to arrange that the whole cargo
should be sent to Vologda and Nijni to relieve there the growing shortage
of meat.

I strove to combat the clever plot, but was, alas! unable to do so. Every
precaution was