the Tsar, are deep beneath the lake's surface, so that they
can--when it is willed by the Governor or those higher Ministers who
express their devilish desire--be flooded at will.

Hundreds of terrified, yet innocent and nameless victims of Russia's
mediaeval barbarism, persons of both sexes--alas! that I should speak so
of my own country--have, during the past ten years of enlightenment,
stood in their narrow dimly-lit oubliette and watched in horror the black
tide trickle through the rat holes in the stone floor, slowly, ever
slowly, until water has filled the cell to the arched stone roof and
drowned them as rats in a trap.

And all that has been done by the accursed German wirepullers in the name
of the puny puppet who was Tsar, and from whom the truth was, they said,
ever carefully hidden.

The Kazan police treated me just as inhumanly as I expected. By my own
experience as an official in the Department of Political Police, and
knowing what I did in consequence, I was expecting all this.

Four days I spent in that gloomy, but not very uncomfortable cell in
Kazan, when, on the fifth morning, I was taken, handcuffed to another
prisoner who I found afterwards had murdered his wife, to the Volga
steamer which, after twelve hours of close confinement, landed us at
Nijni.

A hundred times I debated within myself whether it were best to remain
silent, and not reveal my past career in the Department of Political
Police, or to state the absolute facts and struggle by that means to
obtain a hearing and escape.

One fact was patent. General Kouropatkine and Boris Stuermer both trusted
in my silence, while the rascal monk had found in me a catspaw who had
remained dumb. In truth, however, my secret intention was to watch the
progress of events. Of the latter, Rasputin had, of course, no suspicion.
If I were--as I had already proved myself--his willing assistant, then he
and his friends might endeavour to save me.

Such were my thoughts as I sat in the train between two police agents on
the interminable journey from Nijni to the capital.

On arrival at the Nicholas Station the murderer to whom I was manacled
and myself were shown no consideration. We had been without food for
twelve hours, yet the three men in charge, though they ate a hearty meal
in the buffet, gave us not a drink of water. Humanity is not in the
vocabulary of our police of Russia when dealing with political suspects,
so many of whom are entirely inno