ther
note informed me that the admiral's own car was found to be full of the
wives and children of his old naval officers, that there were no other
cars, but they hoped to be able to get another by 7 P.M. The result was
that we did not turn out of the town station till that hour. We had only
got to the lower station, less than a mile on our journey, when the
officials informed me that something had broken on the admiral's
carriage which would take two hours to repair. I felt there was a
deliberate attempt being made by someone to prevent either the admiral
or myself from performing our journey. At 11 P.M. I walked out to the
workshops where the repairs were being effected, and sat on an anvil
until 4 A.M., through a horrible Siberian night, while a good-tempered
"Russky" blacksmith accomplished his part of the task.

No Russian official would dream of doing a straight thing if a crooked
one would accomplish his purpose. So "Polkovnika" Frank telegraphed in
my name to all the railway section commandants ordering them under pain
of summary execution to clear their part of the line and prepare express
engines at each stopping-place ready to haul on to the admiral's train
the moment it came in. We bribed an old Russian _provodnik_ to get us a
Russian flag to fasten on the admiral's carriage, which he did, and we
became the first Russian train that had dared to carry a Russian flag
for nearly a year. We also had two Union Jacks, and altogether the
Russian officials became suspicious that here at any rate was a
combination of colour to which the greatest respect must be paid.

The result was that we finally started on our journey at 7 A.M. instead
of 7 P.M., just twelve hours late, and arrived at our destination one
hour in front of time. Guards of honour awaited us, and breakfast of a
more or less scanty character. A presentation of bread and salt, on a
fine wooden dish on which the ladies had painted a picture of the old
monastery under whose walls the great Czech national ceremony was to
take place. We marched past the building in which the Tsar Nicholas II
and his family had been imprisoned and from which they were taken to
die. I am anxious not to believe the untold horrors alleged to have been
inflicted on the female members of his family, but they are told
categorically. It is best to believe nothing one hears in Russia, and
what one actually sees is not always what it seems.

We saluted the flag at the Consulate, wh