threats; no retreat, save the wild jungle or the mountains,
offered any liberation from the immodest glare of cruel, licentious
eyes. (See Part II: Tobolsk.)

The eldest of the girls was scarcely twenty-two. Like her mother, she
was erect and stately and somewhat saddened by the hostile experiences
through which the family had just passed. The youngest was a chummy
little creature of sixteen years who did not conceal her admiration
for her next elder sister, whose courage seemed unfailing through
all the trying hours. The next eldest sister, with her little younger
brother, was openly planning to outwit the guard and escape to
the Siberian wilds. It was doubtless her undisguised activity that
ultimately betrayed the Royal prisoners into the unhappy tangle that
beset their future lives.

From one camp to another they were carted off like cattle and never
for a moment permitted to forget that, if they ever reached a place of
safety, they would have to pay the price. Along the frozen pathway
of their weary eastern journey there did come, here and there, some
slender little byways that offered an escape. Whenever they approached
these places and estimated the perils, they found no one to confide
in--there were none that they could trust. Treason, like a contagion,
lurked in smiles as well as scowls about them, and even their
steadfast trust in the Invisible Diplomacy of European Royalty was
gradually yielding in their hearts to the dissolving acid of despair.
(See Part II: Tobolsk.)

From the conflicting rumors that reached them they fully realized that
it was the politician in all countries who ignorantly obstructed their
relief. The ferocious and misleading propaganda employed to fanaticize
the populace as an element of military strategy seemed to sweep its
own authors from their feet and drag the prisoners through many months
of torture toward a time and place set for their execution by other
politicians in the drunken stupor of their power. (See Part II:
Tobolsk.)

Under the agitated surface of this tidal wave of fanaticism that
threatened to engulf the Royal prisoners there were a few men in
Europe and America, as well as in India and Thibet, who were slowly
converging in the direction of the victims with a _phrase upon their
lips_ that none but Royalty and themselves were privileged to use. It
was that ancient secret code transmitted by tradition to the followers
of a sturdy Tyrian king. It was made use of by Lyc