epresents a neutral Power, and
he says distinctly that we are entitled to declare anything we
please contraband, and to seize English ships--I mean, ships of
neutrals--anywhere, even in the English Channel itself, and sink them
if it is inconvenient to bring them into a Russian port."

The insidious character of this advice was so glaring that I wondered
how the unfortunate young monarch could be deceived by it.

But I saw that comment would be useless just then. I must seek some
other means of opening his eyes to the pitfalls which were being
prepared for him.

I came from the Palace with a heavy heart. The next day, Petersburg
was startled by the publication of a ukase recalling Vice-Admiral
Stark and Rear-Admiral Molas, his second in command, from the
Pacific.

Immediately on hearing this news I sent a telegram in cipher to Lord
Bedale. For obvious reasons I never take copies of my secret
correspondence, but to the best of my recollection the wire ran as
follows:

Germany instigating Russian Navy to raid your shipping on
the pretext of contraband. Object to provoke reprisals
leading to war.

As the reader is aware, this warning succeeded in defeating the
Kaiser's main design, the British Government steadily refusing to be
provoked.

Unfortunately this attitude of theirs played into German hands in
another way, as English shippers were practically obliged to refuse
goods for the Far East, and this important and lucrative trade passed
to Hamburg, to the serious injury of the British ports.

But before this development had been reached, I found myself on the
track of a far more deadly and dangerous intrigue, one which is
destined to live in history as the most audacious plot ever devised
by one great Power against another with which it proposed to be on
terms of perfect friendship.

CHAPTER XVI

A STRANGE CONFESSION

I had last seen the strange, beautiful, wicked woman known as the
Princess Y---- bending in a passion of hysterical remorse over the
body of the man she had driven to death, on the snow-clad train
outside Mukden.

I have had some experience of women, and especially of the class
which mixes in the secret politics of the European Courts. But Sophia
Y---- was an enigma to me. There was nothing about her which
suggested the adventuress. And there was much which tended to support
the story which had won the belief of her august mistress--that she
was an involuntary ag