knout in one hand, began to scourge the bare flesh.

CHAPTER XIX

THE SPIRIT OF MADAME BLAVATSKY

At the hour appointed by the Czar I presented myself at the Winter
Palace to assist at the spiritualist experiments of M. Auguste.

I shall not attempt to describe the impression left by the weird
scene in the Princess Y----'s oratory.

To those who do not know the Slav temperament, with its strange
mixture of sensuality and devotion, of barbarous cruelty and
over-civilized cunning, seldom far removed from the brink of
insanity, the incident I have recorded will appear incredible. I have
narrated it, simply because I have undertaken to narrate everything
bearing on the business in which I was engaged. I am well aware that
truth is stranger than fiction, and I should have little difficulty,
if I were so disposed, in framing a story, full of plausible,
commonplace incidents, which no one could doubt or dispute.

I have preferred to take a bolder course, knowing that although I may
be discredited for a time, yet when historians in the future come to
sift the secret records of the age, I shall be amply vindicated.

I shall only add that I did not linger a moment after the unhappy
woman had begun her penance, if such it was, but withdrew from her
presence and from the house without speaking a word.

The feelings with which I anticipated my encounter with the medium
were very different. Whatever might be my doubts with regard to the
unfortunate Sophia--and I honestly began to think that the suicide of
Menken had affected her brain--I had no doubt whatever that M.
Auguste was a thoroughly unscrupulous man.

The imperial servant to whom I was handed over at the entrance to the
Czar's private apartments conducted me to what I imagine to have been
the boudoir of the Czaritza, or at all events the family sitting
room.

It was comfortably but plainly furnished in the English style, and
was just such a room as one might find in the house of a London
citizen, or a small country squire. I noticed that the wall-paper was
faded, and the hearth-rug really worn out.

The Emperor of All the Russias was not alone. Seated beside him in
front of the English grate was the beautiful young Empress, in whose
society he finds a refuge from his greedy courtiers and often
unscrupulous ministers, and who, I may add, has skilfully and
successfully kept out of any entanglement in politics.

Rising at my entrance, Nicholas II. advanc