Those words of the father of the Tsar Nicholas will be found reproduced in the columns of _The Times_ after my joining as "Russian Correspondent."

But let us examine the result of the secret order to Rasputin from Berlin which I have reproduced above.

In the first place I find among the papers, a letter dated from the Potemkinskaya, 29, as follows:

"Holy Father,--I thank you for your introduction yesterday to Her Majesty the Empress, and to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Olga. Truly we are all your kindred spirits and disciples, who know at last the joys and pleasures of the life which Almighty G.o.d has given unto us. Anna was most charming, and I saw His Majesty as arranged. At your suggestion I mentioned the Gospodin Sievers, and the Emperor has promised to appoint him Vice-Governor of Omsk. All thanks to you, dear Holy Father. I shall be at our reunion at your house to-morrow, and my daughter Nada, who is in search of the Truth, will accompany me. Till then, I kiss your dear hand.--Vera Kokoskin."

This letter speaks for itself. Another doc.u.ment is a letter to Rasputin dated from the Hotel Metropole, Moscow, and is in plain language as follows:

"The consignment of fruit from your generous donors has duly reached the Maison Yakowleff and is being distributed in various charitable quarters and is much appreciated in these days when prices are so high. Some of it has been sent to the director of the Borgoroditsky Convent at Kazan, and also some to the Society of St George at Kiev. Please inform and thank the donors.--Karl Johnke."

Eagerly the camarilla awaited the result of their dastardly handiwork.

The allotted three weeks pa.s.sed, but no epidemic was reported.

Evidently the monk wrote to the German bacteriologist, who was posing as a Dane, for the latter wrote from the Hotel Continental at Kiev:

"The fruit, owing to delays in transit, was not in a condition for human consumption. This is extremely regrettable after all the trouble of our kind donors."

Therefore, while certain isolated cases of cholera were reported from several cities--as the sanitary records prove--Russia had had indeed a providential escape from a terrible epidemic, the infected fruit being distributed over a wide area by charitable organisations quite unsuspicious of its source.

Failure to produce the desired result induced Rasputin and his paymasters in Berlin to adopt yet another method of forcing Russia into a separate peace.

Brusiloff had recommenced his gallant offensive, and the situation was being viewed with increased apprehension by the German General Staff.

Roumania was still undecided whether or not to throw in her cause with that of the Allies. The great plot to destroy Roumania is again revealed by doc.u.mentary evidence contained among Rasputin's papers, and also in the despatches received in Bucharest--where, of course, the clever intrigue was never suspected.

A message in cipher received by Rasputin, on August 8th, the day of General Letchitzki's great triumph, reveals a truly Machiavellian plan.

It reads thus:

"Memorandum 27546.112.

"Matters in the Dobroudja are approaching a serious crisis. Urge S.

(Boris Sturmer, the Prime Minister) to suggest at once to the Emperor, while at the same time you make a similar suggestion to Her Majesty, that Roumania must be forced to take up arms against us. She must not be allowed to remain neutral any longer. S. must send a despatch to Bucharest so worded that it is our ultimatum. If she does not join the Allies immediately she must fight against Russia."

Accordingly, three days later, after the Holy Father and his unholy fellow-conspirator had had audiences at Tsarskoe-Selo, Sturmer sent an urgent despatch to the Roumanian Government demanding that it should join the Allies, without further delay. At Bucharest no plot was suspected, and indeed on the face of things, it seemed no unusual request. Even people in Great Britain were daily asking each other "When will Roumania come in it?"

The reason she had not joined was because she was not yet prepared.

Germany knew that and with Rasputin's aid had laid a plot to invade her.

She was, while still unready, forced into the war by Sturmer. Nineteen days after the despatch of that cipher message from Berlin she formally declared hostilities against Austria-Hungary.

Berlin was delighted, and the sinister "dark force" of Russia rubbed his dirty hands with delight. The plot he saw must succeed. Truly it was a vile and devilish one, which not even the shrewdest diplomat suspected, namely, to deliver Roumania and her resources of grain and oil to the enemy. As an outcome of the conspiracy the Russo-Roumanian army, owing to treachery in the latter, at once retreated under pressure from Mackensen's forces, and very quickly, almost before the Allies were aware of it, Roumania and the Constanza railway were in the enemy's hands. Disaster, engineered by the camarilla, followed disaster after that "Now or never" ultimatum of Sturmer's. The promises made to the brave Roumanians were broken one after the other. Why? Because with Rasputin, Protopopoff and certain Generals suborned by the mock-monk, the Prime Minister's intention was to use the great retreat and the rapid absorption of Roumania as a means to force the Tsar and his Empire into a separate peace.

Indeed, Rasputin--in attendance daily at Tsarskoe-Selo--by declaring to the Empress and his sister-disciples at Court that he had been accorded a vision of the Tsar and Kaiser fraternising, and interpreting this as a divine direction that peace should at once be made with Germany, had very nearly induced His Majesty to sign a declaration of peace, when one man in the Empire discovered the dastardly manoeuvre, the Deputy Gospodin Miliukoff, whose actions I will describe in a further chapter.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE MOCK-MONK UNMASKED.

Doc.u.mentary evidence contained in the papers which the monk so carefully preserved shows conclusively that he paid a secret visit to Berlin in the first week of October, 1916. While the brave Russian army were fighting valiantly, ever and anon being betrayed by their leaders, treachery of the worst and vilest sort was afoot in the highest quarters.

That German potentate, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who occupied an important position in the entourage of the Tsar, was acting as counsellor to the Tsaritza, and at the same time, aided actively by the woman Vyrubova, was working to delude the Emperor and defeat his gallant armies. At Russian Field Headquarters the Tsar was cheered everywhere, and his officers were enthusiastic. It was known that the German offensive had spent itself, and it was believed by those who were being bamboozled that, when all was ready, Russia would press on to her well-deserved victory.

But the day of Russia's great offensive never arrived. Great Britain and France were supplying her with guns and munitions conveyed up to Alexandrovsk with much difficulty, and the Allies were daily hoping that the "Russian steam-roller" would once again start upon its westward course. London, Paris and Rome were in ignorance of the amazing plot of the pro-German traitors.

Meanwhile the mock-monk, in the garb of a Dutch pastor, had arrived in Berlin to make arrangements with the enemy for Russia's final conquest.

By the scoundrel's fatal weakness for preserving letters addressed to him, in the hope that when he fell out of favour at Court he might use them for blackmailing purposes--for after all this "holy" man had started life as a common thief--we have again evidence of his treachery in the following letter dated from Tsarskoe-Selo, October 18th, the day following the Allied landing in Athens. Addressed to Rasputin, it is in German, in the fine handwriting of the Tsaritza, and reads as follows:

"Holy Father,--At last we have welcome news of you! This morning your messenger reached us bringing me a letter, and one for Anna. What you tell us is indeed good news. We are glad that you have seen William (the Emperor), and that he has been so gracious to you. Your news regarding the forthcoming offensive against the British is most encouraging. The British are Germany's real enemies. Tell His Majesty that all goes well, and that Sturmer quite agrees that we must have a separate peace and is taking every step towards that end.

"Nikki is still at the front encouraging the troops. How foolish, and yet we have all to show a bold front. The news of the landing at Athens has disconcerted us, though it has caused great joy in Petrograd.

Inquire if nothing can be done further in an attempt to spread disease in the more populous regions. This would kill enthusiasm for the war and force peace quickly.

"Dmitri (the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch, who was Rasputin's fiercest enemy) has been sent by Nikki to Samara. It would be a relief to us all if he never returned. He with Nicholas (the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch) are plotting to defeat us. But Germany shall win. It shall be as you, my dear Father, saw in your vision.

"Pray for us, O Father. Give us your benediction, for while you are absent we are all dull and lonely. Tell William to send you back quickly and safely to us. Give my best greetings to the brave Hindenburg. It is horrid to be compelled to sustain an anti-German att.i.tude when one knows that our Fatherland is unconquerable, even though the Russian flag be bathed in blood.

"Inform the General Staff that the secret agent Erbach-Furstenau, who fell into General Neudorff's hands last month has at my instigation been acquitted by the court-martial and will very shortly escape back to Germany. I have personally arranged that the papers seized upon him shall be destroyed.

"Charges are being levelled against General Sukhomlinoff. He has been betrayed by a man named Kartzoff. In order to suppress the latter's further activity, he has been arrested for treason at my instigation and sent without trial to an unknown destination. So we have one enemy the less. It is reported that Manasevitch-Manuiloff (private secretary to Prime Minister Sturmer) has been arrested for attempting to blackmail his chief. But I will see that Nikki stops the trial.

"My dear boy Alexis is improving. Anna is with him constantly. He sends his greetings and asks for your prayers. I kiss your holy hand.

Your sister Alec."

Russia was still being betrayed by the Empress, who had fallen so entirely beneath the occult influences of the rascal who, in turn, had become the catspaw of the Kaiser.

The charges against General Sukhomlinoff, ex-Minister of War, mentioned by the Tsaritza, had apparently alarmed her. And well they might. An official in the ministry named Kartzoff had betrayed his chief, whereupon Colonel Tugen Baranovsky, late Chief of the Mobilisation Department of the Russian General Staff, had made depositions to the effect that the mobilisation plans drafted by the General were full of errors, while rifles, machine-guns, and field and heavy guns were all lacking. Depositions had been made by General Petrovsky, late Chief of the Fortifications Department, to the effect that the General had only twice visited the artillery administration during the whole time he held his portfolio as Minister, while a third official, Colonel Batvinkine, one of the heads of the Artillery Administration, had a.s.serted that General Sukhomlinoff had insisted upon important contracts for machine-guns being given to the Rickerts Factory at a cost of two thousand roubles each while the Toula Factory could turn out excellent machine-guns at nine hundred roubles.

Such were a few of the charges against the ex-Minister, a bosom friend of Rasputin and of Sturmer, and these were being whispered abroad everywhere, even though by the influence of the Tsaritza the princ.i.p.al witness against the General had been sent to "an unknown destination!"

Written on the same day and conveyed secretly to the monk in Berlin-- evidently by the same messenger who carried the Tsaritza's letter to her "Holy Father"--was one from the conspirator Protopopoff. It is on the private note-paper of the Minister of the Interior and discloses truly an amazing state of affairs, as follows:

"Brother Gregory,--I send you this hastily and with some apprehension.

Both Nicholas and Dmitri (the Grand Dukes), are actively at work against us! Beware! They know far too much, hence it behoves us to be most discreet. I was at Tsarskoe-Selo yesterday and discussed it with F.

(Count Fredericks, Minister of the Imperial Court). There is a secret movement to upset our plans, but I have ordered the Secret Police to spare no pains to present full and adequate reports to me, and rely on me to take drastic steps.

"An hour ago it came to my knowledge that an individual named Wilhelm Gebhardt, living at Hildegard-stra.s.se, 21 Wilmersdorf, Berlin, has knowledge that you are in the German capital and is probably watching your movements to report to our enemies here. Give news of this to our friend `Number 70' and urge that he shall be immediately arrested as a spy of Russia. If he is executed his mouth would be closed, for he is dangerous. The man with whom he is in a.s.sociation in Petrograd, a person named Tchartovyski, member of the Duma, I have ordered to be arrested and charged with communicating with persons in Germany.

"S. (Sturmer) is eager for news regarding the proposed German offensive against the British in Flanders, and the exact position regarding the `U' boat campaign. Inform the Chancellor that news we received from Washington to-day shows that President Wilson is determined, and warn him that J. and G., whom he will know by initials as German agents in the United States, have been discovered, and may be arrested. He may perhaps communicate with them by wireless, and they may escape while there is still time.

"Further, inform the Chancellor that our efforts to make more marked the shortage of food have been negatived by the action of Nicholas and Dmitri, for we fear to go further lest the truth be disclosed. Their activity cannot be ignored.

"Urge that the distribution of fruit to charitable inst.i.tutions be repeated.

"The charges against Sukhomlinoff are extremely grave, and may have serious consequences. I am, however, taking steps to ascertain the intentions and to arrest those who are in a.s.sociation.

"Her Majesty is eager and nervous regarding you. Write and a.s.sure her that all is well with your dear self. As the saviour of Russia from the wiles of the Allies, the Russian people ought to regard you as great as the Great Peter himself.

"A tall, thin individual named Emil Dollen will probably call upon you at your hotel. If so, receive him. He may convey a message from me sent by wireless to Riga and re-transmitted.