"... I knew better than to object.... That man is a cutthroat beyond redemption and will hesitate at nothing to satisfy his lust....

That'll be _fine_,' I rejoined; 'YOU STAY WITH ME; the rest of the men are dismissed!'... when the men disappeared I made a run and jump at my diabolical 'comrade' and struck him squarely on the nose. Then I smashed him on the mouth, and, with a down drive of my left, I bored into the pit of his stomach and sent him sprawling on the carpet, where he BLED as profusely as a corn-fed bull.... This blood was exactly what I wanted, and in my anxiety to make a good job of it I kicked him several times in the face until he lay there, motionless and senseless, bleeding from every gash.... In the joy of giving this remorseless bully what he needed to overcome his pride I OVERLOOKED ENTIRELY THE PROPRIETY OF MAKING HIM BLEED IN ALL THE OTHER ROOMS....

This little oversight may cost me a well-earned reputation for efficient management I have hitherto enjoyed among many great men of our times, if the omission be detected by some enterprising commission, some journalist or SERVICE man who will certainly check up my report if I leave this place alive...."

25. This entry follows:

"It was a long wait till midnight when the mob outside expected to be invited to a division of the spoils.... but my plans were taking shape gradually as the moments slipped away.... In this isolated, though nicely furnished and elegant two-story dwelling, I got closer to the heart of my celebrated prisoner and his family than any other man alive.... In the few hours left to us before the time set for their 'execution'--in these evening shadows of July, 1918,--we have been discussing the effect of THEIR SACRIFICE upon the history of the world.... I put this down from memory:

"'It is understood already in certain chancellories,' my prisoner significantly replied, 'how my execution will be publicly accounted for.... Each Ministry will appoint a Commission, suggested by the Crown, to investigate and publish its own report.... The report published will be given out under the name of a Naval or Military Commission to impart an official sanction to the supposed inquiry and support the authenticity of the document agreed upon.... Naturally these prearranged reports will vary so as to satisfy the state of mind in each particular country.'... 'If regicides are so easily arranged,' I observed cautiously, 'perhaps the duration of this "Revolution" is also definitely determined?'... There'll be a period of revolution and distress,' my prisoner remarked, 'before our country settles down to industry and contentment. But the desire of "self-determination" will mislead the unfortunate and cause them to embrace a tyranny of the most cruel and selfish type. This will last for a time until gluttony destroys itself, as all excesses do. When the country is dismembered by the activities of rival greeds, my poor and honest peasants will turn upon their masters and restore this nation's power. They need but education to accomplish glorious results. They will obtain this education while they suffer and evolve a science of self-government while learning to govern themselves.

It may seem strange to others when I say so; but not one of my whole family is covetous of the Imperial Crown. We prefer peace and liberty to all the pomp and penalties of Royal isolation from the rest of men and women in the world. Royalty means SLAVERY of the most humiliating form. The boy or girl that is doomed to Royal birth steps into a prison with the first breath he breathes.... Take my own case; I longed to get out and play rough-and-tumble with the boys I saw staring at me in the streets. But I was taught by my English tutor, Heath, that it would be lowering my dignity to associate with those fine young boys. My "dignity" was placed in a strait-jacket and, in a namby-pamby way, I was taught to play ALONE. I had cousins scattered over Europe who took their lot more happily than I; but even they regretted the mocking barriers that laid down a barrage between us and the more fortunate chaps outside,--outside, they enjoyed FREEDOM,--within, we were ALL prisoners in our little cells of etiquette and traditionary bondage. At fifteen I was dragged away to the Military Academy at Petrograd[A] and made to listen to old Danilovich until I actually hated the very name of war. I resolved at that time to inaugurate some means to get rid of such senseless waste of life if intrusted with the power. The Hague was my interpretation of what should constitute a proper exercise of international obligation. You realize, of course, the precarious state of Russia in a military sense,--while force was indispensable to hold us all together from within, it always exposed our weakness when directed toward external issues. I could not map out my own general education, even; forced by the traditions of my family I was placed in charge of the Holy Synod and taught by Pobedonostzev to regard myself as the source of SPIRITUAL POWER and instructed to regard an unorthodox opinion as a transportation offense. Now, while I reverence profoundly the sacred tenets of my holy religion, I regard religious freedom as indispensable to the dignity of spiritual belief. For that reason I made that reformation in 1905. As I grew up I rebelled against my intolerable confinement,--I went out among the PEOPLE and TALKED WITH THEM. They were friendly in most instances and gave me very good advice. I did not need a bodyguard to go about. I was as safe among the people as I would be in the Winter Palace. Often have I walked to the hotels alone to call on some particular friend without any thought of fear. Nor was it necessary,--I liked the people as genuinely as I believe they respected me. I learned their hunger for land by going around; and it was on that account that I projected and completed our Siberian Railways so as to give our people the coveted opportunity and an outlet to the markets of the world. Given an opportunity to accumulate and prosper, men will hesitate about going to war unless THEY ARE MISLED. I saw such an opportunity in international trade. I visited the Orient, extensively investigating the commercial field in that direction. It was a mighty task, necessitating a reference to others who should have been as much interested in the accomplishment as I was myself. Their mistakes have made me quite unhappy and there has always been CONTENTION between my Ministers and myself. If Witte had kept his hands off when Count Solsky got after the plotting school teachers and rebellious students, the propaganda against my reign which has honeycombed the Empire with sedition might have been checked in time to prevent this dissolution,--for it is more than a "revolution." It is idealism run amuck. France, England, the people of America, have been duped by the intelligentia--the Kadets--who never seemed to realize that in order to hold this Empire together not only FORCE but SUPERSTITION was required,--'_si mundus vult decipi decipiatur_,' it is the only principle that will hold unorganized ignorance in disciplinary subjection to orderly and regulated progress; and without this discipline the ARMY, or the power that holds this incongruous Nation together, will dissolve, as you may now see, while the whole Empire will fly to pieces. My strong Ministers were too physical and myopic to look beyond their noses. They were afraid to seem afraid of _truth_,--and they even accused me of plotting with Kazantsev and Feodorov against the life of my Minister of Finance,--always excuses for fomenting discontent! They never seemed to realize that the HAPPINESS of the PEOPLE meant the SECURITY of the CROWN. As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war.

That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand that I dismiss my best agent, Azeff, who alone kept me advised of the machinations of the Social Revolutionists, who, in turn, accused me of murdering my uncle Sergius--the greatest theologian of the age. As I recall the time, now, I am, of course, convinced that the only _real friend_ I had among those Social Revolutionists was BURTZEV,--but I understood him too late!'... My prisoner spoke regretfully. His voice was soft and courteous, breaking at times into the altisonance of the tragic muse. He does not think that any act of his can be wrong; the mere fact that HE ran counter to accepted standards divests, in his mind, the act itself of turpitude. That seems to be the way he looked upon his former Eastern encrouchments. That's the way he justified his subterranean deals with the KAISER; and he even goes so far as to assert that '_if the Vyborg-Bjorkesund treaty had not been denounced the present war would not have happened_.' He speaks of this a little passionately, scorning the very memory of Count Witte for 'questioning the morality of that arrangement.'

That great Minister my prisoner refers to as '_an uncouth bully who bellowed like a mad bull_.' In this respect it is my impression that the ex-Empress indorses his state of mind. What he likes she will place in the superlative; what he merely hates, _she_ elevates to positive abhorrence. In this way she seems to flatter his decisions, which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her ascendency over his apparently veering mind. I can notice this in so many little things: She oozes delicate flattery and he likes it; she plays upon his _prejudices_, and he seems to have a lot of them submerged beneath his inalienable urbanity and instinctive grace of manner that even this misery and abysmal gloom have not relieved of polish. Beneath it all I get the impression that he is very much in love with every member of his family.... that he would like to be _alone_ with 'Alice,' whom he addresses as 'my darling' and experiences a shell-shock if she stubs her toe. His final words are: 'Now it is ALL OVER and I WILL WELCOME THE OBLIVION that will release us all from the memory of our devoted bondage!'... While my prisoner conversed Alexis assisted his stately mother and his four beautiful sisters while putting on their superannuated wraps.... One by one they filed out the door leading into the open yard.... My prisoner stood up and stretched himself.... He was about to resume his seat when the report of a revolver resounded in our ears.... The brute on the floor, wallowing in his blood, was raised upon his elbows and firing recklessly.... After he had fired six rounds without apparent injury I drew my own revolver and fired deliberately INTO THE WALL.... The fellow slunk back to silence.... My prisoner and I followed the ladies out into the night, _forgetting_ a jewel or two in our leisurely departure.... Out in the open WE DESCENDED into the old abandoned tunnel that formerly led from Ipatievs to the medical office of a foreign consulate a thousand feet away...."

[Footnote A: Nicholas used "Petrograd," not the German nomenclature.]

IX

WHAT IS LEARNED IN A SECRET TUNNEL

26. The next entry is mystifying:

"We are between the devil and the deep sea!... which gives me time to write.... The beastly tunnel has caved in midway in our passage....

It seems, from the roar overhead, that we are somewhere beneath the railroad tracks. Yet there must be a vent somewhere, as there seems to be a draft of air through this passage.... The family are congregated off to the right, in a kind of stoping where the dirt has been removed, leaving a small room like one meets with in the Gogebic iron mines in Wisconsin and Michigan, back in the United States....

Our little electric bull's-eyes come in handy just now.... With my bull's-eye propped up on a sand-encrusted box I am noting down some things that must not be forgotten.... While trying to find a passageway out of this hole in the ground we gyrated back and forth for the last two or three hours until the women became exhausted....

Then my 'prisoner' and I returned to the mouth of the entrance. There we heard a horrible row between the unruly brute we left on the floor and his wild-eyed fellow conspirators.... They accused him of DOUBLE-CROSSING THEM and making away with the treasure that they insisted should be _theirs_!

"... He insisted that there was NO treasure EXCEPT the JEWEL he apparently was exhibiting.... We could hear, quite distinctly, a sullen voice saying: 'I do not believe you; you are trying to steal the whole of it!... We'll give you ten minutes to produce ALL you have hid away, and if you don't do it, we'll fill your body so full of lead that your rotten carcass won't float in the Kolunda.'... The culprit replied: 'Let me explain. You remember that I was suspecting that _interloper_ when I insisted on watching him; well, my suspicions were correct,--he was a TRAITOR to our cause. He was planning to steal away with his precious gang when I covered them with my pistol. Then when I had the drop on them I made them open all of their trunks and boxes.

Nothing was found. I felt sure they were holding out on me, so I took a shot at the kid. The interloper made a dive at me. I knocked him down with that chair there.... then in my rage I emptied my pistol into the hearts of the whole gang.... that's all there's to it.'...

'He's lying!' 'Traitor!' 'Betrayer!' 'Down with the thief!' flew back and forth from one to another above our heads.... Then in a more subdued voice we heard 'Hist! _Silence_! Some one is coming!' A moment later I heard distinctly the unmistakable growl of my hero of Gallipoli overhead demanding, 'WHAT HAVE YOU CUTTHROATS DONE WITH OUR PRISONERS?' ... There was a _silence_ that could be felt.... None offered an explanation that I could hear.... 'Why don't you answer?'

thundered Gallipoli.... There was an unmistakable murmur.... 'Don't YOU try to slide out of this, you COWARD! I'll hold _every one_ of you responsible for this! _Where's my lieutenant_?'... He _means_ ME....

"'Out in the yard,' I heard one of them reply.... 'Go and tell him to report here AT ONCE!'... Poor devil! the humor of this whole situation is displayed in the tragic possibilities of criminal greed when crooks fall out!... '_Where are the others_?' my Gallipoli hero demanded.... I heard no answer.... 'DO YOU HEAR ME?'... still no audible answer.... '_Crack!'_.... the report of a revolver, then a scuffling and '_stand back!_ Another move and I'll blow you ALL to HELL,--_line up there!_.... Now I order you to explain the whereabouts of the PRISONERS.'

"... We could hear a voice boasting: 'Did you see that BLOOD in yonder? Well, that is our answer. We were suspicious of that Lieutenant of yours so we took the matter into our own hands.'...

'WHO DID THE KILLING?'... 'The Sergeant.'... 'And what did he DO with the bodies?'... 'Threw them into the well!'... 'The devil!

you'll have to fish them out again!'... Then there was a long silence.... Finally we heard: 'Here, Sergeant!' from HE of Gallipoli; 'when will my lieutenant report?'... 'The Captain said to present his compliments and say that he is temporarily detained.'... My 'prisoner' poked me in the ribs impulsively and smiled.... 'Where are the BODIES?'... 'Burned!' said the Sergeant. 'WHAT?'... 'BURNED UP?... 'Who burned them?'... 'I did, Sir.'... 'Didn't throw them in the well?'... 'No, Sir.'... 'Well, I'll be damned!... FALL IN!

_Unless those prisoners are produced I'll court-martial every one of you_!'

"... We could hear the measured tread of a squad overhead tramping away until the thump, thump, thumping sank into a faint indistinct vibration which was caught up by the beating of our hearts and the throbbing of our fascinated and incredulous ears.... 'Well!'

ejaculated my amused '_prisoner_'; 'It'll be exceedingly interesting to read the future accounts of my double execution. I am sure my family will read it with greater interest than they've ever manifested in any of London's or Gorky's fanciful novels!'... 'I assume that you will not be surprised to learn that you have some mighty good friends in that crowd outside,' I ventured.... 'Oh, not at all,' my prisoner returned, 'and I venture to say that your friend from Gallipoli will find it convenient to contribute to the general misunderstanding and confusion by allowing the suspected executioners to air their conflicting explanations of my disappearance.'

"'_We haven't disappeared yet, my friend!_' I grumbled, as we turned back in the direction of our underground camp.... 'If we had some shovels it would solve the problem; but the way we're fixed it looks like a case of starvation or surrender for the whole of us,--we can't stay down here indefinitely!'... 'Patience, _courage_, my friend,' my 'prisoner' replied whole-heartedly; 'this is the first time in my life I have been absolutely alone, the first moment in our lives we have been positively FREE!'... He took a few swift steps and swung around gracefully, like a figure in a dance.... 'I love the mazurka!' he exclaimed!... 'I'd like to have a real pillow fight again with the children!... We used to have such fun!... It was about the only time my wife would ever smile!... I used to tell her that she reminded me of the sad goddesses that stood on the dull red cornices of my Winter Palace looking coldly into space during any of the Court ceremonies.... Really that was true,--a woman like my wife, in a _manteau de cour,_ a head flaming with the rays of her kokoshnik and supported by that long white veil, DOES resemble an icicle in the Winter Palace!... But when we are _alone_!... the Zaritsa is a motherly MOTHER!... You'll see.... We have always loved simplicity.... This is our chance.... I never did like the late suppers and high life indulged in by some of my relations.... My greatest dissipation was at the Marinsky when we'd sup between acts and go straight home to bed.... Grand Duke Alexis never wanted to go to bed.... After the theatre he was always primed for another party out at the Islands.... Our motto has always been, "Early to bed and early to rise."... Had to.... At work early after breakfast till eleven ... luncheon ... to work again at half past twelve until dinner ... back to work until very late at night.... NOW we are hearing of our misguided _workmen and soldiers_ attempting to run the country on SIX HOURS WORK A DAY!... That would be delightful if they would only devote the remaining hours to recreation and STUDY.'... My 'prisoner' seemed positively _boyish_....

"His voice was in pleasant contrast to the shrill staccato accents I had heard in that gloomy underground room of the Foreign Office at Berlin.... I could see at a glance that his present attitude was not a pose,--his simplicity, like his courage and democracy, was GENUINE....

It explains the reason for his composure at THIS VERY MINUTE when a less courageous man would be excitedly running around in circles and making my life miserable by bemoaning our ill luck.... To show the _morale_ of this family of cave dwellers I'll record this incident: 'Be careful about those electric lamps,' I requested of the ladies.

'If they give out we'll be in darkness.' ... 'Then we'll use our hands and dig ourselves out to daylight!' exclaimed Maria.... 'WHY can't we start doing THAT NOW?' exclaimed Tatiana.... 'Come on!' chorused Alexis and his four sisters as they fell to and are now pawing the dirt away from the embankment that impedes our escape.... I'll have to supervise that work a little, for if these girls continue to pile back the dirt the way they are doing it they may stop up the passage both ways and _bury us all alive_...."

X

ROMANCE IN SIGHT OF DEATH

28. The next page of the diary is badly blurred and torn, but the following can be made out:

"We are all about played out.... The boy is exhausted and lying over in a little excavation upon his sisters' wraps, his fingers bleeding and one eye blinded with the sand.... The passageway behind us is almost closed up.... In front of us we have hit a solid wall.... The exhausted mother is binding her boy's hands with a portion of her petticoat.... As she kneels there, with the faint flicker of a light falling on her finely chiseled profile, she resembles Botticelli's _magnificent_ Madonna in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.... The picture is completed by the dark background and the solicitous attitude of the girls as they cluster around the sufferer.... With a little imagination one can delineate the jeweled crown which the two girlish angels are holding above her head.... Pathos, resignation and a sort of recreating FAITH are painted against that threatening wall and overhanging dirt.... If that should fall WE ARE ALL BOUND TO SUFFOCATE before any help can come.... My 'prisoner' is not a bit discouraged, however.... He is using his jackknife against the concrete wall with great patience and whistling softly and slowly an air from 'The Blessing of the Waters.'... WATER!... I know those girls are CHOKING for a drink as I have been for the last ten hours myself.... Still, not one of them has murmured at our grief and Anastasie has become quite chummy in pretending to cheer ME up....

Aristocracy or Royalty, even, with Democracy in a tunnel, makes us ALL of one size! Under certain conditions a man of my education and family connections MIGHT be privileged to forget the veiled lady of Buckingham and accept these endearing little attentions with some guarantee of hope.... But WHAT IF WE ALL ARE BURIED HERE like the happy families of Herculaneum and Pompeii?... Future inquisitive scientists may find this diary with our _bones_ and classify us as a species of an extinct Tartar tribe!... The wall my prisoner is gouging out _seems to be getting wet_...."

29. Then there follows the entry:

"_Water has burst through the hole my prisoner has been making in that wall_!..."

30. The next entry has been evidently water-soaked and is entirely blotted out.

31. This entry seems sufficiently distinct to make out what the writer has been through:

"I tried in the foregoing to jot down enough of what was happening to enable anyone who would find our bodies to make out how we had died.... What I forgot to record in the excitement I'll put down now.... When the wall caved in and the water burst down upon us it seemed that we would soon be drowned alive.... The small hole in the wall had allowed enough water to filter through at first to slake our thirst and make us all quite happy.... But gradually the ground beneath us became damp and sticky and the blue mud clung to our shoes like glue until we could hardly move.... The little air that crept in with the water, though, was a positive blessing to us all.... We should have stifled.... Finally the water ceased and our hearts began to sink....

"... It was Maria who brought on the FLOOD I have learned today....

With a stone she found uncovered by the filtering from the little opening she began pounding against the wall.... Suddenly the wall bulged inward.... There was a swish, and a roar, and a deadening GUSH,--and then a RUSHING FLOOD tore open the side of the wall and burst like a torrent into our muddy, narrow cell. Higher and higher it mounted, enveloping us to our arm pits.... My 'prisoner' moved calmly over to the stately woman, who was holding up the boy, and patted her gently on the head. 'It will be all right, darling,' he said.... Then he kissed all his children and impulsively _dashed in the direction of the cataract_.

"... Struggling hard against the flood he worked his way nearer and nearer toward the broken curbing and finally DOVE through the waterspout and clung grimly to the wall.... For a moment his body seemed to tremble.... Then with a supreme effort he pulled his body into the opening and for a moment checked the flood.... It seemed like a gallant sacrifice.... at the same time.... the girl, Maria, waded back toward the opening that was NOW completely SEALED BY THE STICKY CLAY and began to tear frantically at the bank....

"Little by little she seemed to make headway.... But it appeared like an eternity,--and I felt certain that the man in the wall using his body as a plug must presently give up the ghost and be hurled back into our cell.... I then noticed the water around us DROP quickly, and, turning in the direction of Maria I saw her body being caught up by the current and sucked painfully forward into the opening her delicate hands had made.... It was too horrible to endure!... Now, while there is no blood of martyrs in my veins, and while I had PROMISED the sombre figure in Berlin TO DO A CERTAIN THING which a martyr impulse might prevent if I tried to be a hero in this instance, I simply could not look at that girl's struggles without going to her rescue _no matter what it cost_...."

32. The following then appears:

"I have no recollection of what happened after I grasped Maria by the feet.... All I remember is that I felt myself being dragged along after her through a blinding sheet of muddy, gritty substance, head foremost like a drowning man.... I imagined myself in mid-ocean clinging to some broken shaft after my vessel had been torpedoed, and I clung to those slender ankles as the only hope of life!... When I did recover there was Maria bending over me and vigorously see-sawing my arms back and forth in an effort to resuscitate me.... If ever there were an excuse for the chivalry of the Middle Ages it must have crept out of those dark moments when some puissant knight opened his tired eyelids upon a vision such as I then beheld!... But there was no time for Don Quixoting in that damp and muddy tunnel.... We noticed that the waters neither rose nor fell.... So we plowed our way back to the other members of our party as speedily as we could.... On arriving at the wall again we found my 'prisoner' lying propped up against a large slab of concrete and breathing heavily while he held the Empress' hand and essayed a feeble smile...."

33. The following entry seems to dovetail in:

"The walls of this old _cistern_ promise very little assurance for our escape.... Still the cistern has its uses in circumstances like these.... We KNOW, at least, that some kind of human beings are not beyond our voices if we decide to call for help.... But WHAT KIND of help?... That is the question.... Last night, as I stood on the floor of the cistern I heard an amusing conversation.... A voice overhead was growling; 'I'm as certain as I'm alive that the loan of $250,000,000 has been made by Japan to those fiends who have escaped,--and I KNOW they have the GOLD, for why have those trucks disappeared?... so it is worth while to keep up this revolution until we get our hands on some of it if we have to follow them all the way to Vladivostok.'... 'That rumor has been floating around for the past week,' another bass voice grumbled, 'and I'm inclined to think it is all a game of bunko to divert attention from the pile of 600,000,000 the gang have smuggled into Omsk.'... 'Nonsense,' grunted the other; 'haven't we a thousand eyes at Harbin who know about the Chinese Eastern deal?'... 'Well, the only thing to do is to keep this hell in a constant bubble until we get the stuff at Omsk or the coin Japan has sent to this CREMATED FAMILY here!'...

"... 'Cremated, Ha! Ha!... why, did you notice those stoves in the house?... They're not big enough to burn up a good-sized dog!... My judgment tells me that that whole squad of double-crossers are in league with that skunk of a "Captain" who pretended to be a friend of Comrade Trotsky.'... 'Well, we made a mistake when we endorsed that BURNING lie,--we are ALL in for it NOW, and the only way to get out of it is to STAY IN IT and lie it out to the end--'.... 'UNLESS--'

'Unless what?'... 'Unless the Lett who pretended to do the killing is taken out and SHOT!'... 'Oh, give him a little more rope and he'll hang himself!'... When I related this conversation to my 'prisoner'

he was very much amused.... 'This is a real adventure!' he smiled.

'We're like Tennyson's Light Brigade, with cannons in front, and cannons behind us and brigands on every side of us, thirsting for our blood,--these fellows are certainly not Russians!'..."

34. Then we have this entry:

"I have noticed all day that the family is gradually succumbing to the ravages of hunger and thirst.... If we call for help it will mean a FIRING SQUAD for sure.... The criminal crew who have already reported our death will HAVE to KILL us to make good their boast.... So we must stay here and silently watch one another collapse from day to day....

"... My prisoner says he is willing to give himself up if his death will enable the rest of us to escape.... The girls will not listen to such a proposition,--they are all agreed that they would rather organize themselves into a little platoon and FIGHT IT OUT if we can ever get out of this cistern.... It indicates a mighty good spirit,--but that gang outside would have us strung up in the twinkling of an eye....