THE ADVISER OF NICHOLAS II
By the second week in March I was back in Petersburg.
On the long journey across Asia, I had had time to mature my plans, with the advantage of knowing that the real enemy I had to fight was neither M. Petrovitch nor the witching Princess Y——, but the Power which was using them both as its tools.
It was a frightful thing to know that two mighty peoples, the Japanese and Russians, neither of which really wished to fight each other, had been locked in strife in order to promote the sinister and tortuous policy of Germany.
So far, the German Kaiser had accomplished one-half of his program. The second, and more important, step would be to bring about a collision between the Russians and the English.
Thus the situation resolved itself into an underground duel between Wilhelm II. and myself, a duel in which the whole future history of the world, and possibly the very existence of the British Empire, hung in the balance.
And the arbiter was the melancholy young man who wandered through the vast apartments of his palace at Tsarskoe-Selo like some distracted ghost, wishing that any lot in life had been bestowed on him rather than that of autocrat of half Europe and Asia.
It was to Nicholas that I first repaired, on my return, to report the result of my mission.