A dozen times during our adventurous journey to the frontier suspicious police officers examined our passports, but they were always found in order, and we were allowed to proceed.
On our way we purchased the Moscow Gazette, the Donskoi Pchela, and other newspapers in order to ascertain whether the Imperial travellers had arrived at their destination, but none of the journals mentioned the Tzar’s journey. The reason of this was, as we afterwards discovered, that all references to the affair were forbidden by the censorship.
Fatigued and nauseated by the foulness of the steerage, we at length arrived in London.
Sitting in an easy-chair in the bright, comfortable dining-room at the house in Oakleigh Gardens I first learnt of the result of the attempt. Pétroff handed me a copy of the Times, pointing to a brief report in the top corner of the page. It was a telegram from its Moscow correspondent, headed “Terrible Disaster in Russia: Narrow Escape of the Imperial Family,” and ran as follows:—
“A terrible catastrophe is reported from Borki. The Imperial train, with the Tzar, Tzarina, and suite, which left St. Petersburg for Saratov, has been totally wrecked and partially burned. The royal party had a most miraculous escape, for nineteen persons in the train were killed, and two of the servants are missing. It is evident that an explosion of some kind occurred, for all the carriages were completely shattered, and a deep wide hole was made in the permanent way, which could not possibly have been caused by the train leaving the rails. Full details have not yet transpired, as an order has been issued prohibiting the publication of any information. It is stated, however, that all the Imperial servants have been placed under arrest pending an inquiry.”
We had been within an ace of success.
Perhaps never had an explosion been more cleverly concealed as on that occasion. The loaf of sugar was so innocent-looking that the Tzar and his family had actually eaten some of it! Inside, however, was a most ingenious contrivance—if it is admissible to admire mechanical genius in the construction of such machines. It consisted of a small American clock attached to two glass tubes containing liquid explosives of the most powerful description, the component parts of which, however, it is unnecessary to describe. The delicate machinery was so arranged that, providing the sugar loaf remained in a horizontal position after being set, twenty-four hours must elapse before the tubes were broken and the liquids allowed to come into contact with one another. If, however, it was placed on end, the clock in question would only run for a quarter of an hour, when the tubes would be broken, and a terrific explosion ensue.
This arrangement had been made so that, in the event of our inability to enter the Imperial service, we might smuggle it into the kitchen along with the provisions, in which case a quarter of an hour after the departure of the train it would have been wrecked.
The failure of what was one of the most daring attempts upon the life of the Tzar could only be explained by the machine standing in an upright position, as, had it exploded horizontally, it would have destroyed everything near its own level, and none of the Imperial family would have escaped.
As it was, it exploded in a downward direction, making the great hole in the railway track, and causing the loss of nineteen lives, a result which no one more deeply deplored than we did ourselves.