“Of what nature?”
“Of communicating with the enemy—a vague charge which to-day may be made against even the most patriotic,” replied the monk, the “Holy Father” of the Empress, standing in that same attitude he had at first assumed. “From the Holy Father of the monastery at Vitebsk I have received a confidential, and urgent report that the Governor Wauthier, an ill-living official, has instituted these false charges in order to conceal his own disgraceful misdeeds, which the woman Erich has threatened to expose.”
Then, after a pause, the dissolute monk and secret agent of the German Emperor said in that insolent, familiar manner he assumed when addressing the Tsar:
“Friend! This Governor, against whom the Holy Father at Vitebsk sends me secret information, should be dismissed and disgraced, and thy three innocent subjects released. If thou wilt permit injustice in thy Empire, then the success of thy arms cannot be maintained.”
“Holy Father,” said the weak impotent monarch, “the Governor shall be dismissed. Pass me over a telegraph-form.”
And Rasputin took from the writing-table one of the forms upon which the Tsar wrote his autocratic orders, and actually at the monk’s dictation His Majesty wrote an order for this release of the prisoners and the dismissal of the innocent, patriotic Governor, against whom the lying agent of the Kaiser had, according to his instructions from Berlin, laid a charge!
Truly the great patriotic Russian Empire had already fallen beneath the “Mailed Fist,” even though thousands of her sons were daily sacrificing their lives to secure her freedom.
On the day following, Petkoff; who had already opened his separatist propaganda among the Ukrainian prisoners, in favour of Germany, arrived hot-foot in Petrograd, and spent some hours with Rasputin at his house, where the Prime Minister Stürmer and His Excellency Protopopoff were also closeted. The secret meeting was held at three o’clock and lasted until eight, when one of the Imperial carriages came from the Winter Palace, as it did daily, to convey the “Holy Father” there.
The Emperor had left again for the front three hours before, but the Empress remained. The dirty monk at once sought her, explaining that Germany had reached the last limits of her power upon the eastern front, and urgently needed a slackening of the Russian offensive.
“It is truly God’s will that our friends the Germans shall not be crushed!” declared the cunning blackguard. “Are we not told that if we are smitten by an enemy upon one cheek we should turn the other? I declare to thee that if we press our enemies further, then the wrath of God will assuredly fall upon thy house—and upon thy son the Tsarevitch,” he said in his low base voice, crossing himself piously the while.