found to serve as hangman. The convicts in the prisons declined the task even on the promise of their immediate liberty and money. The two girls who were included in this execution were both students of the University of St. Petersburg. They had been convicted of complicity in a conspiracy against a military tribunal at Kronstadt.

The two women were confined in the same cell; they met their fate bravely, and spent a great part of the night in singing. Mamaieff wrote a telegram to her mother, asking her to come to Kronstadt for a last farewell, but the message was not despatched by the authorities.

Venediktoff’s mother, an old seamstress, living at Tamboff, traveled to Kronstadt when her daughter was arrested, but in spite of all entreaties did not succeed in getting an interview with her. Both women refused services of the priest who came to offer last consolations of the church. In her final letter written to her mother, Venediktoff said: “I can hear a noise in the passage, the tramp of soldiers. I am now, perhaps, about to die. Good-by, good-by, my dear mother.”

At 4.30 A.M. the women were informed that they had to leave for the place of execution. They begged that they might be permitted to wear their ordinary clothes and not be compelled to don the white garb of the condemned. Their request was refused. On arriving at the scene of execution they found three of their comrades already there. All the five were bound to stakes, and a party of dragoons advanced toward them. Four of the prisoners fell dead at the first volley. Mamaieff, however, was only wounded in the leg, and by some means managed to drag the bandage from her eyes and gazed at her companions. Then came a second volley. She dropped lifeless, and a few minutes afterward the bodies were thrown into the sea.

Terrorism has a dual aim. On one hand, it aims to remove an oppressor or one whose life and influence are deemed detrimental to a certain cause. On the other hand, it has in view the moral effect upon the successors of the victims, and upon other men similarly situated in positions of power; and upon the world at large.

Most of the famous assassinations of recent years have been carried out by the Social Revolutionists. A special branch of the party, known as the “fighting organization,” executed the sentences of death pronounced upon Plehve, Grand Duke Sergius, Ministers Sipiaguine, Bogoliepoff, General Min, Count Ignatiev, Procuror Pavlov and one or two others of the year 1906. This fighting organization is a carefully organized body of about one hundred, controlled by a central committee. When a victim is selected for death this committee decides upon the best method for attaining the end. There is no drawing of lots to determine who shall do the deed, as is sometimes asserted, but volunteers offer for the service, and are selected according to their fitness, judged by the peculiar circumstances incident to each case. These volunteers are not necessarily members of the fighting organization, and frequently they are not. The work of the fighting organization is one of judgment and direction—judging whose life is injurious to the liberal movement, and selecting the wisest method of carrying out the death sentence.

Auxiliary to the fighting organization are the “flying bands,” or, more truly, “flying individuals,” who work independently of the fighting organization, and carry out their work along individual lines. Such was Marie Spiradonova.

The Maximalists only came into existence when the foregoing terrorists and fighting organizations determined to suspend their activities for a time. This suspension of terroristic activity was announced in December of 1905, and was to continue until the government had definitely shown whether or not it was honest in its promises for reforms and liberties, made in October, at the time a constitution was granted. The period of elections and the Duma were to decide this great question which at that time was in the hearts and minds and on the lips of every one in Russia. It was a magnificent opportunity for the revolutionary parties to show their magnanimity. The government was stoutly promising to allow the representatives of the people in the Duma to inaugurate agrarian and personal liberty reforms.

The Social Revolutionists said frankly that they did not believe these promises. Nevertheless they were ready to give the government every opportunity to prove that it had undergone a change of heart. The party, therefore, gave out that pending these first months of trial of the government under a constitution they would refrain from all acts of terrorism. They declared that they would not cease from active propaganda work during that time, but that the fighting organization would remain inactive. This announcement was made in late December at a conference of the party held in Finland. It was indorsed by a majority of the representatives of the party at the conference. A small but effective minority protested this decision, and in the end their disagreement resulted in a party split. The more forward ones were dubbed “Maximalists” because they declared for the maximum and maintained that so long as the government continued to look upon the situation in the country as a war time, so long the maximum fighting powers of the people should be kept continually mobilized and in use, even to the employment of the maximum of terror. This group realized that from the outset they were strong enough to embarrass the forces of czarism, and so they began their activity as a separate “party” with enthusiasm and confidence. The more conservative majority were forced to accept the name foisted upon them of “minimalists,” indicating that they were working for the least, or the minimum.

The Maximalists began operations in early January. There were about seventy in the group, all young, daring men. Individually they were men of character and of personality. Most of them were university men. In their personal habits of life some were as rigid as ascetics. In this respect they are not unlike many ardent revolutionists who are abstemious in some things to the point of fanaticism. I have heard revolutionists denouncing all alcohol, even light beer, with as much vehemence as a Women’s Christian Temperance Union lecturer. With them it is a clear, straight-forward, practical proposition. Alcohol unsettles the judgment, strains the nervous system unduly, and in their eyes is an influence which retards progress. Beer tends to make all of life seem rosy and comfortable. Since discontent is the soul of revolution, many of the devoted revolutionists, including many of the Maximalists, hate and fear all liquor as the ministers dread bombs.

Among the original seventy of the Maximalists were a few women. Since then the number of women has increased, and time has shown that some of the boldest and most dashing plays have been made by the women.

Moscow was only just recuperating from nine days of barricade fighting, machine gun and artillery fire, when the Maximalists began that series of raids which won them a reputation unparalleled in Russia and comparable to DeWet’s boldness in South Africa and our own Morgan, “The Raider.”

At the outset, while the group were shaping together, they confined their efforts to comparatively modest plans. They entered state spirit-shops and carried away the government receipts. Sometimes they thus held up several state establishments in a single day. Then they organized riots and tried in various ways to incite the mob to insurrection at such times when armed uprisings, even of a petty character, were a menace to the authorities. When a clash occurred between the military or police authorities and the populace, the Maximalists endeavored to assume the leadership of the crowd. In the hope of a general uprising at some future time the Maximalists deliberately set about training themselves for emergency action.

During February opportunities for this kind of work grew fewer, but the “confiscating” of government funds became their daily program. During these early weeks none of the Maximalists were ever caught. They worked openly, in broad daylight, and through sheer boldness invariably got safely away. In March came their first big affair. Twenty of them entered a Moscow bank in the heart of the city one forenoon, and while some of the party covered the directors and clerks with revolvers, others packed up eight hundred thousand rubles and the whole party withdrew. Not a trace was found of any of the men at that time, nor any of the money recovered, save a small sum which fell into the hands of the authorities some time later through an accident.

The circumstances of this incident were most dramatic. Two features of the raid created wide-spread comment: one of the band upon entering the bank had taken his stand by the telephone, and all the while the money was being packed up he continued to receive all messages coming over the wire as if he were the regularly employed telephone clerk. The other incident betrayed the “gentlemanliness” of the robbers. One of the Maximalist group covered the directors’ room although there were several officials in the room at the time. One of the directors fainted in his chair, through fright, whereupon the Maximalist who commanded the situation told two of the others present to lay the fainting official on a lounge, and then directed one of them to fetch a glass of water from the next room!

The coolness with which this robbery was carried out excited the admiration even of those who scoffed at the idea that this money was for revolutionary purposes. This was perfectly true, nevertheless, for among the twenty who executed this raid were men of independent means, who declined to use any of this money for their actual personal expenses. Contributions were generously offered to different revolutionary organizations. At the time only a part was kept in the hands of the party for current expenses, and this was divided into many parts and given over for safe keeping into the hands of different members of the group. One, a student, had several thousand rubles in his keeping. He was one of the poor ones, a peasant’s son. Toward the end of the spring he used some of this money to pay his tuition at the technical school where he was studying. He did it openly, and frankly told his comrades that he had “borrowed” the money, a trifling sum, for this purpose. The action created so much adverse comment in the party that it was agreed that no one would ever again use party money for a personal need.

An accident led to the restoration of a portion of this stolen money. At the last moment before the raid one more man was declared necessary. A young Moscow man named Belentzoff, not a member of the Maximalist group, but known to most of the members, was asked to join the raiders. He had courage and boldness, and these were the qualities needed. Belentzoff was assigned to a particular post. He was not to touch the money, but merely to guard a certain passage. To the surprise of the men assigned to gathering the funds, Belentzoff suddenly began to pack up some of the money. The leader of the party was disinclined to reveal to the bank men that there was the slightest discord in the group, so he permitted Belentzoff to continue handling the money. Having acquired all of the money in the bank, the party disappeared, to meet two days later at an appointed place. All appeared save Belentzoff. He was next heard from in Switzerland, whither he had fled with his part of the money, but unfortunately he was not a man of the same class as the others, as he had yielded to the temptation of drink. While under the influence of liquor he had disclosed his identity and told the story of the raid. The police captured him, and in due time he was extradited to Russia. As the train which was conveying Belentzoff to St. Petersburg neared the capital, the prisoner mysteriously disappeared. The soldiers who had him in charge declared he had jumped through the window, and in evidence pointed to a demolished window pane. The train was stopped and a tremendous search instituted, but to no end. Belentzoff was not found.

The explanation is entirely worthy of the Maximalists. Convinced that Belentzoff in the hands of the authorities was dangerous to the whole party, the Maximalists determined to rescue him. At Vilna several of them boarded the train which carried their whilom comrade. A disguise in the form of an officer’s uniform, with necessary facial disguises, was left in the wash-room of the car in which Belentzoff was held prisoner. In some incredible way Belentzoff succeeded in making a lightning change of costume in the wash-room, and as an officer of the Czar took his place in the train as a passenger. I fancy there was a bottle of vodka connected with this incident, for otherwise it would have been difficult to have hoodwinked the soldiers. Belentzoff sat in the train while the woods and fields were being scoured for him, then traveled by the same train to St. Petersburg. That night he made good his escape into Finland.

In the meantime the bulk of the money had been handed over to the “cashier,” a man of reputation and position. During the days when the police were searching most vigorously for it, the money remained in the home of this man. A few weeks afterward 200,000 rubles of this money was deposited in the very bank from which it was stolen, and during the succeeding months interest was paid upon it, until it was eventually needed in the work!

The first reverse of a serious nature occurred to the Maximalists a few weeks after this successful bank-scoop. The police, baffled on every hand in their efforts to capture the band, resorted to the old-time successful method of an agent provocateur. Of the original seventy some ten had now paid the penalty of their reckless daring. So well did the agent provocateur do his work that forty-five of the remaining sixty were lodged behind prison bars. Some are still under arrest. Others finally were freed through lack of evidence, while others made bold and successful escapes.

The ideas that the Maximalists stood for were now beginning to be understood, and in spite of this

tremendous set-back the party began suddenly to grow and develop fresh strength. Young blood from different parts of the country offered their services to the Maximalists. They were prepared to perform any commission that would be a blow against the government. The government was still in sore need for money as the new foreign loan had not then been negotiated, and so it seemed that the confiscation of government funds from every possible source was a most effective way of worrying the administration. Also, these robberies following one upon another in rapid succession, continuing for weeks, demonstrated to the world the weakness of the government in regard to its police administration, and helped to increase the feeling abroad of the government’s powerlessness. At the same time the revolution was in sad straits for money. The government had sent expeditions everywhere to disarm the people. To re-arm half of Russia every now and again is a huge task, and terribly costly; therefore, this policy of the Maximalists was practical revolutionary service (however one may regard it ethically), inasmuch as it was embarrassing to the government.

The next big plot was arranged in June. It was to blow up the ministers in the Duma. This plot has never before been disclosed, but I can vouch for its authenticity. Indeed I was conversant with the details of the plan from the day it was concocted.

The Duma had asked the ministers to resign. The Duma had gone further—it had demanded that the ministry resign. When any minister appeared in the Duma tribunal to speak, he was hissed and hooted. Yet there was no word of demission. The Maximalists then said: “As an auxiliary body it is now our duty to impress upon the whole world that the word of the Duma must be obeyed. The Duma is the people. When the Duma cries to the ministers: ‘Resign’! that cry must be understood as coming from the country at large. Since they do not resign of their own will, the Maximalists will undertake to coerce them.”

The plan finally adopted was to teach all of the ministers of autocracy a grand lesson by blowing up as many of the ministers as could be caught together in an accessible place. At that time the ministers were frequenting the Duma. It was not unusual for five and six ministers and assistant ministers to gather in the ministerial box of an afternoon to listen to the people’s chosen representatives proclaiming diatribes against the wicked administration.

The Maximalists procured plans of the Duma, found a means of access through forged tickets carefully copied from an original ticket of admission, and the men who were to take part in the plot were all chosen. There were to be six men with bombs besides a “covering group.” Three of the six were to throw their bombs simultaneously, while the other three were to loiter in the background to watch the effect of the first fire. If any of the first three failed to explode, or if the damage done seemed insufficient, the others were to throw their packets of death and destruction. When this plan was about to be executed, the question arose among some of the members of the Maximalist group: is it wise to have this thing in the Duma? Will it not react unfavorably upon the Duma itself? Opinion was divided. In spite of these questionings, however, the plot would undoubtedly have been carried out as planned, in the Duma, had not a very curious chance intervened.

The men who were to throw the bombs were one afternoon scrutinizing the plans when some one pointed out that the ministerial box was separated from the foreign correspondents’ box only by a narrow aisle. Some, if not all, of the correspondents would thus inevitably be made victims of the explosions. The carefully arranged plot was there and then abandoned on grounds that correspondents were, theoretically at least, non-combatants, and as such must not be exposed to death in this way.

The determination to do away with the ministers, however, was not abandoned at this time, and the question next to be settled was: where else are the ministers sometimes gathered together? Why, in the upper house, or Council of Empire. Therefore plans of that building were obtained, and as there was no press-box in juxtaposition to the ministerial box, it seemed as if the plot would be carried out here. But about that time the dissolution of the Duma—early in July—caused a suspension of the sittings of the Council of Empire, and thereby was this plan of the Maximalists frustrated.

The sanguinary mutinies at Sveaborg and Kronstadt, which followed the dissolution of the Duma, were encouraged by Maximalists and among the “agitators” captured at both places were members of this fighting group. Wherever there is a fighting line, there are sure to be Maximalists.

The bomb incident in the home of M. Stolypin early in the autumn, which cost a score of lives and wounded twoscore others, was the work of Maximalists.

The last week in October was marked by the most daring coup ever planned by the Maximalists. It was in connection with this episode that I came nearest to the heart of this form of terroristic activity.

CHAPTER XIX

A CLOSE CALL

Nastasia was coming to something, but what I could not divine.

“We are all liable to search,” she went on. “Perhaps you will not mind keeping some papers for us?”

This was no unusual request. People who expected the police often handed packets of correspondence, legal papers, and other documents to friends who were not suspected. In common with many other non-Russians in St. Petersburg I had frequently accepted such a trust. An English correspondent had brought the original copy of the Viborg manifesto with its appended signatures back to St. Petersburg, at the request of the leaders of the Constitutional Democrats. Without a second thought I told Nastasia I would gladly keep anything for her, then turned, and together we walked to her house.

Nastasia was living on the top floor of a large apartment building, with three other girls—all members of the organization, although one was ostensibly a student in the university, one was studying music at the conservatory, one was a teacher, and Nastasia was professionally a nurse. Nastasia had been with the troops in Manchuria and after Mukden her hospital was among those that fell into the hands of the Japanese.

When we arrived the three other girls were sitting round a samovar, talking. Two of them puffed little Russian cigarettes. I drank a glass of tea with them, took the papers they gave me, and departed. I heard the Kazan bells sound one as I poked the sleeping dwornik of my own lodgings, to open the door for me.

The next morning I left home at eleven o’clock. I had not passed many yards beyond the Hotel Victoria in the Kazanskiai when the report of two light bombs, followed presently by a rattling revolver fire and gun cracks, sounded on a street only two blocks away. When I reached the spot the confusion and tumult was so great that I was unable to make anything of the mêlée. The first thing I came upon was a wounded horse streaming blood into a gutter. Around the corner was a general riot of panicky men and women, terrified horses, and stolid Cossacks and police. A carriage was standing in the middle of the road—deserted. One of the horses that belonged to it was lying dead in its tracks. Windowpanes for a block and a half were shattered. There seemed to be wounded and killed men, and a number of arrests, but my impression was mostly a blur, with here and there a projecting detail.

Intuitively I felt a connection between this incident—whatever it was—and my experience with Nastasia the night before. The more I thought about it the more curious I became. I hurried over to Nastasia’s, only to find the apartment deserted.

In the early afternoon I learned from various eye-witnesses what had happened. The carriage I had seen standing in the street had been conveying some government moneys across the city. The trip was supposedly secret, and the carriage was guarded by Cossacks. The government had learned before this not to convey money anywhere at stated times or intervals. Only one man was supposed to know when a trip should be made, and this one was always a man of such rank, or position, as to have authority to order the military escort on the spur of the moment. To this day it is not known how the terrorists—Maximalists as it chanced—knew of this particular transfer of money. All that the government authorities ever learned about the affair were the bare facts of the exploit.

An apple-vender strolling down the street of the Catharine Canal had paused to rest his basket on the canal railing. Opposite the spot where he stood was a little tea-house into which nearly a score of young men had

been dropping singly and by twos. There was also one girl. Apparently these young people were not acquainted with one another, but it was remarked afterward that they all looked rather constantly out of the restaurant toward the canal—and the apple-man plaintively calling his fruit.

Suddenly the basket of apples was seen to slip off the railing and the fruit splashed into the murky water. Twenty chairs were pushed back, twenty young men pressed toward the street. A closed carriage with armed escort was approaching the spot. Boom! Boom! Two quick explosions dropped the horses that drew the carriage and the horses of the escort snorted and plunged wildly down the street. The young men now all fell to the work with wonderful skill and precision. One group drew a cordon of protection around the carriage, while another group approached the carriage and collected the bags of money.

The affair was carried out with more coolness than speed, and in consequence the raiders found a company of soldiers from a near-by barracks down upon them before they started to escape. So well did the protecting party do their work that not one of the attacking party was caught or injured. The leader of the Maximalist group lost his life in trying to prevent the crowd in the street from rushing to its own destruction. Knowing that a street crowd instinctively rushes toward the scene of excitement, and knowing that a rifle and revolver fire would be directed toward the carriage where the Maximalists were capturing the money, Sergia, the leader, patrolled the street, forcing the crowd to keep at a safe distance. He brandished a Browning revolver and roared thunderous curses upon the people; he fought them back, and continued in this work until captured. Three days later he was executed. Another of the protecting party, a young engineer, was captured in the same effort, and his revolver taken from his hand. He knew he would be hanged, and that in all probability the government would first try to wring a confession from him that would implicate others. In his pocket was another revolver which his captors had not discovered. He could not get it out of his pocket, but he succeeded in so turning it that when he pulled the trigger the bullet passed through his bowels. He died half an hour later, in horrible agony.

The money was delivered over to the girl who had been standing in waiting. She carried the packages to a carriage just around the corner and was driven swiftly off. Not one copeck of the (approximately) four hundred thousand rubles was ever recovered by the government. From this standpoint the affair was successful, but it was successful at an awful cost. Including those whose lives were lost on the spot and the executions which followed, eight of the group died for this well planned haul of two hundred thousand dollars. Incidentally, three innocent passers-by were also arrested and executed. Justice must be satisfied in Russia. Up to this point my connection with the affair was slight and of small consequence, but that night I allowed myself to be entangled to an extent that escape came near to being impossible.

About dusk, when I returned to my lodgings, I found Nastasia and two young men sitting round my table awaiting my coming. I knew both of the men as Maximalists. One of them, Sasha, was the son of one of the old generation revolutionists, who had spent many years in incarceration in Schlüsselburg Fortress. He and Nastasia were lovers. Love in the revolution has played no mean part. It has inspired deeds of noblest daring, it has led to splendid sacrifice. Sometimes it has proved unsettling and precipitated disaster.

The instant I looked at my friends I knew my suspicions of the morning were correct. They were perfectly frank about it. The men were both implicated. Nastasia was not directly concerned in the affair, but she was one of the group, and consequently in constant fear of being taken as a suspect. Indeed, the very name I knew her by, and her passport, were newly acquired, and under dramatic circumstances. She had been “working” in Moscow previous to the December insurrection, and under her own name was sought by the police. During the barricade-fighting Nastasia saw a girl comrade shot down near her. With sudden inspiration she bent over the dead girl and drew forth her passport, then quickly slipped her own passport into the place of the one she was taking. Nastasia’s name appeared in the list of the dead, and thenceforth she was known by the name of the girl who had fallen on the barricades.

Escape from St. Petersburg, and if possible from Russia, was the subject of their discussion. They had come to my house because they feared their own quarters would be suspected and watched. Presumably mine was a “white” house on the police records.

These “soldiers of the revolution” were naturally elated at the success of the coup, but frightfully depressed by the loss of life which had attended the “expropriation.” One thing only now lay before them—the getting away. The police were ransacking every house in the city. Orders were issued that afternoon that doorkeepers should report before morning if any one without a passport remained over night in any house. Ordinarily there is a grace of three days, but this fresh order commanded reports to be made before daybreak. Eighty arrests had already been made. The railway stations were filled with police spies and gendarmes, and every person leaving by any train was scrutinized. The wagon roads were covered by soldiers, and the boats leaving the ports were observed as carefully as the trains. Sasha was inclined to risk remaining in the city for a day or two at least, but Nastasia, knowing that to be caught meant immediate execution, would not hear of delay. She was determined that Sasha at least should hasten to safety that night. I had no suggestions to make, though I wished them well, and went out to supper, leaving them still discussing a possible plan. I returned about nine-thirty. The three were still there, and with a plan worked out.

Sasha was to dress as a foreigner—say an Englishman—and taking me for a companion, he would boldly take the night train to Helsingfors in Finland. Nastasia and the other man had each a different idea for themselves. I was not keen to start upon this expedition. But they were my friends. Furthermore, Nastasia had once seen me through an exceedingly ticklish experience, and this was the first time she had asked anything of me. When I hesitated she pleaded so earnestly that I finally consented to the plan.

There was no time to lose. Sasha donned one of my overcoats, an obviously English hat, threw a steamer-rug over one arm, picked up a top hat-box, and we were off. The heavy end of the trip fell to me. Sasha was to know no Russian whatsoever. I, with my scant traveler’s vocabulary, was to do all of the interpreting that might be necessary. Sasha, unfortunately, knew not a word of English. Our conversation had, therefore, to be in German. The danger was increased considerably by the fact that Sasha had no passport at all. Masquerading as an English traveler there was small use of his having anything but an English passport—which, of course, was not procurable on the moment. I held my usual American passport.

Ten-thirty had long been the hour of departure of the Helsingfors train. It was twenty-six minutes past the hour when Sasha and I dismissed our carriage and walked slowly and with a degree of nonchalance into the station. Gendarmes stood in rows between the ticket office and the platform. Sasha was magnificently steeled for the ordeal. He knew we would be looked over by perhaps a score of eyes, and a single suspicious movement might lead to discovery. He stopped near the middle of the station and lighted a cigarette while I stepped to the wicket to purchase the tickets.

“Two first-class tickets to Helsingfors by the ten-thirty train.”

“It is gone, sir.”

“What! Gone! But it is not yet ten-thirty!”

“The schedule was changed to-day, sir. The last train left at ten-ten.”

My heart sank clear to my boots, for I knew what a shock it would be to Sasha, who had risen so well to the rôle he had assumed, so I inquired if there was a train to any point in Finland that night. There was none. There would not be another until the next morning.

Sasha flinched never so slightly when I told him and his face paled perceptibly, but he picked up the hat-box he had set down and led the way out of the station. We called a cab and started back for my rooms. On the way we arranged that Sasha would come to me the next night at seven o’clock and we would try it again. Then, leaving the luggage and the rug with me, he slipped noiselessly out of the carriage without the driver even knowing. All that night he wandered among the sheltering shadows, dodging gendarmes and late prowlers. I don’t know where he lay in hiding during the day. When I got in at the appointed time Sasha was asleep on my couch, apparently in no way troubled by the great peril that threatened.

I do not exaggerate the danger. Many more arrests had been made during the day, and early that evening a comrade not under suspicion had learned that the force of police spies in the stations had been greatly strengthened by the arrival of a party of Moscow police department men, and these had brought with them photographs of several men whom they were looking for, among them a photograph of Sasha. Sasha had once been “taken” in Moscow and escaped, but not before being photographed. This picture was now reproduced on slips of paper like handbills and circulated among the watchers. This knowledge shook even Nastasia in regard to the wisdom of repeating our plan of the previous evening. However, something had to be done, and that quickly, for the noise of this successful coup had echoed all over the empire, and the St. Petersburg authorities were goaded to great activity in the hope of making up in the number of arrests for their alleged negligence on the day of the incident. The chances of escape were growing hourly less, and a fear seemed to possess both Nastasia and Sasha that perhaps even my house was no longer safe. Yet in St. Petersburg they had no other.

Sasha scribbled a few mysterious words in Russian on one piece of paper and a name and address on another, and handed both to me, asking me to carry the note to the address on the second slip of paper. I rushed away without looking at the address, jumped into a cab that happened to be standing in front of the house, and directed that I be driven to—to—to—I could not make out the writing—

“Let me read it,” offered the driver.

“No—you can’t,” I said. “It is not written in Russian.”

“No matter,” said he, “I read German.”

“But it is not German. It is French.”

“C’est bien. Je parle français.”

I had heard of government agents acting as cab-drivers, but I realized instantly that I was now, for the first time, face to face with one of these spies. For a Russian cab-driver to be familiar with French and German is even more extraordinary than it would be to find a New York or London cabby speaking two languages besides his own.

Pretending to read the address I called out an address in an entirely different quarter of the city. I discharged that fellow, and looked about for one of the usual peasant drivers such as are always found on the streets of Moscow and St. Petersburg, having finally deciphered the address and put it into Russian. My driver left me before a very grand house in a fashionable quarter. I was admitted with considerable ceremony. The atmosphere of the establishment was much more like that of the court than of anything else. Presently a young exquisite introduced himself to me as the man whose name Sasha had given me.

“Sasha wants me. Where is he?” he said.

“At my house,” I replied. “But you are at dinner—”

“Dinner can wait. Where is your house?”

I told him.

“Is it a ‘white’ house?” he inquired further.

I told him it was to the best of my knowledge, whereupon he slipped on a rich greatcoat and we returned together.

Sasha and this mysterious stranger embraced like brothers. They kissed each other repeatedly. Whatever their business was it was quickly despatched, for in ten minutes the young man departed. Sasha never offered any explanation concerning him, but I have always suspected that he was one of the treasurers of the organization, for these are usually men of social standing above suspicion.

When the stranger had gone Sasha unfolded to me the plan for the night. The Finnish frontier was so closely guarded that to escape in that direction seemed impossible. They had decided upon a bold scheme that would succeed if only it were carried out with sufficient dash.

A first-class compartment for two was engaged on the gilt-edged St. Petersburg-Moscow train which leaves St. Petersburg at ten-thirty every evening. Nastasia dressed as a bride, Sasha as a bridegroom. A party of half a dozen friends got together in proper attire for the wedding party seeing the happy couple started on their way.

Sasha being without a passport was the one obviously vulnerable point in the outfit. If any suspicious gendarme should happen to question the pair a passport of any kind would probably disarm his suspicions, whereas no passport at all would mean sure arrest.

“Lend Sasha your passport,” Nastasia said to me.

“Mine! Oh, I can’t do that!” I explained.

“Why not? It may be the means of saving his life. If he gets caught to-night without a passport he will be executed. Let him have yours for this night only. From Moscow it will be returned to you.”

I hesitated a long time but finally handed my precious identification paper over to Sasha.

At ten-twenty-nine exactly, a noisy, rollicking crowd of young people swept into the Moscow station. A bride and groom led the way, followed by several friends who pelted them with flowers and confetti. The rows of gendarmes whom we passed between smiled broadly and evidently never suspected that the whole party was a ruse. We all knew that several of the men under whose very noses we passed held in their pockets photographs of Sasha. I closed the compartment door as the daring couple stumbled hurriedly into the train. A half-minute later the three-bells signal of departure sounded and the train pulled away.

The next morning we waited for the telegram Sasha had promised to send announcing their arrival in Moscow. By noon we began to grow anxious. When evening came, and nothing had been heard from them, our worry increased. The next morning brought neither message nor my passport, which should have come then. That day wore by and the morning of the third day dawned, and still no word. We were all prepared, now, to hear the worst. One thing puzzled us. Why did the police not make public their capture—if they were taken? Every other arrest made in connection with this incident was promptly made known. We pondered over this a good deal. Finally, on the evening of the third day, we called together a council of trusted friends and the opinion of the conference was that Nastasia and Sasha had been taken; that my passport had probably occasioned some bewilderment, and until the rightful owner of the passport was found the capture would not be made public. Sasha, we knew, would give no hint as to where I might be found, and it would naturally take several days to locate me. This being the best understanding of the situation we could reach, the precariousness of my own position was apparent to all. If I were so directly implicated in a terrorist act as the finding of my passport in Sasha’s possession would imply, no power on earth could save me from the fate which had befallen all the others implicated in the incident.

Opinion was divided as to the wise thing for me to do. Two or three urged me to fly to the frontier at once—that very hour. Others counseled that I go to Moscow first to make sure of the fate of our friends and my passport, for Sasha had promised that if he was taken he would do all he could to destroy the passport. If he had succeeded in this I would merely have to obtain a fresh passport—there are always ways of doing that. The latter plan appealed to me, so I procured a seat in the same train they had traveled by three nights earlier. I took with me a dress-suit case containing necessary clothing and—alas! for the foolishness of men!—two terribly incriminating packets. No one thought I would be arrested in the train en route to Moscow, and so it did not occur to any of us that there was peril in my carrying two valuable packages to comrades in Moscow. The first was a bundle of original Peasants’ Union documents. At that time to even belong to the Peasants’ Union was sufficient cause for exile to Siberia. The other was twenty copies of one of the instalments of Shisko’s “History of the Russian People,” which had been forbidden by the police, and to be possessed of one copy was cause for arrest. Further, in my pocket I slipped a Browning revolver, although I had no permit to carry a revolver at all in that part of Russia. Russians themselves are constantly foolishly careless, but until this night I had not understood how easy it is to be blind to one’s dangers when they are close before one, or hedging one round.

Until the train had actually started I had no companion in the compartment, although there were places for four. But as the bells sounded and the train started an officer of gendarmes joined me. He sat down opposite me, looked me over rather searchingly and asked me in Russian what was the time.

“What a stupid question,” I thought. “He must know when the train starts.”

However, I told him:—“ten-thirty.” I could speak single words in Russian clearly enough, and I could understand much of simple conversation, but I could not put many sentences together with any intelligence.

“Where are you going?” next asked my officer companion.

“To Moscow,” I replied.

There was something in the man’s glance that made me very uncomfortable, so I drew from my grip a book and began to read. I was conscious for some time of his eyes scrutinizing me from head to foot. I tried not to let him know I knew he was watching me. I fought down my fears and read on.

In half an hour the officer opened his grip and took out a small pneumatic traveling-pillow. I saw the full contents of the bag. There was one Russian blouse and the pillow, nothing more. The grip itself was a large one—twice the size of my dress-suit case—and the fact that he would use so huge a valise to carry a pillow that would go into a pocket, and a blouse that would fold into an insignificant parcel, confirmed my fears that the man had been sent hurriedly on his journey, and that quite evidently he was shadowing me.

There was nothing to do, however, but to keep on and to pretend entire indifference. After a time I grew drowsy and folded my coat under my head for a pillow, wrapped my rug about me, and lay down. The last thing I did was to examine the compartment-door to see that it was securely fastened. The train was running over a smooth roadbed and the gentle motion to and fro soothed my nerves and in a little while I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

The striking of a match awoke me suddenly. I half opened my eyes and saw my gendarme officer looking at his watch. It was still dark, and I drowsily wondered what the time was myself. I was too sleepy to look at my own watch. I guessed the hour at about four o’clock, closed my eyes, and was just sinking into sleep again when I felt a hand reach across my body and strike the compartment wall. At the same instant the hoarse voice of the gendarme officer cried out:

“Sir! Sir! Wake up!”

I opened my eyes wide to see the man leaning over me, his arm across my body, and his face directly over mine, so close that I could feel his foul breath with each word he spoke.

“Has any one been in this compartment during the night?” he shouted excitedly.

I understood perfectly what he said but I did not grasp his game, so I simply said, “What?” and as he repeated his question I gathered my wits.

“I do not speak Russian,” I said.

“Yes, you do,” he replied.

“No. Only a few words. I am an American!”

“An American!” he cried. “That is impossible!”

I saw the trap I was walking into. His next demand would be for my passport, so I shifted the matter like a flash.

“What is the matter?” I said. “Why do you wake me up in the middle of the night this way?”

“Has any one been in this compartment?” he asked.

“No, I think not,” I answered.

“Did you make sure the door was locked last night?”

“Certainly. Is it not locked now?”

“Yes. It is. That is what makes it so strange.”

“Makes what strange?” I put in, really getting greatly puzzled.

“My money and my official papers are gone!” he blurted out.

At these words I felt a shiver pass up my back. For a flash it was as if my spine were in water. Then I pulled myself together.

“When did you have them last?” I asked.

“Just before I went to bed,” he answered.

“Then they must be here.”

In the meantime he had drawn the curtain back from the single candle that lighted the compartment and in that dim light we sat in opposite berths and glared at each other.

The seriousness of my plight came over me very clearly. I was without any means of identification. My passport was in the possession of a terrorist—or the police, having been found in the possession of a terrorist—my luggage contained one packet upon which a Russian would be sent to Siberia, another package which would send a Russian to prison, a revolver in my pocket at a time when the law permitted the military to shoot any person caught with a revolver with his own weapon, I was practically under arrest as a common thief because this gendarme’s money and papers had disappeared—the situation was so overwhelming that for the first time in my life I failed to see even a fighting chance.

Murder has never, at any time, been in my heart. But there in that ghastly light—with the gendarme officer sitting opposite me like a panther about to spring, with the shadow of arrest, prison, and the gallows itself over me, the thought did enter my head to shoot my captor. It was his life against mine. I felt sure I could draw my revolver and fire before he could prevent me. But then what? The report of the shot would startle the passengers in other compartments, it would bring the trainmen—I could not drop out of the window of an express train. I realized that that was out of the question. My brain was never more active, never half so clear, it seemed to me, and my nerves were under absolute control. Yet I could not think of the faintest loophole of escape. In despair I sank back on my improvised pillow—I would see what the officer’s next move would be.

A silhouette of a beam and cross-bar with a dangling rope weighted by a black mass set against a roseate eastern sky at dawn came before my eyes with all the clearness of a ship seen in mirage. At least I would be hung for an old sheep, I mused, remembering the array of points on which I would be arraigned, ranging in seriousness from the charge of being a pickpocket and common thief, to implication in a terroristic act.

After some minutes the gendarme summoned the conductor, who looked me over critically and shook his head. Then the two began to search with apparent diligence for the lost articles, in and under the officer’s bed. When they had looked there pretty thoroughly the gendarme approached my things.

Like a flash it came over me that he might have slipped his portfolio or money into my shoes, or under my coat. If this were the case I preferred finding them myself, so I sprang to my feet, angrily pushed him away, and began to shake out all of my things carefully before the officer and the train-guard. Nothing was found. The officer then turned to my dress suit-case. I knew I was lost if once he saw into that, so I began a veritable tirade, using all the Russian I knew, supplemented by German, French, and English. I saw that the conductor was beginning to be impressed by the fact that I might be a distinguished foreigner. Or (there was another thought) he might believe me a sympathizer of the cause, and, he also being a revolutionist, had determined to assist me.

Suddenly my eye fell on the alleged lost leather document case, under the officer’s pillow, where anybody must have seen it who looked at that end of his berth at all.

My discovery clearly embarrassed the officer, and disgusted the trainman, who slammed the door and left. The officer, too, looked as if he didn’t know what to do. I fell back on my pillow and went to sleep very shortly. I was weak from the strain, and I knew well that I was not out of the woods. I had merely put off the crisis till morning.

The train rolled into Moscow at half-past-eight. My gendarme was plainly agitated, and at a loss how to act. I sized up the situation in this way: He had been dispatched from St. Petersburg to follow me as a “suspect” and to take me prisoner on any pretext that might offer. His departure had of necessity been so hasty that his information concerning me was scanty. He had naturally supposed he was after a Russian. In the evening I had answered his simple questions in monosyllables which sounded all right, then in the night when he had tried to trap me I had revealed to him that I was not a Russian and this fact had completely disconcerted him. Also my leaning back in despair he had mistaken for genuine nonchalance. A guilty man, he had evidently thought, would not be so indifferent under the circumstances. When the train stopped I could see that he was uncertain how to act—to arrest me or not. I feared he would take the opportunity of winning a little glory for himself by taking me on chance, so I determined to take advantage of his stupidity and hesitancy. I held out my hand in a most friendly way, gave him a hearty grip, raised my hat, bade him a cheery good-by, and just as he started to act I sprang from the train, threw myself into the crowd—and—surprise of surprises! felt a hand reach for my suit-case and a familiar voice say:

“Let me take this.”

“Sasha!”

“Come quickly out of this,” he murmured, and we hastened into a carriage and drove to the home of a mutual friend.

Comrades in Moscow, who had been notified of the coming of Sasha and Nastasia by a secret-code telegram, had sent a messenger to a station nearly half-way between the two cities to warn them that the dangers in the Moscow station for a day or two would be too great for them to think of arriving there.

Thereupon they had left the train at a small water station and lay in hiding three days. From there it had not been possible for them to send any word to us in St. Petersburg. Nastasia had taken a circuitous route into Moscow, while Sasha had boarded the very train I was on, thus we arrived to-day.

My passport was returned to me, and I quickly delivered up my dangerous packets.

Sasha planned to leave for the south immediately, but a soldier of the revolution is never master of his own destiny. In the early afternoon a cipher telegram came from St. Petersburg urging Sasha’s return there that night.

This seemed the height of folly to me. After jeopardizing his own life, and the lives of others, to get away from St. Petersburg and then to turn right back again—this was more than I could understand. But Sasha knew that more lives depended upon his obedience, so he prepared to leave that evening. Trains from Moscow back to St. Petersburg were not apt to be so closely watched as those going out.

Sasha thought to go on the nine-thirty train. I went to the station with him, for he seemed to have a strong premonition that he was about to perform his last service for the cause to which his life was dedicated.

When I tried to purchase a ticket I was told that there was not a place left on the train. Sasha had, therefore, to wait for the ten-thirty train. We sat down at a table in the buffet and ordered two glasses of tea.

Presently a member of the Moscow organization, a friend of Sasha’s, stepped up to us, pointed out a certain man at an adjoining table and said: “Watch that fellow carefully. He is a spy. He may be shadowing you—or maybe some one else—but watch him.”

We did watch him for half an hour and became pretty well convinced that he was following Sasha.

Ten minutes before train-time a brilliantly dressed woman swept by us. I looked up and I own I was badly startled. I recognized her as one of the women secret police of St. Petersburg. Only the day before she had sat at the very next table to me in the Hôtel de France in St. Petersburg. Now, thirty hours later, she was in Moscow. By shifting our positions several times we made out with almost equal surety that she, too, was shadowing us. But Sasha, knowing that his nerves and my own were badly strained at that time, was loath to be frightened out of his course. Two bells sounded and we started for the train. At the gate where tickets are examined Sasha looked back and saw the man whom we had been warned against immediately behind me; just beyond the gate stood the woman whose face I knew so well. She seemed to be waiting for some one. Four weeks later I learned quite accidentally that this very woman had been on my trail more or less continuously for several months.

Sasha and I both took in the situation at a glance and Sasha whispered to me: “I don’t want to die to-morrow! This job, at any rate, must be finished first.”

We boarded the train, passed through the cars, dropped off the other side into the yard, and got into a side street behind the station. Once more the police net closed empty.

The next day Sasha made his way to St. Petersburg via Vilna. Two weeks later he participated in a terrorist coup near Kieff, then fled to Warsaw and the Polish frontier. He paid some money to a Jew whom he knew of, who smuggled him into Austria one night. Three months later, when I was in Paris, I called on Sasha and Nastasia where they were living on a top floor of a house on a street leading off the Boulevard Saint Michel opposite to the Luxembourg Gardens. They were both working hard at chemistry, agriculture, history, and philosophy, looking forward to the time when they could reënter their own country to participate in the final overthrow of the autocracy and then serve as teachers of the people through the long, serious period of the reconstruction.

CHAPTER XX

WITH THE RUSSIAN WORKMAN