For some time before March 13, 1881, Gen. Count Loris Melikoff, the officer responsible for the safety of Czar Alexander II., had received disquieting reports which gave him the greatest anxiety. On the 10th of the month Jelaboff, the ringleader of the conspiracy, was arrested by accident, and the direction of the attempt on the Czar’s life was accordingly left to Sophie Perowskaja, a young, pretty and highly educated noblewoman, who had left everything to join the Nihilists. It is said that on the morning of the 13th Melikoff begged the Czar to forego his purpose of reviewing the Marine Corps, and keep within the palace. The Emperor laughed at him, and declared there was no danger. There was no incident until after the review. As the Emperor drove back beside the Ekaterinofsky Canal, just opposite the imperial stables, a young woman on the other side of the canal fluttered a handkerchief, and immediately a man started out from the crowd that was watching the passing of the Czar, and threw a bomb under the closed carriage. There was a roaring explosion, a cloud of smoke. The rear of the vehicle was blown away, and the horror-stricken multitude saw the Czar standing unhurt, staring about him. On the ground were several members of the Life Guard, groaning and writhing in pain. The assassin had pulled out a revolver to complete his work, but he was at once mobbed by the people. Col. Dvorjitsky and Captains Kock and Kulebiekan, of the guards, rushed up to their master and asked him if he was hurt. “Thank God! no,” said the Czar. “Come, let us look after the wounded.” And he started toward one of the Cossacks. “It is too soon to thank God yet, Alexander Nicolaivitch,” said a clear, threatening voice in the crowd, and before any one could stop him, a young man bounded forward, lifted up both arms above his head, and brought them down with a swing. There was a crash of dynamite, a blaze, a smoke, and the autocrat of all the Russias was lying on the bloody snow, with his murderer also dying in front of him. Col. Dvorjitsky lifted up the Czar, who whispered: “I am cold, my friend, so cold,—take me to the Winter Palace to die.” The desperate Nihilist had thrown his bomb right between the Czar’s feet, and had sacrificed his own life to kill the Emperor. Alexander was shockingly mutilated. Both of his legs were broken, and the lower part of his body was frightfully torn and mangled. The assassin—his name was Nicholas Elnikoff, of Wilna—was even more badly hurt. He died at once. [Illustration: “IT IS TOO SOON TO THANK GOD!” THE ASSASSINATION OF CZAR ALEXANDER II.] The Czar was taken into an open sled, and although it was claimed he received the last sacrament at the Winter Palace, most of those who know believe that he died on the way there.