XLIV. A PAGE IN THE HISTORY OF THE PRESENT LIVING BUDDHA XLV. THE VISION OF THE LIVING BUDDHA OF MAY 17, 1921 PART V. MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES--THE KING OF THE WORLD XLVI. THE SUBTERRANEAN KINGDOM XLVII. THE KING OF THE WORLD BEFORE THE FACE OF GOD XLVIII. REALITY OR RELIGIOUS FANTASY? XLIX. THE PROPHECY OF THE KING OF THE WORLD IN 1890 There are times, men and events about which History alone can record the final judgments; contemporaries and individual observers must only write what they have seen and heard. The very truth demands it. TITUS LIVIUS. BEASTS, MEN AND GODS Part I DRAWING LOTS WITH DEATH CHAPTER I INTO THE FORESTS In the beginning of the year 1920 I happened to be living in the Siberian town of Krasnoyarsk, situated on the shores of the River Yenisei, that noble stream which is cradled in the sun-bathed mountains of Mongolia to pour its warming life into the Arctic Ocean and to whose mouth Nansen has twice come to open the shortest road for commerce from Europe to the heart of Asia. There in the depths of the still Siberian winter I was suddenly caught up in the whirling storm of mad revolution raging all over Russia, sowing in this peaceful and rich land vengeance, hate, bloodshed and crimes that go unpunished by the law. No one could tell the hour of his fate. The people lived from day to day and left their homes not knowing whether they should return to them or whether they should be dragged from the streets and thrown into the dungeons of that travesty of courts, the Revolutionary Committee, more terrible and more bloody than those of the Mediaeval Inquisition. We who were strangers in this distraught land were not saved from its persecutions and I personally lived through them.