We were present at several gatherings of officers, in Vladimir Franzovitch's room. Over bread and salted fish, washed down by tea, they discussed the black past and the blacker future. From them we heard awful tales of massacres and looting during the Bolshevist domination over the Black Sea regions. Of these the most dreadful was that of the cruiser _Almaz_. There have been published many imaginative reports of Bolshevist massacres; but for horror these are equalled by many true stories that have never been fully told, and never will be until the veil of isolation is lifted and the seeker after truth is free to gather his information at first-hand. I have every reason to believe the story of the _Almaz_. It was vouched for not only by Vladimir Franzovitch and other Russians whom we met in Odessa, but by Englishmen who were living in the city at the time, and are now back in England. Moreover, it is perpetuated in a local song similar to those of the French Revolution. The Bolsheviki who first occupied Odessa, in the early spring of 1918, made their headquarters on the cruiser _Almaz_. Their first batch of arrests comprised about two hundred officers, with a few officials and other civilians. These were taken to the _Almaz_, and lined up on the deck. Each man in turn was asked: "Would you prefer a hot bath or a cold?" Those that chose a cold bath were thrown into the Black Sea, with weights tied to their feet. Those that said "hot" were stoked into the furnaces--alive. Later, one Murravieff, believed to have been formerly a _agent provocateur_ of the Tsarist secret police, came to Odessa as Bolsheviki commissary. He divided the city into four sections and the Red Guards into four parties, each of which was allotted its particular district for three days of licensed looting. The Saturnalia was due to begin in three days' time, when the first Austro-Hungarian detachment landed to restore order, in response to the Ukrainian Provisional Government's invitation. Many of the looters were rounded up and shot; but the Bolsheviki leaders, including Murravieff and several Jews, escaped with millions of roubles, commandeered from the bank reserves. Murravieff afterward had the decency to commit suicide, but his Jewish colleagues continued to flourish in Soviet Russia. Odessa had a respite from Bolshevist domination until the tragedy of March, 1919. Then, after a period of occupation by an insufficient Franco-Greek force, the city was evacuated in the face of an army of Soviet troops. Credible eye-witnesses report the massacre of three thousand people within a few days of Odessa's recapture by the Bolsheviks.