In the meanwhile, Rasputin had been carried back to his room and telegrams dispatched everywhere for a doctor. The wound, though deep, was not a serious one and it had not attacked any vital organs. The man was in no danger, but his disciples chose to say that it was a miracle of Providence that he had not succumbed at once under the blow which had been dealt at him. The “Prophet,” when he had felt himself stabbed, had cried out that some one was to “arrest that b----h who had hit him.” Then he caused several telegrams to be sent to his friends in St. Petersburg in which he described the attempt against his life as the work of the devil, who had inspired the woman Gousieva and induced her to commit her abominable action. He added that at the moment when her weapon had touched him he had seen an angel descend from Heaven, stop her arm, and then put a hand on his wound so as to stop it from bleeding, and that it was only due to this direct intervention of the Almighty that he had escaped with his life. Of course, the story was believed by the credulous people who accepted every one of his words as a manifestation of the will of the Lord, and he became more than ever a saint, to whom the people began to raise altars, and to regard in the light of another Saviour come to redeem mankind from the terrors of sin. In St. Petersburg the news of the attempted assassination of Rasputin had produced an immense impression, and had been commented upon in different ways. Some people saw in it an intervention of the secret police, who had been told to get rid in some way or other of a man who was fast becoming a public nuisance and embarrassment for everybody, even for those who had benefited through their acquaintance with him. Others declared that it was a just punishment for his evil deeds, and that the woman Gousieva had not been badly inspired when she had tried to revenge herself on him for the terrible wrong which he had done to her. Every one was anxious to learn how the news would be received in certain quarters and among the bevy of feminine worshippers whose existence was wrapped up in that of Rasputin. Public curiosity, however, was not destined to be satisfied, because nothing was heard concerning the feelings of these adepts of his on this remarkable occasion. The only thing which one learned in regard to the whole affair was that two ladies who figured among his most prominent supporters had started at once for Pokrovskoie, and that a celebrated surgeon from Kazan had also been requested to go to see him regardless of what his journey might cost.