It has, however, been since revealed by analysis that the compound sold to Rasputin by the chemist--a secret administrator of drugs to Petrograd society named Badmayeff--was a poisonous powder produced from the new horns of stags, mixed with the root of "jen-shen." In the early spring when the stags shed their horns there appear small knobs where the new horns will grow. It is from these that the Chinese obtain the powder which, when mixed with "jen-shen," produces a very strong medicine highly prized in China and Thibet as being supposed to rejuvenate old persons, and to act as a kind of love-philtre. When used in strong doses it produces peculiar symptoms, and also induces dangerous haemorrhage. It is evident from evidence I have recently obtained, that on the twentieth day after Rasputin's departure the high priestess of his cult, Madame Vyrubova, administered to the poor helpless little lad a strong dose in his food. Day followed day; she increased that dose, until the poor little boy's condition became most precarious, and the deluded Empress was equally frantic with grief. At any moment he might die, the doctors declared. One night Rasputin returned quite unexpectedly without having replied even once to the Tsaritza's frantic appeals. He made a dramatic appearance in her private boudoir, dressed in sandals and his monk's habit, as though he had just returned from a pilgrimage. "I have come to thee, O Lady, to try and save thy son!" he announced earnestly in that deep raucous voice of his, crossing himself piously as was his constant habit. The distracted Empress flew to the boy's room where the mock-saint laid his hands upon the lad's clammy brow and then falling upon his knees prayed loudly in his strange jumble of scraps of holy writ interspersed with profanity, that curious jargon which always impressed his "sister-disciples." "Thy son will recover," declared the saint, thus for the second time impressing upon Her Majesty that his absence from Court would inevitably cause the boy's death. "But why, Holy Father, did you leave us?" demanded the Empress when they were alone together ten minutes afterwards. "Because thou wert prone to believe ill of me," was his stern reply. "I will not remain here with those who are not my friends." "Ah! Forgive me!" cried the hysterical woman, falling upon her knees and wildly kissing his dirty hand. "Remain--remain here always with us! I will never again think ill of thee, O Holy Father! All that is said is by your enemies--who are also mine." The pious rascal's house in the Gorokhovaya, besides being the meeting-place of the society women who, believers in "table turning," were his sister-disciples, was also the active centre of German intrigues. It was the centre of Germany's frantic effort to absorb the Russian Empire.