"Diagonally across the way there has been a Red Cross nurse eternally peeking through her window in this direction.... If we go out into the courtyard she can see us plainly behind the other buildings, for there is nothing to obstruct her vision.... and she seems mighty anxious to keep tab on all proceedings in the yard.... I have tried to figure out a resemblance between this nurse and the capricious Métropole Baroness, but the nurse _seems_ much older.... Perhaps she is disguised.... If she ever reveals her identity she will remember me as the man who tipped _my_ cap to her after posting the two sentries in front of the palisade between the telephone poles and the British Consulate.... If she remembers me she will also recall the drillings I gave my awkward squad for the few days I kept them parading after my prisoners in the yard.... and if anything happens to me she will KNOW that I did my job well up to the minute I write this.... In a few hours more the future political history of the world may be changed forever.... To blot out _seven_ lives is all.... _Dokónchet the Romanoffs!_" 23. This entry follows: "To satisfy the mob I had to perform a very unpleasant _duty_.... I use the word duty advisedly, remembering the instructions I committed to memory in the underground office of the Wilhelmstrasse .... Knowing that I am continually WATCHED and spied upon, not only by that nurse in the window over there, but by a number of crazed lunatics in uniform, I was compelled to treat a very pretty Princess _shamefully_.... News was spread yesterday that Japan had loaned Siberia $250,000,000, and the mob was clamoring for the jewels of the prisoners. This unoffending Princess--this girl, hardly more than seventeen--was holding a conversation in French with her brother Alexis, a little lad of fourteen, in the courtyard. The boy was pale and emaciated from abuse, solitude and confinement. The Princess, a radiant beauty under this hot July sun, was trying to cheer Alexis up. Her gown was badly soiled and of a simple soft material that seemed to accentuate her modest resignation and glorify her courageous cheerfulness in gloom. Her three older sisters, in gowns that spoke of yesterdays, were walking moodily down the path, when a crowd of ruffians burst by the sentries, tore through the doors, and dashed into the yard in the direction of the startled girls.... Taking in the situation quickly, I raised my voice and began swearing like a demon, and prancing around like a _skberny_ madman.... Then rushing up to Tatiana I TORE FROM HER EARS the jewels that had descended from her early ancestors and howled: 'Aha! you'll wear those cursed things, will you, when your betters are starving in the gutters! Get back, all of you, into your Ipatiev SEPULCHRE and get me ALL the jewelry in the place or _I'll turn these men loose upon you_ in three quarters of an hour!... Soldiers,--_attention!!'_ ... The mob crawled into line....