of the Turks."[1] [1] _The Invasion of the Crimea_. Sixth edition. [Illustration: NICOLAS KIRÉEFF] I saw it stated in the newspapers a short time back that a German officer and some hundred and fifty men had surrendered to the British, stating that he and his men would probably be of more use to Germany alive than dead. When I think of the tragedy surrounding the death of my brother, Nicholas Kiréeff, I can now see that he served Russia better by his death than he could by living for her. The news of his heroic fall passed from one end {34} of Russia to the other like the notes of a bugle calling an army into being. But for his death my own humble efforts to bring about a better understanding between two great nations might possibly never have been attempted. There is probably no evil out of which good cannot be formed. The effect of my brother's death was instantaneous and electrical. He was the first Russian volunteer to fall in the cause of freedom, the cause that people in Great Britain could not or would not understand. Officers and men of the Russian army clamoured to go to the front. By giving his life freely for the sake of his conscience, my brother was the instrument of Russia doing one of the finest things that any nation has ever done. Kinglake has written: "It may be that the grandeur of the young colonel's form and stature, and the sight of the blood, showing vividly on his white attire, added something extraneous and weird to the sentiment which might well be inspired by witnessing his personal heroism ... but, be that as it may, the actual result was that accounts of the incident--accounts growing every day more and more marvellous--flew so swiftly from city to city, from village to village, that before seven days had passed, the smouldering fire of Russian enthusiasm leapt up into a dangerous flame. Under countless green domes, big and small, priests fiercely chanting the 'Requiem' for a young hero's soul, and setting forth the glory of dying in defence of 'syn-orthodox' brethren, drew warlike responses from men who--whilst still in cathedral or church--cried aloud that they, too, would go where the young {35} Kiréeff had gone; and so many of them hastened to keep their word, that before long a flood of volunteers from many parts of Russia was pouring fast into Belgrade. To sustain the once kindled enthusiasm apt means were taken. The simple photograph, representing the young Kiréeff's noble features, soon expanded to large-sized portraits; and Fable then springing forward in the Path of Truth, but transcending it with the swiftness of our modern appliances, there was constituted in a strangely short time one of those stirring legends which used to be the growth of long years--a legend half warlike, half superstitious, which exalted its really tall hero to the dimensions of a giant, and showed him piling up hecatombs by a mighty slaughter of Turks."[2] [2] _The Invasion of the Crimea_. Sixth edition.