Before I had made up my mind whether to push my observations further, I was alarmed to see a sotnia of Cossacks approaching, led by a Russian officer. My little camp was quickly surrounded, and the officer presented himself before me. It required all my nerve to deal with the emergency. The first words of the officer showed me that he considered me a spy, and was prepared to hang me out of hand. I affected the utmost astonishment and indignation, and produced the papers which showed me to be a Frenchman travelling on behalf of various financial syndicates in Paris. The officer thrust them aside contemptuously. ‘All this is nothing to me,’ he declared. ‘You should not have come within reach of our camp. Even if I do not hang you, you will never be allowed to return to Europe, of that you may be assured.’ ‘I will take my chance of that, captain,’ I answered coolly. ‘Living in this out-of-the-way region, you perhaps have not heard that France and Russia are in military alliance, and, besides, that the Tsar has declared his intention to disarm, so that your preparations here have ceased to be of the slightest consequence to anybody.’ The officer was fairly staggered. He had heard, of course, of the French alliance, and no doubt some rumour as to the recent rescript had penetrated to the secret camp, but without its scope being very well understood. ‘I know that it is my duty to arrest you, at the very least,’ he persisted. ‘As to that, you will do as you please. It will sound well in Paris that every prospector who ventures into Siberia with a view of developing the resources of the country exposes himself to the treatment of a spy. M. Witte will find it takes some persuasion to secure another French loan.’ It is needless to give further details of a conversation in which the ignorance of the Russian gave me a very great advantage over him. I am vain enough to plume myself on having made use of the treacherous rescript to out-manœuvre its authors. In saying that, of course, I do not refer to Nicholas II., who perhaps did not even know of the existence of the hidden camp. In the end the Cossack officer decided to escort me back to the town where I had left the train, and hand me over to the civil authorities, a decision which was assisted by the usual methods of persuasion in the East. My friend the Prefect, already predisposed in my favour, required a somewhat heavier bribe, and finally I made assurance doubly sure by resuming my journey eastward, and leaving Russian territory by way of the Chinese frontier. It was from the first telegraph station in the Celestial Empire that I sent the cipher despatch to Constantinople which was destined to render abortive the much-talked-of Conference at the Hague: ‘_Russia preparing enormous concealed camp in Siberia, beside railway, to hide forces when nominally disbanded. I have seen it._’