At the end of July the captives heard that they would shortly go away. It was impossible to leave them there any longer. The Soviets of Petrograd and Kronstadt had tried to obtain possession of them by force and by stealth. Once an individual attired in uniform, styling himself Colonel Maslovsky, had made his appearance, and, producing a paper signed Chkeidze, demanded, in the name of the Soviet of Petrograd, the transfer of the prisoners to the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, threatening to call in the troops if his demands were not immediately complied with. It was with the greatest difficulty that Colonel Kobylinsky averted the danger. The Provisional Government could not afford to let the Soviets obtain the custody of such valuable hostages. It had to remove them to a place of safety--above all to a place where the Soviets could not easily reach them. Perhaps this explains the selection of such a remote place as Tobolsk. It was chosen by Kerensky without the knowledge of the captives. They thought, till the train was conveying them eastward, that they were bound for the south. The ex-Tsar did not like his destination. He suspected a trap, though what should have made him suspicious is not known. Permission had been given to the banished sovereigns to choose the persons who were to accompany them into exile. Nicholas selected his aide-de-camp Naryshkin, but as this favourite hesitated, he at once crossed out his name and proposed Ilya Leonidovich Tatishchev, who, with Prince Vasily Alexandrovich Dolgoruky remained with him to the end, paying for their loyalty and devotion with their lives. In a separate chapter I shall describe the heroism, sufferings, and end of those who were faithful unto death--of the two whom I have just named, of Dr. Botkin and of young Countess Anastasia Vasilievna Hendrykova, angel of purity and grace, whose mere presence at the Court of Alexandra should have kept away all things evil, and of devoted Mlle. Schneider, and of the humbler servitors. The ex-Empress was not permitted, for some unexplained reason, to take her favourite maid. The evil genius of the household, Anna Vyrubova, had been locked up in the fortress. She and Voeikov, the ex-palace commandant, had been subjected to the most searching interrogation by the members of the “Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry regarding the Dark Forces.” Such was the high-sounding title invented by Kerensky to mobilise all methods of bringing home to the Tsar the abominable charges invented against him. Nothing could be proved, because there was nothing to prove. But Kerensky had his spies all the time at the palace and sent one to Tobolsk.