This last week of their life must have been the most dreadful one of all for the Romanovs. Brutal and bestial as the Russians had been in the early part of their wardenship, they were preferable, even at their worst, to the silent relentless torture applied by Yurovsky, who also was a drunkard. He and his band watched them literally like a cat watches a mouse. He was polite to the Tsar and spoke softly to Alexis; he even permitted a priest to come and say prayers, which comforted Alexandra and the poor captives unspeakably; yet there is evidence that never had they looked so utterly, hopelessly wretched as under the tutelage of the Jew. This man’s brothers and sisters describe him as a “cruel tyrant who would not hesitate at anything to attain his ends.” The man and his executioners only waited for the signal that was to come from Yankel Sverdlov. Everything was ready for the murder. The victims had been adequately tortured. Goloshchekin, the Jew Sadist, licked his lips in pleasurable anticipation. CHAPTER IX CALVARY Yankel Yurovsky left the prison-house on several occasions. Each absence lasted many hours. He was surveying the environs of the city for a convenient place to dispose of the bodies of his victims. His escort consisted of one or two of the “Letts” mounted on horseback. Several witnesses deposed to meeting him and his bodyguard in the woods during the week that preceded the murder. They were seen near the very spot where the remains were afterwards destroyed. Whenever he had to absent himself, Yurovsky placed Medvedev in charge. Besides the latter, there was another non “Lett” in the house, a certain Nikulin, respecting whom it is known that he came with Yurovsky from the _Chrezvychaika_. He enjoyed Yurovsky’s entire confidence, and was probably there to keep an eye on Medvedev. On Monday, July 15th, the lay sisters came as usual in the morning with milk for the Imperial family. Yankel took it himself, and graciously informed them that on the morrow they might bring half-a-hundred eggs. This they did gladly, thinking that the poor captives would enjoy a hearty meal, all unsuspicious of the cynical intention that had prompted Yurovsky’s generosity. (These eggs were boiled by Haritonov, but they were eaten, not in Ipatiev’s house, but in the woods.) On the Tuesday morning, a whole nine days before the arrival of the Czechs, Yurovsky made his final arrangements for the murder of the family. The boy Leonid Sednev was removed early in the day to Popov’s house across the lane, whither the Russian guards had been transferred. There he was seen sitting on the window-sill and crying bitterly, whether because he was dull without his play-fellow or had some inkling of his fate is not known. The boy disappeared, never to be seen again. Later this gave rise to rumours that Yurovsky had been told to reserve him for future use, perhaps to impersonate his little friend the Tsarevitch--in short, to act the part of a False Dmitri.