"Good-looking--extremely good-looking, Feodor," the monk remarked as soon as she had gone. "She might be very useful to me in the near future." Then after a pause he added: "Ring up His Excellency the Minister of War and ask where Brusiloff is at the present moment." I did so, and after a short wait found myself talking to General Soukhomlinoff, who told me that the Russian commander was that day at headquarters at Minsk. When I told the monk, he said: "You must go there at once, Feodor, and carry the little tube to the Cossack Peter Tchernine, who is now Brusiloff's body-servant." "I!" I gasped, startled at the suggestion that I should be chosen to convey death to our gallant commander. "Yes. And pray why not? Someone whom I can trust must act as messenger. And I trust you above all men, Feodor." For a moment I hesitated. Then I thanked him for his expression of confidence, but he at once noticed the reluctance which I had endeavoured to conceal. "Surely, Feodor, you are not hesitating to perform this service for the Fatherland? Think of all the sacrifices we are making to bring the benefit of German civilisation into Russia," added the pious scoundrel. "I will go--certainly I will go," I said. "But I cannot leave to-day. I shall require papers from the Ministry ere I can travel." "His Excellency the General will order them to be furnished to you," he said. "I will see to it at once." And five minutes later he went out to seek the Minister. I was horrified at my position, compelled as I was to convey the means of death to the hands of the German spy Tchernine, who had been placed as servant to the Russian commander. I saw that I must leave Petrograd for Minsk that night; therefore I set about preparing for my adventurous journey. Indeed, shortly before midnight I left the Gorokhovaya with the box of Swedish matches in my inner pocket. The journey from Petrograd due south to Polotzk, where I had to change, proved an interminable one and occupied nearly two days, so congested was the line by military traffic and ambulance trains. At last on arrival there I joined a troop-train with reinforcements going to Minsk, where I duly alighted, to discover that General Brusiloff's headquarters were out at a village called Gorodok, about five miles distant, in the direction of Vilna. The evening was bitterly cold, and as I drove along I became filled with ineffable disgust of Rasputin and the disgraceful camarilla who were slowly but surely hurling the nation to its doom. Had I refused to undertake that devilish mission, the monk would have instantly suspected me of double dealing, and sooner or later I should have met with an untimely end, as, alas! so many others had done. So completely had he placed me beneath his thumb that I was compelled to act as he dictated, in order to save my own life, for, as I have already explained, the "holy" man held the lives of those who displeased him very cheaply.