"If thou wilt not postpone the Duma, then the peril will be upon thine own head!" I heard Rasputin shout. "Why allow these revolutionary deputies to criticise thy policy and undermine thy popularity with the nation? It is folly! Such policy is suicidal, and if thou wilt persist I shall withdraw and return to my home, well knowing that to-morrow the day of Russia's doom will dawn." "The people are clamouring for the reopening of the Duma," replied the Emperor weakly. "I can do nothing else but submit." "I have had a vision," declared the monk. "Last night there was revealed unto me the dire result of thy folly. I saw thee, the victim of thy nation's anger, dethroned, degraded and imprisoned." But even that lie failed to induce the Tsar to alter his decision, and naturally so, for he was afraid of the dark cloud which he saw rising, and which he believed to be due to the long adjournment of the Duma. Hence he was afraid to take the monk's advice. Again I heard both men's voices raised in hot argument. "I am Emperor!" cried the Tsar at last, angrily, in a high, shrill tone, "and I refuse to be thus dictated to!" Next second there was a loud crash of glass, and I heard Rasputin shout: "Thou refuseth to listen to good counsel! As I have smashed that bowl, so will the people, I tell thee, rise and smash the House of Romanoff!" With those words he turned, and a moment later rejoined me, his face flushed with anger, and his knotted fingers clenched. He went straight to the Empress and told her of his failure to move Nicholas from his decision. "But surely this man Miliukoff must be prevented from speaking!" cried the unhappy woman, who saw all her deep-laid schemes crumbling rapidly away, and herself branded as a traitress. "Father, you must work yet another miracle. He must be seized by a sudden illness--an accident must happen to him, or--or something!" Rasputin shook his head dubiously, declaring that there was no time to arrange a second attempt. "Have you put it to Protopopoff?" she asked. "He might suggest some means, now that the woman Kalatcheff has failed us. If not--he will speak--and we are lost! Think, Father, what it all means! There is already public unrest created by the rumours that we have unfortunately spread of pending disaster, and if they are followed by such charges supported by documents, then revolution is inevitable!" I saw that the Tsaritza, now that every means to secure Miliukoff's silence had failed, was terrified lest she be exhibited in her own true traitorous colours. Back we went to Petrograd, where we called at Protopopoff's house, and where still another attempt against Miliukoff's life was plotted. By telephone an ex-agent of Secret Police named Stefanovitch, who had done much work as an _agent-provocateur_ for the camarilla, was called, and a price was at once arranged for the murder of the Deputy.