Manuiloff, who had forged incriminating documents many times, and who had a dozen underlings who assisted him in these nefarious deeds, understood perfectly. He was paid to act as his two chiefs directed, and dozens of innocent persons were rotting in prison at that moment because they had fallen beneath Rasputin's displeasure. So it was that by noon next day both Violle and his pretty wife--who had only the day before been a close friend of the Tsaritza--were on their way to Schluesselburg as dangerous to the State. Truly, the monk had neither scruples nor honesty, neither compunction nor pity; for the woman who was his favourite he had turned upon and sent to that grim island fortress, where in one of those terrible oubliettes below the level of the lake her death took place eight months later. CHAPTER VIII RASPUTIN THE ACTUAL TSAR THE tragi-comedy of Tsarskoe-Selo was being played with increasing vigour just prior to the war. Berlin, through Rasputin, piped the tune to which the Imperial Court was dancing--the Dance of Death! One night, after Rasputin had dined with Madame Vyrubova and myself, General Soukhomlinoff, Minister of War, entered, swaggering in the uniform of the Grodno Hussars. This man, who, as I write, is in a convict prison as a traitor, had only a week before assured the Emperor that the army was ready "to the last button" for a possible war, and the troops devoted to him. I happen to know how many thousand roubles passed into his banking account from the Deutsche Bank in Berlin as price of that lie! Poor weak Nicholas! On the day following, Protopopoff, the wily schemer and spy of Germany, who was admitted to all the secrets of the Allies, went to the Emperor and echoed what Rasputin had declared to His Majesty, namely, that God was with Russia and that the Holy Spirit approved of the righteous work accomplished under the guidance of Stuermer and Soukhomlinoff. Truly the camarilla were supporting each other, and I, an onlooker, stood amazed and astounded. All four were half-mad with wild dreams of the prosperity which war would bring to them, for the bribes promised by Berlin were heavy, and Hardt and other secret messengers were constantly passing between the two capitals bearing confidential orders from the Wilhelmstrasse, of which the War Minister's assurance to the Tsar had been one. But Soukhomlinoff, whose wife was declared to be the most _chic_ and extravagant woman in all Petrograd, strode up and down the room that night in a fury of rage. "Gregory!" he cried. "An untoward incident has happened. Your enemy Vorontsof Dachkof has been at work against you this afternoon." "Curse him! How?" growled the monk, for the Lieutenant-General of the Caucasus had been a personal friend of Alexander III.