disaster became a welcome incident in the lives of these affronted
women. The appearance of either seemed to carry to the prisoners
a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark
corners of their hearts. They indulged the hope that some of
those foreign uniforms might conceal trustworthy friends. And they
recognized a basis for such a hope in the mystifying movements of one
of those uniforms that met their notice day by day. It was near them
at the palace when they were thrown upon a maddened world. They saw it
following onward as they passed through pathless wilds. They could see
it hovering near them on that last historic night. They learned about
its maneuvers in the morning as it moved among the silent rooms of the
pretty mansard cottage that had witnessed their withdrawal from
the vision of historical events,--how it had paused to scan without
emotion the small blood stain on the floor--how an agitated censor
informed the credulous that the prisoners had been murdered in cold
blood! Thus they learned that the world had heard with skepticism
that, so far as history and international politicians were affected,
their _seven lives had been, technically, blotted out_! (See Part II:
Petrograd--Tumen--Tobolsk.)

Possibly the Prisoners of Tobolsk may have been willing to suffer what
is termed a "technical death" in diplomatic circles in order to elude
the hungry bloodhounds of the Revolution. They may have welcomed
the many opportunities such an event would furnish to read their own
obituary in the letters and official documents which treated of their
tragic fate. Who knows? They certainly possessed a saving sense of
humor or they would never have left behind them at Ekaterinburg
so many little reminders of the tragic romance to which calm
investigation hereafter will give birth. For instance, there are a
couple of diaries that some men must have kept. Of their existence it