These two good fellows were shot shortly afterwards; their sole crime had been their inability to hide their indignation on seeing the Bolshevik commissaries seize the little gold chain from which the holy images hung over the sick bed of Alexis Nicolaïevitch.
A few more days passed, and then I learned through Dr. Derevenko that the request made on my behalf had been refused.
On June 3rd our carriage was coupled to one of the many trains loaded with starving people from Russia coming to look for food in Siberia. We made for Tioumen, where, after various wanderings, we finally arrived on the fifteenth. A few hours later I was placed under arrest by Bolshevik headquarters, where I had been forced to apply for a _visa_ that was indispensable to my companions and myself. It was only by a lucky combination of circumstances that I came to be released in the evening and was able to get back to the railway carriage, in
[Illustration: YOUROVSKY, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH PRODUCED AT THE ENQUIRY.]
[Illustration: THE GRAND-DUCHESSES’ ROOM AS I SAW IT ON ENTERING IPATIEF’S HOUSE. ON THE FLOOR ARE THE ASHES FROM THE STOVES.
which they were waiting for me. The following days were days of indescribable anxiety, at the mercy of any chance that might call attention to us. Probably what saved us was that we were lost in the crowd of refugees who filled Tioumen station, and so managed to pass unnoticed.
On July 20th the Whites, as the anti-Bolshevik troops were called, captured Tioumen and saved us from the fanatics who had so nearly claimed us as victims. A few days later the papers published a reproduction of the proclamation that had been placarded in the streets of Ekaterinburg, announcing that the sentence of death passed on the ex-Czar Nicholas Romanoff had been carried out on the night of July 16th-17th and that the Czarina and her children had been removed to a place of safety.
At last, on July 25th, Ekaterinburg fell in its turn. Hardly was communication re-established--which took a long time as the permanent way had suffered severely--when Mr. Gibbes and I hastened to the town to search for the Imperial family and those of our companions who had remained at Ekaterinburg.
Two days after my arrival I made my first entry into Ipatief’s house. I went through the first-floor rooms, which had served as the prison; they were in an indescribable state of disorder. It was evident that every effort had been made to get rid of any traces of the recent occupants. Heaps of ashes had been raked out of the stoves. Among them were a quantity of small articles, half burnt, such as tooth-brushes, hairpins, buttons, etc., in the midst of which I found the end of a hair-brush on the browned ivory of which could still be seen the initials of the Czarina, A. F. (Alexandra-Feodorovna.). If it was true that the prisoners had been sent away, they must have been removed just as they were, without any of the most essential articles of toilet.