Under the agitated surface of this tidal wave of fanaticism that threatened to engulf the Royal prisoners there were a few men in Europe and America, as well as in India and Thibet, who were slowly converging in the direction of the victims with a phrase upon their lips that none but Royalty and themselves were privileged to use.  It was that ancient secret code transmitted by tradition to the followers of a sturdy Tyrian king.  It was made use of by Lycurgus, as well as by Solomon and Justinian; and it was again employed by the partisans of Louis XVIII to save the House of Bourbon.  It is that mystic code which binds Royalty together and is given only to those whom Royalty may trust.  That ancient code meant freedom if it reached the prisoners in time!  It rested with these silent men to pass the scrutiny of a million eyes to liberate the victims from the fury of the mob.

Such a rescue, as time swept by, became nothing but a slender hope with any of the women.  They began to realize that their blood would not very greatly shock the nerves of statesmen who had become accustomed to the daily cataract that poured down upon the soil of Europe.  They felt abandoned by the diplomats.  Their only friends were busy in the red work of war.  One chance alone remained.  Soldiers might be deceived by men disguised as comrades.  The Secret Service might overlook the hysterical entertainers who fluttered under the mask of charitable workers and skipped across forbidden lines protected by a Cross.  This was the only possibility, this the phantom hope that stood trembling on the brink of the prisoners’ abysmal fear.  Thus the sight of a Red Cross driver or an English uniform in the midst of their 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.)