filled the tent with a soft fragrance.  I felt a distinct palpitation of my heart and a swimming in my head.  After the fortune teller had burned all her grass, she placed the bird bones on the charcoal and turned them over again and again with a small pair of bronze pincers.  As the bones blackened, she began to examine them and then suddenly her face took on an expression of fear and pain.  She nervously tore off the kerchief which bound her head and, contracted with convulsions, began snapping out short, sharp phrases.

“I see . . .  I see the God of War. . . .  His life runs out . . . horribly. . . .  After it a shadow . . . black like the night. . . .  Shadow. . . .  One hundred thirty steps remain. . . .  Beyond darkness. . . .  Nothing . . .  I see nothing. . . .  The God of War has disappeared. . . .”

Baron Ungern dropped his head.  The woman fell over on her back with her arms stretched out.  She had fainted, but it seemed to me that I noticed once a bright pupil of one of her eyes showing from under the closed lashes.  Two Buriats carried out the lifeless form, after which a long silence reigned in the yurta of the Buriat Prince.  Baron Ungern finally got up and began to walk around the brazier, whispering to himself.  Afterwards he stopped and began speaking rapidly: 

“I shall die!  I shall die! . . . but no matter, no matter. . . .  The cause has been launched and will not die. . . .  I know the roads this cause will travel.  The tribes of Jenghiz Khan’s successors are awakened.  Nobody shall extinguish the fire in the heart of the Mongols!  In Asia there will be a great State from the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the shore of the Volga.  The wise religion of Buddha shall run to the north and the west.  It will be the victory of the spirit.  A conqueror and leader will appear stronger and more stalwart than Jenghiz Khan and Ugadai.  He will be more clever and more merciful than Sultan Baber and he will keep power in his hands until the happy day when, from his subterranean capital, shall emerge the King of the World.  Why, why shall I not be in the first ranks of the warriors of Buddhism?  Why has Karma decided so?  But so it must be!  And Russia must first wash herself from the insult of revolution, purifying herself with blood and death; and all people accepting Communism must perish with their families in order that all their offspring may be rooted out!”

The Baron raised his hand above his head and shook it, as though he were giving his orders and bequests to some invisible person.

Day was dawning.

“My time has come!” said the General.  “In a little while I shall leave Urga.”

He quickly and firmly shook hands with us and said: 

“Good-bye for all time!  I shall die a horrible death but the world has never seen such a terror and such a sea of blood as it shall now see. . . .”

The door of the yurta slammed shut and he was gone.  I never saw him again.