Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/72

 of 42 rubles to the dollar, amounted to very little. Into the bargain he avoided meeting me and threatened me with arrest. I determined to settle the affair and I asked Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd to come with me to the Swiato-Chudlovsky Monastery. After a long search, we found Platon hiding in the catacombs of the monastery, in the very room in which Patriarch Hermoneges had been stoned. I was a captain in the Army, and as such was fully armed, but it never occurred to me to resort to-arms. I grabbed



Platon by the collar, and pulled him out of hiding. Metropolitan Benjamin, fearing a brawl, implored me to release Platon, who was screaming at the top of his voice. Fifteen of the monks heard his cries, ran in and wanted to arrest me, but when I showed them my credentials, and they saw that it was I who had the power to