Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/84

 money, and sent me back for imperial rubles. I went back, exchanged the notes, secured a guard, and left for the factory. We reached the station safely, but no carriage had been sent to meet us. To walk with such a sum of money, at night into the bargain, would have been sheer madness. Petlura's bands were only three versts away on one side and the Poles seven versts on the other. My guard suggsted [sic] that we spnd [sic] the night in a nearby inn, and I acted upon his advice. We ate some dry bread as black as earth and went to sleep, both in the same room. I put the valise with the money unded the bed, and no matter how hard I tried to keep awake, I was so tired that before long I was fast asleep.

When I awoke the next morning I immediately took my valise from under the bed. It looked as if it had not been touched, but when I opened it I was horrified—instead of notes there was sand. My guard was fast asleep. I awakened him, showed him the valise, but he was not perturbed. He said: "Fine work." Following this I was arrested, and put into prison, but soldiers soon came, opened the gates, and set all the prisoners free. About twenty minutes later, one of those who had originally arrested me, met me and asked: "Why are you roaming here? Weren't you arrested?" I told him what had happened and he ordered me to follow him back into prison, but before I could move he was shot on the spot by a soldier of one of Petlura's regiments. Soon after that Petlura's troops were driven out, I was re-arrested and taken to the "Che-Ka" (Extraordinary Com-

My hair stands on end when I recall the tortures to which I was subjected. A few people familiar with the first robbery, and convinced that I could not possibly have stolen the money, exerted every energy to have me released, but it seemed as if a mysterious hand was zealously working towards my destruction and, steadily gaining. Strength and force, was prepairing to crush and anihilate me. One morning I was ordered to appear for an inquest. The examining