Page:John Feoktist Dudikoff - Beasts in Cassocks (1924).djvu/91



Finally, I was once more dragged out for a hearing. In the room to which I was brought there were all new faces, although otherwise everything was as before. As soon as I saw the people who were sitting at the table, I understood that something new was about to take place. I was told that my case was being investigated all along, and that all those guilty of the robbery as well as the informers-provocateurs and the magistrate who tried me, but did not impart the true information to the Commissariat, had been arrested and sentenced to be shot. The Chinaman who had hit me with the butt of his gun, was executed. It was my guard who had robbed me and who, having taken out the window-pane, had handed over the valise with the money to his brother. The latter, together with Lubansky, took out the money, filled the valise with sand, replaced the window-pane, and fastening it with fresh putty, made off. All the money, in the same packages as originally packed at the bank had been taken from the guard's brother. Siemashkevich and Lubansky were found guilty first because of agitating against the Government in speeches made in Bielayah Tserkov and Lipovitz and, then, because they had spied for Petlura and for Skoropadsky, respectively. They were both sentenced to be shot. I could not believe my ears. I was taken out to the court-yard, and there, in my presence, all the culprits, with the exception of Metropolitan Platon, were executed. He had also been sentenced to death, but had made good his escape.

After all the tortures which I have but briefly described here, I learned that Metropolitan Platon, who had robbed me and who was directly responsible for all my torments and suffering, was in Odessa. My wife and I went there, but when we arrived, he was no longer in Odessa. He had robbed the treasury of a certain convent of $80,000.00