Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/23

Rh And the dance was mad and gay, nor could piles of glossy carpets deaden the stamping of whirling feet. The lawsuit of Wonlarlarski, the "noblest Roman of them all," closely allied with the best blood of Russia, startled public opinion. The Seigneur, but yesterday intimately received at Tsarskoye Selo, was proved to have forged Prince Oglnski's will. The owner of immense concessions in Kamtchatka seemed to have been occupied in defrauding the savage inhabitants and in stifling their complaints. "A scandal!" people whispered. But when the Press learned that the civilising activities of the great landowners in Kamtchatka had caused the deaths of hundreds of native families and wild hounds were devouring their corpses in the desolate "chumas," people exclaimed "It's a crime!" But their only fear was lest the scandal should not be hushed up.

The Commissioner of Police, von Waal, the Minister of Justice, Shcheglovitov, and the Governor of Kamtchatka were acquainted with the facts; indeed, the last-named official was suspended.

But a few cheques drawn, a few dull echoes in the press which died away, and silence reigned supreme—the lull before the storm.

The Japanese War, which ended in Russia's defeat, in the awakening of Asia and in the dishonour of the Imperial throne, was really but an episode in the "dancing high-life" of the Courtmaster of the chase, M. Bezobrazov, who, in connection with German