Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1896-05-14
THE GHOST OF THE WIN
TER PALACE.
BY ALLEN UPWARD.
Author of "sccrcts of the Courts of
Europe"

tCopyrght, 1896, by Bacheller, johnson ant
Bacheller.1
"Cheelt!" proclaimed the ambassa
dor with threatening air, as he ad
yanccd his kings bishop to the one
square had omitted to guard. And lie
leant back in his seat and smiled us il
he considered the game already won.
1 sat silently studying the position.
1,ut my opponent was not man who
played chess merely by moving the
pieces on the board. lie did not neglect
the opportunity to distract my atten-
ton by conversation.
"Thc game of chess is an admirable
one for men Of my calling" he observed.
''There is something truly instructive
On the lessons which it conveys. Look,
for instance, at the pawn, n piece which
in its earlier career scarcely repays the
trouble of capture, but TO which, later
OIL, even the queen may be sacriticed.'
Unconsciously swayed, perhaps, by
these remarks, l pushed forward
pawn between my king and the attack
ing piece. The ambassador affected to
hardly notice the move.
Consider again how delicately the
kings dignity is preserved" he went
OH, taking up u knight with elaborate
carelessness, and setting it down dam
gerously near my pawn. "Nou advance
upon him, you threaten him, you pre-
pure for him the certainty of capture,
but YOU never remove him from the
board"
"And the moral of this?" suggested,
rs vanly sought way out of the difli.
culties in which my own king was in
volvcd.
1.-THE moral is perhaps contained in
q story which ! would relate to you il
were not certain that you would re-
fuse to believe it,"
But why?" I demonstrated. "Do
you mean that it requires one to credit
the existence of the supernatural, for
example?"
A look of the deepest, the most panied
disgust overspread his excellency's face.
"My friend, have by any chance led
you to mistake mo for a romancer, a
poet? Rest assured that the facts
shall narratc to yeu are perfectly au-
thentic and are known to several per-
sons in the inner circle of the Russian
court. l merely observe to you that my
story is Incredible. l do not say that it
is,absurd"
l resigned myself to the prospect of
losing the game, and prepared to listen.
1.-THE peoples of western Europe do
not understand Russia. 1t is, of course,
of official Russia, the Russia of the gov
I nnrinu N
whole time that spent at the embassy
in st. Petersburg i could always per-
ceive that / was n mere spectator, al
lowed 70 see no more of the true con-
dition of affairs than it suited the pur-
pose of the officials to display to me.
Nevertheless, l fatter myself that
penetrated farther behind the scenes
than they were aware.
"Outwardly, as everybody knows. the
government of this empire is an autoc-
racy, the absolute power being vested in
the hands of the car. But the tru"
government OF Russia is Il secret So
ciety, the mysterious 'Tchin,' which in
cludes the whole of the official class, ard
in whose hands the car is often no more
than a puppet, powerless to exert his
own Will. IlON 'h'S ~
sition is may be estimated from the faoi
chat only sixty years ago Grand Duke
Constantine deliberately refused to as
cend the throne, which passed TO bis
younger brother, Emperor Nicholas l
Nor has the Tchin' ever shrunli from
asserting its supremacy by the most dc
plorable deeds. IT is not the nihilists
who have set the fashion of assassindt
ing cars. 1t is by the hands of theil
own ministers and courtiers that th'
monarchs of Russia have most oftsI
persisted.
at is necessary to bear these facts IL
mind in order to understand the Incl
dent am about TO relate.
1T is not long since the attention o
Europe was concentrated upon Tn
death OF Alexander III. Occurring, as
did, in remote corner of his dominioug
on the shores of the Black sea- the ac
counts supplied by the newspaper cor
respondents who ilocled like vulturc
to the spot were as circumstantial as
each one had been admitted to the bed
side of the dying monarch. The interes
taken in this event was moreover Ell
HANGED by the romantic circumstance
OF the marriage of the present czar
Nicholas II. 1t was natural that tn
press, ever ready to give itself up +,
transports over those incidents in whic
royalty is concerned, should have lay
ished its powers of description upon tn
sudden summons TO Princess Alix G
Hesse, her hurried and desoate joi:
ney across the frozen continent, he
marriage with the czarewitch, celebra'
ed, as it were, in the very death chan
Der, and then the grand passing away c
the emperor, consoled in the happines
of his son and fortified by all the rites G
his church.
Rl