When William Came | Page 7

conflict of some sort between
the 'Metskie Tsar' and the 'Angliskie Tsar,' and kept repeating the
Russian word for defeat. The 'Angliskie Tsar' I recognised, of course,
as the King of England, but my brain was too sick and dull to read any
further meaning into the man's reiterated gabble. I grew so ill just then
that I had to give up the struggle against fever, and make my way as
best I could towards the nearest point where nursing and doctoring
could be had. It was one evening, in a lonely rest-hut on the edge of a
huge forest, as I was waiting for my boy to bring the meal for which I
was feverishly impatient, and which I knew I should loathe as soon as it
was brought, that the explanation of the word 'Metskie' flashed on me. I
had thought of it as referring to some Oriental potentate, some
rebellious rajah perhaps, who was giving trouble, and whose followers
had possibly discomfited an isolated British force in some
out-of-the-way corner of our Empire. And all of a sudden I knew that

'Nemetskie Tsar,' German Emperor, had been the name that the man
had been trying to convey to me. I shouted for the tracker, and put him
through a breathless cross-examination; he confirmed what my fears
had told me. The 'Metskie Tsar' was a big European ruler, he had been
in conflict with the 'Angliskie Tsar,' and the latter had been defeated,
swept away; the man spoke the word that he used for ships, and made
energetic pantomime to express the sinking of a fleet. Holham, there
was nothing for it but to hope that this was a false, groundless rumour,
that had somehow crept to the confines of civilisation. In my saner
balanced moments it was possible to disbelieve it, but if you have ever
suffered from delirium you will know what raging torments of agony I
went through in the nights, how my brain fought and refought that
rumoured disaster."
The doctor gave a murmur of sympathetic understanding.
"Then," continued Yeovil, "I reached the small Siberian town towards
which I had been struggling. There was a little colony of Russians there,
traders, officials, a doctor or two, and some army officers. I put up at
the primitive hotel-restaurant, which was the general gathering- place
of the community. I knew quickly that the news was true. Russians are
the most tactful of any European race that I have ever met; they did not
stare with insolent or pitying curiosity, but there was something
changed in their attitude which told me that the travelling Briton was
no longer in their eyes the interesting respect-commanding personality
that he had been in past days. I went to my own room, where the
samovar was bubbling its familiar tune and a smiling red-shirted
Russian boy was helping my Buriat servant to unpack my wardrobe,
and I asked for any back numbers of newspapers that could be supplied
at a moment's notice. I was given a bundle of well-thumbed sheets, odd
pieces of the Novoe Vremya, the Moskovskie Viedomosti, one or two
complete numbers of local papers published at Perm and Tobolsk. I do
not read Russian well, though I speak it fairly readily, but from the
fragments of disconnected telegrams that I pieced together I gathered
enough information to acquaint me with the extent of the tragedy that
had been worked out in a few crowded hours in a corner of
North-Western Europe. I searched frantically for telegrams of later
dates that would put a better complexion on the matter, that would
retrieve something from the ruin; presently I came across a page of the

illustrated supplement that the Novoe Vremya publishes once a week.
There was a photograph of a long-fronted building with a flag flying
over it, labelled 'The new standard floating over Buckingham Palace.'
The picture was not much more than a smudge, but the flag, possibly
touched up, was unmistakable. It was the eagle of the Nemetskie Tsar. I
have a vivid recollection of that plainly-furnished little room, with the
inevitable gilt ikon in one corner, and the samovar hissing and gurgling
on the table, and the thrumming music of a balalaika orchestra coming
up from the restaurant below; the next coherent thing I can remember
was weeks and weeks later, discussing in an impersonal detached
manner whether I was strong enough to stand the fatigue of the long
railway journey to Finland.
"Since then, Holham, I have been encouraged to keep my mind as
much off the war and public affairs as possible, and I have been glad to
do so. I knew the worst and there was no particular use in deepening
my despondency by dragging out the details. But now I am more or less