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For even so it fell out. Not many days later the
Procurator of the Holy Synod was found murdered in bed by an unknown
hand. A certain journalist, writing from Switzerland, boldly states
that the Procurator was murdered at the instigation of Bazhakuloff and
claims to have heard, from an eye-witness whom he does not name, of a
bitter quarrel between the two on the subject of a certain lady as to
whose identity we are also left in doubt. It may be true; such things
have happened ere now. This particular writer's credibility, however,
is none of the best; he has been convicted over and over again of
forcing the note in his diatribes against what he calls "retrogression
into idolatry." There was certainly a good deal of unrest in the
country during the period of the ex-monk's ascendency; no less than
13,783 persons had been banished to Siberia, and 3,756 executed at his
orders. Yet nothing, it seemed, could shatter his position when, with
appalling suddenness, a thunderbolt descended. Nobody knows to this day
what took place.


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