ignited. A few buckets of water were all that was necessary to extinguish the fire, which was only fortuitously prevented from becoming a serious affair.
Attempts in other quarters proved more disastrous to us, notably one where some undiscovered incendiaries made such a successful blaze in one of the official buildings that the firemen had the greatest difficulty in saving a whole quarter of wooden structures from the ravage of the flames.
The following morning Captain von Ziegler paid me a visit to inform me they had reliable information that a further attempt would be made against my house and that I should be on my guard. Under the insistence of my associates on the Committee of Five that I profit by the warning, I lodged in the houses of my friends, letting no one know in which of them I was to spend the night.
All in all it was a most nervous time for us, with these local attempts against us being supplemented by the news from St. Petersburg that the Tsar's Government had successfully suppressed the revolutionary movement and was coralling all the prominent leaders for a period of trials whose results were clearly foreseen. We were told that investigating judges were already on their way to eastern Siberia and that secret instructions had been issued to the political agents working throughout the Far East.
As these foreboding tidings frightened the Little Committee, the most prominent of the leaders and agitators among the workers began to flee from Manchuria, accusing us of having "drawn them into the revolution" and seeking thus to transfer all the responsibility upon those of us who were unquestionably marked. Some members of the Little Committee even went to General Ivanoff to assure him of their loyalty and to ask for help. The General promised them this and was also of the opinion
