Escapes I have had by
the dozen. All my missions were not successes, more often, failures,
and the failures are often fatal. For instance:
Early in the morning of June 11, 1903, the plot which had been brewing
in Servia ended with the assassination of the king, queen, ministers
and members of the royal household of Servia. I shall not go into the
undercurrent political significance of these atrocities as I had no
active part in them, but I was sent down by my government later to
ascertain as far as possible the prime movers in the intrigue which
pointed to Colonel Mashin and a gang of officers of the Sixth
Regiment. All these regicides received Russian pay, for King
Alexander had become dangerous to Russia, because of his flirting with
Austria. Besides, his own idiotic behavior and the flagrant
indiscretions of Queen Draga had by no means endeared him to his
people.
I stuck my nose into a regular hornets' nest and soon found myself in
a most dangerous position. I was arrested by the provisional
government on the order of Lieutenant Colonel Niglitsch on a most
flimsy charge of traveling with false passports. In those times
arrests and executions were the order of the day. The old Servian
proverb of "Od Roba Ikad Iz Groba Nikad" (Out of prison, yes; out of
the grave, never) was fully acted upon. There were really no
incriminating papers of any description upon me, but my being seen and
associating with persons opposed to the provisional government was
quite enough to place me before a drumhead court-martial.
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