Mackey – Encyclopedia Of Freemasonry Vol. 1

250 SECRET SOCIETIESThe conspiracy-quarters generally were regular arsenals ;at the storming of the office of the Will of the People, everyone of the five Nihilists was armed with two revolvers ; thedozen gendarmes were afraid to advance, and soldiers hadto be sent for ; from eighty to a hundred shots were firedon that occasion . When to some of the Nihilists all theseprecautions became irksome, and they consequently neglectedthem, Alexander Michailoff, to whom they therefore gavethe nickname of dvornik, severely censured them ; he wouldfollow his associates in the street, to see if they behavedwith caution, or he would suddenly stop one,,and ask himto read a signboard, and if he found him shortsighted,insist on his wearing glasses . He insisted on their dressingrespectably, and would often himself find the means fortheir doing so . He himself lived like the Red Indian onthe war-path . He endeavoured to know all the spies, tobeware of them ; he had a list of about three hundredpassages through houses and courtyards, and by his intimateknowledge of places of concealment, saved many acompanion from arrest . The Nihilists frequently changetheir lodgings, and keep them secret . Then they rely alsofor their safety on the Ukrivaheli, or Concealers, who form alarge class in every position, beginning with the aristocracyand the upper middle class, and reaching even down to thepolice, who, sharing the revolutionary ideas, make use oftheir social or official position to shelter the combatants byconcealing, whenever necessary, both objects and men .Strange causes sometimes led to the most unlikely peoplebecoming '° Concealers ." Thus a Madame Horn, a Danishlady, seventy years of age, became one . She had marrieda Russian, who held some small appointment in the police .When the Princess Dagmar became the wife of the hereditaryPrince of Russia, Madame Horn wished the Danishambassador to obtain for her husband some appointment inthe establishment of the new archduchess . The ambassadorwas rude enough to laugh at her . This turned her in favourof the Nihilists, who she hoped would punish the ambassador.She began by taking care of the Nihilists' forbiddenbooks, attended to their correspondence, and eventually concealingthe conspirators themselves . Thanks to her age, herprudence, presence of mind, she escaped all suspicion . Herhusband, whom she ruled absolutely, had to furnish her withall the police intelligence he could gather .644. The Nihilists in Prison .-In spite of all their precautionarymeasures, many of the Nihilists, as we have seen, fell