THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the collection of 
 Julius Doerner, Chicago 
 Purchased, 1918, 
 
 823 
 
 G764-S 
 

Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 ; / ■ ' , - • 
 
 https://archive.org/details/secretdespatch00gran_0 
 

 
 rC- ■ 
 
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THE 
 
 i- ( 
 
 SECRET DISPATCH 
 
 JAMES GRANT. 
 
 New York: 
 
 JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 
 
 14 & 16 Vesey Street. 
 

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 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 (( T^EAYEN aid me I where am I now — which 
 
 •!•/ way shall I turn — advance or retire ? ” ex- 
 claimed Balgonie, as his horse came plunging 
 down, almost on its knees, amid wild gorse and 
 matted jungle. 
 
 A cold day in the middle of April had passed 
 away ; a pale and cheerless sun, that had cast no 
 heat on the leafless scenery, and the half -frozen 
 marshes that border the Louga in Western Russia, 
 had sunk, and the darkness of a stormy night came 
 on rapidly. The keen blast of the north, that swept 
 the arid scalps of the Dudenhof (the only range of 
 hills that traverses the ancient Ingria), was bellow- 
 ing through a gorge, where the Louga poured in 
 foam upon its passage to the Grulf of Finland, be- 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE LOST TRAVELER. 
 
2 
 
 THE 8E0JRET DISPATCH. 
 
 tween steep banks that were covered by gloomy 
 pines, when the speaker, a mounted officer in 
 Russian uniform, who seemed too surely to have 
 lost his way, reined up a weary and mud-covered 
 horse on the margin of the stream, and by the light 
 that yet lingered on the tops of the tall pines, and 
 gilded faintly the metal-covered domes of a distant 
 building on the opposite bank, looked hopelessly 
 about him for the means of crossing the dangerous 
 river. 
 
 Where am I ? he repeated, almost despairing- 
 ly; for, as Schiller sings in his ‘^Song of the 
 Bell,’’— 
 
 “ Man fears the kingly lion's tread ; 
 
 Man fears the tiger’s fangs of terror ; 
 
 And still the dreadliest of the dread 
 Is man himself in error I ” 
 
 Though clad in the uniform of the Russian Regi- 
 ment of Smolensko, which was raised in the famous 
 Duchy of that name, the traveler was neither Mus- 
 covite nor Calmuck, Cossack nor Tartar, but a cool, 
 w^ary, and determined young Briton, one of the 
 many Scottish officers whom misfortune or ambition 
 had drawn into Russian service, both by sea and 
 land, from the time of Peter the Great down to the 
 beginning of the present century ; for many Scot- 
 tish officers served in the Russian fleet with Ad- 
 miral Greig at the famous bombardment of Varna: 
 and it was such volunteers as these that first taught 
 the barbarous hordes of the growing empire the 
 
THE LOST TRAVELLER. 
 
 3 
 
 true science of war and the necessity for discipline. 
 
 The rider’s green uniform, faced with scarlet vel- 
 vet and richly laced with gold, was covered by a 
 thick gray pelisse (like our present patrol-jackets), 
 trimmed with black wolf’s fur : he wore a scarlet 
 forage cap with a square top, long boots that came 
 above the knee, and a Turkish sabre that had once 
 armed a pasha of more tails than one. 
 
 “ Swim the river I must,” he muttered, after 
 having traversed the valley in vain, looking for a 
 bridge, boat, or raft of timber ; but, egad, death 
 may be the penalty. Well,” he added, with a gleam 
 of ire in his dark gray eyes and a bitter smile on 
 his lip, there was a time, perhaps, when I little 
 thought that I, Charlie Balgonie, would find a 
 nameless grave in this land of timber, hemp, and 
 salted hides, where caviare is a luxury, train-oil a 
 liqueur, and the air of Siberia deemed healthy for 
 all who have any absurd ideas of political freedom, 
 or are silly enough to imagine that a man may be 
 the lord of his own proper person.” 
 
 To add to his troubles and discomfort, though 
 the month was April — usually the most serene of 
 the year in Russia — snow-flakes were beginning to 
 fall, rendering yet greater the gloom of the gather- 
 ing night. 
 
 I was to have found a bridge here. Can that 
 Livonian villain, Podatchkine, have deluded, and 
 then left me to my fate ? ” 
 
4 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 He knew that in his rear, the way by which he 
 had come, lay half -frozen morasses, healthy wastes, 
 and forests of spruce, larch, and silver-leaved firs — 
 vast natural magazines for supplying all Europe 
 with masts and spars — the haunt of the wolf and 
 bear ; he knew that to linger or to return were 
 worse than to advance, and that he must cross 
 the stream and seek quarters and guidance at the 
 chateau, the name of which was yet unknown to 
 him. 
 
 Tliis was, if possible, the worst season for pass- 
 ing the Louga, which is always deepest and most 
 navigable in spring. It rises in the district of 
 Novgorod ; and, after traversing a country full of 
 vast forests for more than 180 miles, falls into the 
 Gulf of Finland. 
 
 Balgonie buttoned lightly his holster-fiaps, hooked 
 up his sabre, assured himself than an important 
 dispatch with which he was entrusted was safe in 
 an inner pocket, and prepared seriously for the 
 perilous task of swimming his horse across the 
 stream. 
 
 Again he looked anxiously at the chateau, the 
 abode evidently of some wealthy noble or hoyar. 
 Its outline liad almost disappeared in the increasing 
 obscurity; the last faint gleams of the west had 
 faded away on the onion-shaped roofs of its turrets, 
 and a central dome of polished copper, which was 
 cut into facets like the outside of a pine-apple (for 
 
THK LOST TRAVELLER. 
 
 5 
 
 there is much of the Oriental in the old Russian 
 architecture) ; but lights were beginning to sparkle 
 cheerfully through its double-sashed wdndows upon 
 the feathery and funeral-like foliage of the solemn 
 pine woods. 
 
 Could those who were comfortably, perhaps 
 luxuriously, seated within, but know that tliere was 
 a poor human being on the eve, perhaps, of perish- 
 ing helplessly amid the dark flow of that deep and 
 roaring river ! 
 
 Courage, friend Charlie ! ’’ said the rider to 
 himself; and then he hallooed loudly, as if to at- 
 tract attention, but did so in vain. The night was 
 becoming a very severe one ; the flakes of snow 
 fell thicker and thicker on the gusty and cutting 
 blast. 
 
 Ah ! if I should perish here — such a fate ! ” 
 thought he, shuddering. Shall I be swept down 
 this black and horrid stream, the Louga, to be cast 
 a drowned corpse upon its banks, to be found strip- 
 ped and buried by wondering, but unpitying serfs 
 and boors ; or shall I be torn and mangled by bears 
 and wolves ; or borne even to the Gulf of Finland, 
 far, far away, having thus an obscure and wretched 
 fate, without winning the name I had hoped to gain 
 — forgotten even by those who wronged me in 
 Scotland, the land that never more shall be a home 
 to me ! ” 
 
 He did not say all this aloud ; but certainly some 
 
6 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 sucli painful surmises flashed upon him as he forced 
 his snorting and reluctant horse, a vigorous use 
 of the spurs, through the thickly interwoven brush- 
 wood that grew on the bank of the river, the dull 
 and monotonous rush of which, encumbered as it 
 was by large pieces of ice, was sufficient to appal 
 even a stouter heart than that of tliis young Scot- 
 tish soldier of fortune. 
 
 With a brief invocation on his lips, he gave his 
 horse the reins and gored it with the rowels. A 
 strong, active, and clean-limbed, but somewhat 
 undersized animal from the steppes of the Ukraine, 
 with a flerce and angry snort, it plunged into the 
 torrent, and breasted the icy masses bravely. 
 
 The slippery fragments that glided past, struck 
 at times both horse and rider, forcing them to 
 swerve down the stream ; others were dashed by the 
 whirling eddies against the projecting pieces of 
 rock or roots of old trees ; but after twice nearly 
 despairing of achieving the passage, and believing 
 himself* lost, his horse trod flrmly on the opposite 
 bank. It emerged, panting, snorting, dripping, and 
 trembling in every flbre, from tlie flood, and then 
 Captain Balgonie found that he had escaped with 
 life, and had safely passed the swollen waters of the 
 Louga ! 
 
 Leading his sturdy little steed by the bridle and 
 caressing it the while, he made his way up the op- 
 posite bank, guided only by the lights in the man- 
 
THE LOST TRAVELLER. 
 
 7 
 
 sion (or casstle) ; but he proceeded with extreme 
 difficulty, for the underwood was thick and dense as 
 that wliich grew round tlie Palace of the Sleeping 
 Beauty ; ere long, however, he reached a plateau, 
 the border of a park or lawn, and saw the snow- 
 whitened walls and turrets of the edifice towering 
 before him. 
 
 Rising from a balustraded terrace, with an arched 
 porte-cochere in front, the facade was square, and 
 three storied, having a central dome like an inverted 
 punchbowl, and several little angular towers, tall 
 and slender like minarets; these cut the sky-line, 
 and were surrounded each by a broad cornice or 
 gallery, and terminated by a bulbous-shaped roof, 
 exactly like an onion with its acute end in the air. 
 
 The lights in its many windows, the red and 
 yellow colored curtains within, all indicated warmth 
 and comfort ; while with the snow flakes freezing 
 on his sodden and saturated uniform, h!s limbs be- 
 numbed, and his teeth well-nigh chattering, Bal- 
 gonie hastily led his horse under the porte-cochere, 
 and applied his hand vigorously to the great brazen 
 knocker on tlie front door. 
 
 It was speedily opened, and a white-bearded 
 dvornick^ or porter, wearing a long flowing shovhah^ 
 or coat of fur, lined with red flannel, admitted him 
 with many humble genuflections, at the same time 
 summoning a groom to take charge of his horse. 
 
 By the bearing of these lackeys, one might al- 
 
8 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 most have thought that the Captain had been ex- 
 pected, or was a friend of the family : but a uniform 
 has ever been an all-powerful passport, and an 
 epaulette the most mighty of all introductions in 
 Russia, where everything is measured by a military 
 standard ; thus, in an incredibly short space of 
 time, the wants of rider and horse were alike hos- 
 pitably attended to. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CASTLE OF LOUGA. 
 
 a APT AIK BALGrOKIE, of the Regiment of 
 Smolensko, soon found himself in a comfort- 
 able bed-chamber, where the genial glow of a 
 peitcKka^ or Russian wall-stove, diffused warmth 
 through his chilled frame, and where every current 
 of the external atmosphere was carefully excluded 
 by double window sashes, adorned with artificial 
 flowers between. 
 
 When he chose to repose, a couch draped with 
 snow-white curtains, and having a coverlet of the 
 softest fur, awaited him ; and above it hung a little 
 holy picture of the Byzantine school, a Holy Yirgin, 
 with a halo of shining metal in the form of a horse- 
 shoe round her head, if he chose to be devout and 
 offer up a prayer. 
 
 A valet, after supplying him with hot coffee and 
 a good dram of vodka (which somewhat reminded 
 him of his native mountain dew ”), said that the 
 Count, his master, would rejoice to have the pleasure 
 of the visitor’s society, after he had made a suitable 
 toilet, and exchanged his wet uniform for a luxuri- 
 ous robe-de-chambre, in the pocket of which he 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 THE SECRET BISPATCJS. 
 
 took especial care to secure his dispatch unseen. 
 
 Hospitality such as this, was not merely then a 
 characteristic of the people, but was the result, per- 
 haps, of a meagre population, and the absence of 
 inns ; thus the arrival of a stranger, especially an 
 oflScer on duty, at this Russian mansion, created 
 little or no surprise among its inmates. 
 
 He was ushered into the presence of Count 
 Mierowitz, whose name at once inspired him with 
 confidence and satisfaction ; for, by one of those 
 singular coincidences which novelists dare not use 
 in fiction, but which occur daily in actual and mat- 
 ter of-fact life,” he had arrived at a mansion where 
 he was not altogether unknown. 
 
 I have to apologize to your High Excellency 
 for this apparent intrusion,” said he ; but I have 
 been misled or abandoned by my guide. I am Cap- 
 tain Balgonie, of the Regiment of Smolensko, and 
 have the good fortune to number among my friends 
 your son. Lieutenant Basil Mierowitz, the senior 
 subaltern of my company.” 
 
 ^^For Basil’s sake, not less than yonr own, Cap- 
 tain, are you most welcome to the Castle of Louga,” 
 replied the Count, lifting and laying aside his cap. 
 
 He was a man well on in years ; his stature was 
 not great, neither was his presence dignified; he 
 stooped a little and w^as thick set, with a venerable 
 beard, undefiled by steel ; for, like a true old Mus- 
 covite, he contended that man was made in the 
 
THE CASTLE OE LOUHA. 
 
 u 
 
 image of God, and should neither be cut or carved 
 upon. His eyebrows were white, but his eyes were 
 dark, keen, quick, and expressed a spirit of ready 
 impulse, for laughter or for ferocity — one, who. by 
 turns could be suave or irritable, especially when 
 under the influence of wine, which generally made 
 him fierce and stupid ; for never, in all his life, had 
 he suffered control or had his will disputed. 
 
 His silver hair was simply tied behind with a 
 black ribbon ; in his hand he carried a little cap of 
 black wolf’s fur, adorned by rudely set jewels; 
 he wore a queerly cut coat of dark red cloth 
 trimmed with fur, and wore breeches of the same 
 stuff, and lacked but a dagger and pistols with 
 brass Turkish butts at his girdle, to seem what he 
 really was, in disposition and character, a type of 
 the boyar of the old school, who preferred quess to 
 champagne, ate his pancakes with caviare, and was 
 proud of being a specimen of the old Russian noble, 
 as he existed in the time of Peter the Great, when 
 his class first united some of the vices and luxuries 
 of Western Europe to their native lawlessness and 
 hardy ferocity. 
 
 Such was Count Mierowitz. 
 
 When did you last see my son?” he asked, in 
 tone more of authority than of anxious inquiry. 
 
 Some three months since. Excellency: he has 
 been detached on the Livonian frontier.” 
 
 And you, Captain ” 
 
12 
 
 THE SECRET EISPATCE!. 
 
 I am proceeding on urgent imperial service from 
 Nojgorod where my regiment is stationed in the 
 old palace of the Czars.” 
 
 To whither ? ” 
 
 Schlusselburg.” 
 
 The host changed countenance and almost mani- 
 fested signs of discomposure on hearing of that for- 
 midable fortress and prison — the veritable Bastille 
 of St. Petersburg, and he said : 
 
 A name to shudder at — by St. Nicholas it is ! ” 
 ‘‘ And, but for the feather in the wax of my dis- 
 patch,” resumed Balgonie (showing a red govern- 
 ment seal in which a piece of feather twitched from 
 a pen was inserted, the usual Bussian emblem of 
 speed) j I had not, perhaps, tempted the dangers 
 of the Louga, but sought a billet on the other side, 
 if such could be found.” 
 
 You know not, perhaps, that my woods are full 
 of wolves ; but this is not the way to St. Peters- 
 burg.” 
 
 Yet I was so directed, Excellency.” 
 
 “You have been misled, and are only some 
 seventy versts or so from the place you have left.” 
 “You amaze me. Count,” exclaimed the per- 
 plexed Captain ; for in the Russian service, an error 
 becomes a crime. 
 
 “ Captain, you should have gone by Gori, 
 Oustensk, Spask, and so on.” 
 
 “That devil of a Podatchkine, an orderly of 
 
THi: 0A6TLE OF LOCGA. 
 
 13 
 
 
 General Weymarn, who sent him specially with me, 
 has either deluded or abandoned me.” 
 
 “ Yet we must thank your Podatchkine, in so far 
 that he has procured us the pleasure of your society 
 in this lonely place — my daughter and my niece. 
 Captain Ivanovitch Balgonie,” continued the Count, 
 introducing two young ladies who came through 
 the curtains of a species of boudoir, ‘‘Natalie and 
 Mariolizza Usakoff. Our visitor, Natalie, is that 
 Ivanovitch Balgonie of whom Basil has spoken so 
 much and so kindly.” 
 
 Without being a vain man, Balgonie felt at that 
 moment considerable satisfaction in the conviction 
 that he was — as his glass had often informed him — 
 decidedly a good looking young fellow, with regalai’ 
 features, fine dark eyes, curling brown hair, and a 
 smart moustache ; for Natalie Mierowna, like her 
 cousin Mariolizza, was one of the most attractive 
 women at the dangerous Court of the Empress 
 Catharine II. ; for it was during her reign that the 
 story and the atrocities we have unfortunately to 
 record tock place ; when among us, in more civilized 
 Britain, the grandfather of her present Majesty, old 
 George III., was king, and the arts of peace and 
 war grew side by side. 
 
 “ The friend and comrade of my brother Basil is 
 welcome,” said Natalie, presenting lier hands (very 
 tiny and delicate they were) to Balgonie, who 
 bowed and touched them lightly with his lips ; “ he 
 
14 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 has often written to us concerning you and your 
 adventures together in Silesia.” 
 
 I am but too fortunate to be remembered 
 thus.” 
 
 “ Nay,” rejoined Natalie, “ we could scarcely for- 
 get that daring act of yours, which won you the 
 rank you hold at present. Ah, Basil told us all 
 about that when he was last here,” she added, with 
 a beautiful smile, of which she knew that many had 
 already felt the power. 
 
 ^^You mean my reconnoitring the enemy’s posi- 
 tion and avoiding being taken by them ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, pray tell me about it ? ” said Mariolizza, 
 her blue eyes dilating wiih pleasui’e ; “ my brother 
 was there too — Apollo Usakoff, a lieutenant in the 
 Regiment of Yalikolutz.” 
 
 It was a very simple matter,” replied Balgonie, 
 bowing to each of the cousins, and not sorry to 
 have a good personal anecdote to relate of himself, 
 one which was certain to make him appear to advan- 
 tage in the estimation of two very attractive women. 
 
 It was only a ruse de guerre^ and occurred when 
 our Regiment of Smolensko was with the combined 
 armies in Silesia, and before the King of Prussia 
 attacked Count Daun at the Heights of Buckers- 
 dorff. An exact account of the Austrian position 
 was required by our general, who had not then re * 
 ceived the orders of the Empress to fall back upon 
 Russian frontier. The task was one of extreme 
 
THE CASTLE OF LOUOA. 
 
 15 
 
 peril ; so I being a soldier of fortune, having all to 
 
 win, and nothing to lose ” 
 
 “ Save your life!” interrupted Natalie. 
 
 One in my position, among a foreign army, 
 must not value that too much,” said the Captain, in 
 a tone not untinged with melancholy. 
 
 Well ? ” 
 
 I volunteered for it, despite all that your son, 
 Count, my friend, could say to dissuade me. Well 
 armed, at midnight, I set out on my solitary mis- 
 sion, unattended and alone, without relinquishing 
 my uniform ; for if taken prisoner when otherwise 
 attired, I would infallibly be hanged as a spy ; but 
 ere long I found, that in such a dress, there w^ere 
 insuperable difficulties to making the reconnoissance 
 required. 
 
 At the cottage of a Silesian boor, near the base 
 of the Eulanbirge (or mountain of the owis), I stop- 
 ped to make some inquiries. The fellow proved to 
 be partially tipsy ; the contents of my pocket-flask, 
 potent vodka, completed his happy condition, and 
 after a few jests I prevailed upon him to change 
 dresses with me. He donned the green coat, 
 epaulettes, and boots of the Regiment of Smolen- 
 sko ; I, the ample canvas caftan and girdle of a 
 Silesian boor, — a fui’ cap, and a visage daubed with 
 grime, completed my costume. Thus attired, and 
 retaining only my pistols, I reconnoitred safely 
 and unheeded the Austrian position, noting the 
 
16 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 defences, trenches, fascine batteries, cannon, and 
 general disposition ; but I had a narrow escape, for 
 when returning to the cottage of my new friend, 
 the boor, a party of Count Daun’s Imperial Cui- 
 rassiers, who had been patrolling the Eulanbirge, 
 overtook me, and at once, perceiving I was not a 
 Silesian, questioned me rather closely and curious- 
 
 ly- 
 
 “ I succeeded in passing myself off as a Pome- 
 ranian ; and pointing to the cottage, told them that 
 there was concealed an officer of the famous Regi- 
 ment of Smolensko. They at once galloped off and 
 surrounded it, while I stole away to a thicket, and 
 climbed into a tree, from whence I could see the 
 poor boor, clad in my uniform, and still laboring 
 under the influence of his late debauch, dragged a 
 prisoner — despite all his bewildered protestations 
 and denials — towards the camp of Count Daun; 
 while I, under cover of night, readied in safety the 
 lines of the allies, and made my report to General 
 Weymarn, then commanding our division of the 
 army. 
 
 “ It proved of no use to us, as we fell back next 
 day ; but it enabled bur ally, the King of Prussia, 
 to storm with signal success the Heights of Buck- 
 ersdorff, to drive back Count Daun, and invest 
 Schwiednitz. He offerod me rank in his army ; but 
 I declined, on which the Empress sent me the com- 
 mission of Captain in her Regiment of Smolensko, 
 
THE CASTLE OE LOtfCA. 
 
 IT 
 
 thus enabling me to rank as a noble of the ninth 
 class.” 
 
 May you soon rank as one of the sixth,” said 
 the Count, patting the Captain on the shoulder 
 frankly. 
 
 ‘‘ Ah, Excellency, it may be long ere I become a 
 colonel; yet,” he added, almost as if talking to 
 • himself, when I got the letter of the Empress ad- 
 dressed to me, Carl Ivanovitch Hospodeen^ Bah 
 * Equivalent to Monsieur or Esquire, 
 gonie, I could not but smile at the thought of how 
 such a title would liave sounded in the ears of my 
 good father, old John Balgonie, of that Ilk !” 
 
 ^^Let me repeat that you are most welcome,” 
 said the Count, who totally failed to understand the 
 meaning of the last remark ; and luckily you have 
 arrived just as the ladies and I were about to pro- 
 ceed to the supper-table.” 
 
 To Balgonie it had become apparent that each 
 time he mentioned the name of the Empress, the 
 proud pink nostrils of Natalie seemed to dilate, and 
 that a decidedly dangerous expression glittered in 
 her splendid dark eyes. 
 
 Natalie Mierowna, whose beauty had caused such 
 jealously at Moscow and St. Petersburg (two duels 
 are spoken of concerning her), had ever shone 
 brilliantly in the folldw-my deader ” kind of dance, 
 now so well known among us as the Mazurka, — - 
 the old Sclavonian measure, in which all succeeding 
 
18 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 couples have to imitate the motions of the first; 
 and the cliief Russian peculiarity of the dance con- 
 sists still in the circumstance of the ladies selecting 
 their own partners — the brilliant Natalie, we say, 
 having twice sportively, or in a spirit of coquettish 
 bravado, chosen a handsome young aidc-de-camp, 
 whom the Empress was supposed to view with 
 favor, led to her abrupt exile from Court, and to 
 the detaching of Captain Vlasfief, of the Imperial 
 Guards, to irksome and secluded duty at the state 
 prison of Schlusselburg. Tliis unmerited affront 
 filled her brother, Basil Mierowitz, with such fiery 
 indignation, that but for the dread of compromising 
 his whole family, he would have cast his commis- 
 sion at the feet of the imperious Catharine, and 
 quitted the Russian army ; but fiight or exile must 
 at once have followed the act. 
 
 As it was, though detached and distant on the 
 Livonian frontier, lie was now conceiving a scheme 
 for vengeance, much more perlious to himself and 
 to all concerned, and which actually aimed at the 
 dethronement of the Empress Catharine I 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 NATALIE. 
 
 WfHERE are few Russian ladies noWj who do 
 V2/ not speak with equal facility, German, 
 Erench, and English ; but Natalie Mierowna and 
 her cousin were then each mistress of them all, — 
 and this was in the comparatively barbarous time of 
 Catharine II. 
 
 Thus their acquaintance with European literature 
 enabled them to excel in an easy and well-sup- 
 ported conversation of which the old boyar, their 
 kinsman, could make nothing ; and which they 
 could embellish by their wit and power of quota- 
 tion, and with an exquisite esprit peculiarly 
 
 their own. When this dangerous charm was added 
 to the great beauty of Natalie, she could not but 
 prove a perilous acquaintance for the young Scot- 
 tish wanderer. 
 
 Her loveliness was indeed great. 
 
 She was a large, showy, and snowy-skinned 
 beauty, almost voluptuous yet very graceful in 
 form, with fine dark eyes, that were dreamy or 
 sparkling by turns as emotion moved her ; long- 
 lashed they were, and perhaps too heavily lidded, 
 
 *19 
 
so 
 
 TSE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Her hair was of the darkest brown, almost black ; 
 her lips were full, but flexible, small and pouting 
 when in repose, almost too large when she smiled, 
 which was frequently. 
 
 It was when she spoke of the Empress, that her 
 white bosom heaved, and a flery expression seemed 
 to pervade her whole features. She said little, and 
 that little was generally said with assumed gentle- 
 ness or real reserve, for language cannot be too 
 guarded in Russia ; but her dark eyes flashed, her 
 delicate nostrils dilated, her sliort upper lip quiv- 
 ered, she threw back her proud head, and more 
 than once Balgonie saw her white hands clenched ; 
 for all the dove-like softness of her nature seemed 
 to depart, when she thought of the affront that 
 exile from Court had put upon her, and her whole 
 family, even to delaying the marriage of her cousin 
 Mariolizza to her brother Basil, to whom she was 
 engaged — solemnly betrothed by a religious cere- 
 mony. 
 
 She took the arm of Balgonie, and led the way to 
 the dining-room, which was lit by brilliant crystal 
 girandoles, and heated, of course, by a peitchka, 
 the greatest luxury of civilized life that can be 
 found in a cold climate, and which warms a house 
 more effectually than any grate of coals can do. 
 Built on that side of the large, lofty, and magnifi- 
 cent room which was farthest from the windows, it 
 was formed of solid stone, with several carved 
 
NATALIE. 
 
 21 
 
 apertures, and lined with white shining porcelain ; 
 within it, blazed a constant fire of billets and fag- 
 gots, under the care of the dvornick, or house- 
 porter, and these were furnished by the Count’s 
 serfs or woodsmen from the adjacent forests. 
 
 All made a sign of the cross in the Greek fashion, 
 and seated themselves ; but weary and exhausted 
 by his long ride and recent immersion hi a swollen 
 and icy river, Balgonie found it almost impossible 
 to partake of the supper that was pressed upon him : 
 caviare on slices of bread to begin with, — caviare 
 from the roe of the sturgeons of the Don,” as the 
 Coimt informed him, — roasted capon and jugged 
 hare, dried figs and conserves, prunes, and pastilla 
 of fruit and honey compounded, together with the 
 champagne, Rhine wine, and vodka, in silver tank- 
 ards and goblets of jeweled Venetian crystal. 
 
 The jaded traveler could only make a pretence 
 of eating ; but he could drink deeply, for he was 
 athirst; and more than one foaming goblet of 
 sparkling Moselle was filled for him, till he became 
 giddy and confused. Were the fumes of the wine 
 mounting to his head ? What was the Count say- 
 ing in an undertone? Was it of him that the 
 cousins were talking in some strange language, and 
 covertly exchanging smiles with tlieu* beautiful 
 eyes ? Courage, Charlie,” thought he, this is a 
 bad beginning ! ” 
 
 Though people were not very particular as to a 
 
22 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 bumper more or less in those days anywhere, in 
 Russia least of all, an emotion of shame came over 
 the young Scottish officer ; he felt his cheeks and 
 forehead burn, and he made a vigorous effort to 
 rally his senses, but in vain : he heard the voices of 
 Natalie and of Mariolizza ; but he knew not what 
 they said or what he replied, for he felt as one in a 
 half-waking dream. They were talking merrily, 
 however, in French, which is always spoken well by 
 the Russians ; perhaps, because the tongue that can 
 master Russ may achieve anything. 
 
 After a time he mastered sufficient energy and 
 sense to beg that he might be permitted to retire, 
 as he had his journey to resume betimes on the 
 morrow ; and he was escorted to the chamber by 
 the Count in person. Its four corners seemed to be 
 in rapid pursuit of each other now, and the floor 
 and the cealing to be incessantly changing places ; 
 then his senses reeled, and the light departed from 
 his eyes. He found himself fainting. 
 
 The sudden and rapid journey from Novgorod, 
 the lack of food and the toil he had undergone for 
 one night and two entire days, while wandering 
 with the treacherous Podatchkine, the crossing of 
 the Louga, and the bruises he had unconsciously re- 
 ceived from several pieces of floating ice, had all 
 proved too much for his system, and brought on a 
 relapse of an old camp fever from which he had 
 suffered once when serving with the army in 
 
KATALIE. 
 
 23 
 
 Silesia, — and in the morning he was delirious. 
 
 Though weak, bewildered, scared by the prospect 
 of loitering thus when proceeding on urgent duty 
 (for obedience and discipline become a second na- 
 ture to the soldier), enduring a raging thirst and 
 a burning pang that shot with each pulsation 
 through his brain, stiff in every joint and covered 
 with livid bruises, he had still strength left as dawn- 
 ing day stole through the double sashes of his vdn- 
 dows, to stagger from bed, and search for the 
 dispatch, which, on the hazard of his life, he was 
 to place in the hands of Bernikoff, the Governor of 
 Schlusselburg. 
 
 He hurriedly, and with a tremor that increased, 
 examined each of his pockets in succession, then his 
 sabretasche, and lastly the pocket of the robe-de- 
 chambre ; but the dispatch — the dispatch of the 
 Empress — entrusted to him as a chosen man by 
 Lieutenant-General Weymarn was gone ! 
 
 Lost, or abstracted, it was irretrievably gone ! 
 
 Was he the victim of treachery or of a snare? 
 Was it a dream that the voluptuous and beautiful 
 Natalie, with her snowy skin, her dreamy eyes, and 
 her fascinating smile, had been hovering about him 
 — a dream or a reality ? 
 
 Alas ! he knew not ; for again the walls and 
 windows were whirling round him in wild career, 
 and he sank on the floor insensible. 
 
 Poor Charlie Balgonie knew not that the morn- 
 
24 
 
 TSE SECRET DlSJ^ATCH. 
 
 ing on which he made this alarming discovery was 
 that of the second day since his arrival at the Castle 
 of Longa. 
 
CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 CORPORAL PODATCHKmE. 
 
 ^CAECELY had Charlie Balgonie achieved the 
 passage of the Louga, and, in the dark, forced 
 his panting horse up the wooded bank towards the 
 lighted windows of the castle, then his guide and 
 orderly. Corporal Mich ail Podatchkine, who, for 
 reasons which were his own, and which shall ulti- 
 mately be explained, had decoyed him many, many 
 versts to the southward of his proper route and then 
 abandoned him, while he still cautiously followed, 
 and watched him plunge into the perilous stream — 
 watched him in the hope that he might perish in 
 its icy current ;• Corporal Podatchkine, we say, had 
 barely seen the officer’s safety was certain and as- 
 . sured, than he turned his horse’s head, and with a 
 hoarse malediction on his bearded mouth, rode 
 away in an opposite direction. 
 
 The lighted windows of the Castle of Louga soon 
 darkened and vanished in his rear ; the snow-flakes 
 came thicker and faster on the icy blast, whitening 
 his round bearskin cap and fur shoubah or cloak, 
 and the un trimmed mane of his shaggy horse ; but 
 with his long lance slung behind him, his knees up 
 
 85 
 
26 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 to his saddle-bow, and his fierce, keen eyes peering 
 out the way before him, the amiable Podatchkine, 
 who, though a Livonian by birth, had the honor to 
 hold the rank of corporal in a corps of Cossacks, 
 rode on through the dense fir forest as unerringly 
 as if every tree therein had been planted by his 
 own warlike hands. 
 
 Ere long, with a grunt of satisfaction, he struck 
 upon a track that led to the right and left, and he 
 unhesitatingly pursued the latter. There were then 
 none of those verst-posts, about ten feet high or so, 
 such as may now be found by the side of the 
 Russian roads through the forests, or along the 
 open steppe; but Podatchkine rode steadily on, 
 pausing only now and then to unsling and grasp his 
 spear, or give a fierce gleaming glance around him, 
 while the nostrils of his thick snub-nose dilated, 
 when a prolonged and melancholy howl, rising from 
 the woody depths into the chill drear sky of night, 
 announced that some wolf was rousing itself in 
 its lair among the grass or in its den beside the 
 river. 
 
 Anon, he came to a place where the forest was 
 partially cleared, and there stood a little hut, built 
 of squared logs. The walls of this edifice were 
 whitened artificially ; but the roof was rendered 
 wdiiter still by a coat of the fast-freezing snow. A 
 single ray of smoky light streamed from the open- 
 ing (which passed from a window) near the door, 
 
CORPOKAL PODATCHKINE. 
 
 27 
 
 on which Podatchkine, without dismounting struck 
 three blows with the butt of his lance. 
 
 Nicholas Paulovitch,” he exclaimed, are you 
 within ? ” 
 
 The door was soon unfastened, and thereat ap- 
 peared a figure, not unlike an Esquimaux, bearing 
 a pine torch. He was a man of great stature and 
 muscular development, clad in a caftan of coarse, 
 thick, and warm material, girt by a broad belt in 
 which a long rusty knife was stuck ; he had on bark 
 shoes and long leggings of sheepskin, which, like 
 Bryan O’Linn’s breeches, had the skinny side out 
 and the hairy side in ; ” and he cultivated one long 
 lock of grizzled hair behind his right ear in the old 
 fashion of the Black Cossacks ; but this appendage 
 was concealed by the hood and tippet of fur which 
 he wore. This man, however, did not belong to 
 any of the nomadic military tribes, but was a spe- 
 cies of Russian gipsy, a half breed. 
 
 He held up the pine torch, and its fiaring light 
 tipped with a lurid, w^eird, and uncertain glow his 
 fierce, tawny, and repulsive visage, causing his cun- 
 ning and almond-shaped eye to gleam redly, like 
 two carbuncles, from under their thick and impend- 
 ing brows, which were nearly as shaggy as the 
 moustache that blended with his greasy and un- 
 combed beard ; and in the same light the head of 
 Podatchkine’s lance and the hafts of liis sabre, 
 dagger, and pistols glittered at times, being the 
 
28 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH, 
 
 only bright parts of his remarkably dingy costume. 
 
 Is it you, Michail Podatchkine — and alone f ” 
 he asked surlily. 
 
 ^^Yes; even so, alone. Dost think I have the 
 evil eye about me that you stare so, Nicholas 
 Paulovitch ? ” 
 
 God forbid ! ’’ replied Nicholas with a shudder, 
 for this idea is the grossest and the greatest of all 
 Kussian superstitions ; but I expected two — your- 
 self and another.” 
 
 Who told you so ? ” 
 
 Olga Paulowna, my sister, who yesterday saw 
 you at Krejko.” 
 
 True, I remember. Now listen, old friend and 
 comrade ” 
 
 Hush, the girl is within and may hear you.” 
 
 “ Well,” said Podatchkine, lowering his voice, 
 while the other extinguished his torch, half closed 
 the door of his hut, and drew nearer the speaker, 
 by order of General Weymarn, Governor of St. 
 Petersburg, General of the Cavalry, Director-Gen- 
 eral of the Canals, Bridges, and Highways ” 
 
 And the devil knows all what more ! ” said the 
 other impatiently. Well ? ” 
 
 I am ordered to guide this Carl Ivanovitch 
 Balgonie, who is a stranger, to the gates of Schlus- 
 selburg, as he bears to Bernikoff a dispatch of im- 
 portance ; but I have been promised a heavy sum 
 
CORI»ORAL PODATCHKINE. 
 
 29 
 
 Ah ! how much say you ? ” 
 
 I have said nothing 
 
 But you spoke of a heavy sum.’’ 
 
 Two hundred silver roubles.” 
 
 Two hundred silver roubles ! ” exclaimed Nicho- 
 las, opening his avaricious eyes with wonder, and 
 then closing them again, so that they looked like 
 two narrow slits. 
 
 ‘‘ Tes, every denusca^ if I, by fair means or by 
 foul, prevent the delivery of that paper into the 
 hands of old Bernikoff.” 
 
 “ He whose dagger tickled the throat of Peter 
 III. : and by whom are you offered this, friend 
 Podatchkine ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ I can trust you : well, by the Lieutenant Apollo 
 Usakoff.” 
 
 “ The grandson of the Hetman Mazeppa ! ” 
 
 “ The same ; and by Basil Mierowitz ” 
 
 Well, and what the devil have I to do with all 
 this ? ” growled the half-breed. 
 
 Much : fifty roubles will be yours, Paulovitch, 
 if you will assist me,” said Podatchkine in a husky 
 whisper. 
 
 “ Let us talk over this: dismount, and come in.” 
 
 ^^Nay, there is Olga Paulowna: then I have 
 other work to do ; but give me a drink, for I am 
 sorely athirst.” 
 
 The other speedily brought him a painted bowl 
 full of foamy quass, which the Cossack Corporal, 
 
30 
 
 THE SECSET DiSPAtCM. 
 
 for SO we may term him, drained to the dregs; 
 though it is a liquor, to any but a Russian, horrible 
 as the water of Cocytus. 
 
 Let us be wary, friend Podatchkine,” said the 
 woodman : the knout is not an angel, but it 
 
 teaches us to tell the truth alike of ourselves and of 
 others.” 
 
 Refreshed by his bitter draught, the Corporal 
 shook the gathering snow-flakes from the sleeves of 
 his fur shoubah, and resumed somewhat garrul- 
 ously : 
 
 My next instructions are, that the dispatch, 
 which is from the Empress herself (whom God and 
 our Lady of Kazen long preserve !), and which bears 
 the imperial seal, shall never be delivered ; but 
 must be .obtained by me for Basil Mierowitz and 
 the Lieutenant TJsakoff, now detached upon the 
 Livonian frontier, and who both know as little as I 
 care, that its bearer is actually their own dearest 
 and most valued friend ! I misled the Hospodeen 
 Balgonie, lured him to the river’s brink, and left ► 
 him there, in the hope that he and his horse might 
 become frozen on the steppe or in the forest, where 
 I could rob him at ease ; but the man seems 
 made of iron, and, to my astonishment, I saw him 
 swim the Louga. I thought all gone, he, the dis- 
 patch, and my 200 roubles, when he plunged his 
 horse into the river ; but he stoutly won the oppo- 
 site bank, and has made his way straiglit to the 
 
CORPORAL PODATCHKINE. 3l 
 
 dwelling of Count Mierowitz, where now, I doubt 
 not, he is safely housed.” 
 
 “ It seems to me, friend Podatchkine, that you 
 took a great deal of useless trouble when you had 
 your dagger and pistols,” said the other, suspici- 
 ously. 
 
 ^^Hay, if he was to perish thus, suspicion might 
 too readily fall upon me ; for he is a favorite officer 
 of the Empress, and of Weymarn too. My plan is 
 this: I may get the dispatch to-night in yonder 
 castle of Count Mierowitz.” 
 
 And if not ? ” 
 
 Then I shall again lure and mislead Balgonie, 
 and bring him here in the night.” 
 
 What then ? ” asked the woodman doggedly. 
 
 ^^How dull we are, Paulo vitch. We shall drug 
 and drown him ; thus shall he die without a wound. 
 I will take back the dispatch to Novgorod ; and 
 you can carry the body on his horse to St. Peters- 
 burg, where a sum will be given you for finding it. 
 The poor stranger, they will say, has perished amid 
 our keen Pussian frosts, and that will be all. Nic- 
 holas Paulo vitch, the carcass will be well worth 
 twenty roubles to thee.” 
 
 And thy fifty ? ” 
 
 You shall receive when the affair is over, and 
 when you come to me at Novgorod, where I am 
 quartered.” 
 
 By the bones of my tribe, and by the sword 
 
32 
 
 The secret dispatch. 
 
 that flames in the hand of the holy Michail, I am 
 with you, Podatchkine ! ” exclaimed the half-breed 
 with ferocious joy, mingling his gipsy cant with 
 that of the Russiaii church. Then they shook 
 heartily their hard and dingy hands — hands that 
 had wrought many a deed of merciless cruelty. 
 
 And now, Paulovitch, give me a light for my 
 pipe, and let me begone.” 
 
 A few minutes more and these worthy compa- 
 triots had separated. 
 
 Podatchkine rode somewhat leisurely to a ford 
 that he knew of lower down the river, believing 
 that in time the whole onus, and perhaps suspicion, 
 of Balgonie’s death (if it was necessary) might fall 
 on the woodman, whom he had resolved to cheat of 
 the promised fifty roubles if he could. 
 
 He will play me false,” muttered Podatchkine. 
 “ Is not the dog a gipsy ? Beware of the tamed 
 wolf, of the baptized Jew, and the enemy who has 
 made it up ; why should I not delude him wdio will 
 readily delude me ? ” 
 
 Our enterprising Corporal was correct in his esti- 
 mate of Nicholas Paulovitch ; for, at the same mo- 
 ment, that personage, while wrapped in his filthy 
 sheepskin (caring nothing for the comfort of any 
 other bed than the floor), was considering how he 
 might drug and drown both the ofiicer and his 
 treacherous guide, sell both their bodies at the near- 
 est military post, and, by taking the dispatch to 
 
OORPOBAL PODATOHKIKE. 
 
 33 
 
 Novgorod himself, obtain the entire reward offered 
 for it by the Lieutenants Mierowitz and Usakoff, or 
 still more, perhaps, by delivering it to the Empress ! 
 
 There was a third person who had overheard the 
 first savage plot, and who felt her heart stirred 
 with pity and terror for Balgonie, who had given 
 her a silver kopec at Krejko but yesterday, — the 
 gipsy girl, Olga Paulowna, the sister of Nicholas 
 Paulovitch ; and she resolved to baffle both conspir- 
 ators if she could. 
 
 It was in perfect ignorance of who might be the 
 bearer of that dispatch (with the contents of which 
 a spy had acquainted them) that the two officers, 
 who vrere now engaged in an extensive and danger- 
 ous political and military conspiracy, contrived to 
 have Podatchkine, in the character of a guide and 
 orderly, sent upon the trail of one who was really 
 their most valued friend and comrade ; though, as 
 a foreigner and soldier of fortune, they deemed it 
 proper to keep him as yet in total ignorance of 
 their daring hopes and plans. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 
 
 I T may now be necessary to afford the reader a 
 little liistorical insight as to what it was that 
 hinged on this important dispatch of the Scottish 
 officer, Balgonie. 
 
 When the Emperor Peter II. died of small-pox 
 (just on the eve of his marriage), closing a short 
 reign of three years of stormy trouble and dark in- 
 trigue, the whole male issue of Peter the Great of 
 Russia became extinct. 
 
 The Duke of Holstein, son of his eldest daugh- 
 ter, was entitled to the throne ; but the Russians, 
 for certain cogent political reasons, filled that peril- 
 ous seat with Anne, Duchess of Courland, daughter 
 of Ivan, Peter’s eldest brother. Governed by her 
 favorite Biron, on whom she bestowed the Duchy 
 of Courland, she broke through all the limits which 
 growing civilization had imposed upon the power of 
 the Czars ; she engaged in many useless wars, lost 
 vast treasures and more than a hundred thousand 
 men in strife with the Turks, and closing an in- 
 glorious reign, was succeeded by one who will 
 
 shortly be introduced to the reader, Ivan Antono- 
 ’ 34 
 
THE DAGGER OF BERNIKOFF. 
 
 35 
 
 vitch, or John IV., son of her niece, the Princess 
 of Mechlenbnrg, an infant only six months old. 
 This Princess sent Biron, the Bcgent to the usual 
 place of Muscovite seclusion, Siberia, and assumed 
 the administratorship during the minority of her son. 
 
 This state of affairs was but of short duration 
 when Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, hav- 
 ing a strong party, seized the crown, banished the 
 entire family of Mechlenbnrg, and deposing the 
 infant monarch, Ivan IV., -confined him for life a 
 prisoner of state in the great Castle of Schlussel- 
 burg, where he had been for twenty-three years, at 
 the period when our narrative opens. 
 
 To mention him in conversation, and still more 
 to possess a coin bearing his effigy, incurred the 
 guilt and insured the punishment of treason ! More 
 than twenty years after the deposition of this tran- 
 sitory emperor, a German tradesman, who had 
 worked long as a cabinet-maker at St. Petersburg, 
 went to Cronstadt, intending then to embark for 
 his native city, Lubeck. As it was not permitted 
 to carry out of Russia above a certain quantity of 
 specie, an officer of customs asked the German 
 “ what he had with him ? ’’ Only a few roubles 
 to pay for my passage,” he replied ; and on being 
 commanded to show them, one was discovered hav- 
 ing the effigy of Ivan IV. ! In vain did the un- 
 happy tradesman protest that he neither knew he 
 had such a coin, nor from whom he had received it. 
 
36 
 
 THE SECRET BI8PATCH. 
 
 Death was the penalty ; but his goods were confis- 
 cated, and he was condemned to perpetual imprison- 
 ment in the mines of Siberia. 
 
 The Empress Elizabeth died the victim of intem- 
 perance ; and while poor Prince Ivan — an un- 
 crowned emperor, a prisoner without a crime — was 
 left to pine in the Castle of Schlusselburg, the 
 sceptre was given to the feeble and dissipated Peter 
 III., the husband of the beautiful, voluptuous, and 
 talented Catharine II., daughter of a petty prince, 
 but descended from the ancient house of Servestan, 
 — a woman whom, in three short months after their 
 coronation, he contrived to disgust by his political 
 innovations, and still more by his amatorj^ incon- 
 stancy ; so it was resolved to get rid of Peter, who 
 w^as then in his thirfy-fourth year. 
 
 Peter I. had nearly lost Russia by compelling the 
 people to cut off the tails of their coats ; and Peter 
 III. became equally unpopular by ordering them to 
 trim their vast beards, and by putting his troops 
 in the Prussian uniform. Crowmed heads should 
 leave such matters to tailors and tonsors ; but he 
 certainly abolished the secret tribunal with its con- 
 tingent horrors, and recalled many a poor exile from 
 Siberia. 
 
 A party was formed for his dethronement: so 
 one evening in July, 1762, when he was surrounded 
 by his guard of Ilolsteiners, and amusing himself 
 with his flower garden (he was a great botanist), 
 
THE DAGG-EK OF BERNIKOFF. 
 
 37 
 
 and with some of his beautiful mistresses at the 
 palace of Orienbaum, — particularly the Countess 
 of Woronzow, to whose allurements he had aband- 
 oned himself, — the exasperated Empress prepared to 
 strike a final blow for Russia and for herself. 
 
 Putting on a uniform of old Russian Guards be- 
 longing to her future favorite, Captain Ylasfief, 
 with the most coquettish grace, this young and 
 beautiful, but in some respects terrible woman bor- 
 rowed from the nobles around her all the acces- 
 sories of a complete military toilette : of Basil 
 MierowitZj a hat ; of Count Orloff, a scarf ; of 
 Colonel Bernikoff, a belt ; of some one else, a sword. 
 Over all, she wore the blue ribbon of the first order 
 of the Empire, which her impolitic husband had 
 laid aside for that of Prussia. 
 
 The drums beat to arms : in this strange guise 
 she showed herself to the troops, who were now 
 mustered to the number of twenty thousand men in 
 the great square of St. Petersburg, where the sight 
 of the uniform of the old guard, which had been 
 forced to give place to Peter’s cherished Holstein- 
 ers, raised bursts of acclamation, quite as much as 
 the appearance of Catharine, who was then in the 
 full flower of her robust beauty, perfectly elegant 
 in figure, and purely feminine from her shoulders 
 to her feet, which were remarkably handsome, and 
 of which she was very proud.” Her nose was 
 aquiline, her eyes blue with black lashes, and her 
 
38 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH* 
 
 hair, a brilliant auburn, was curling on her shoul- 
 ders. Thus, has an eye-witness described her. 
 
 The regiments began to file off against the Em- 
 peror, and little knowing the end of the expedition ; 
 among the troops on this night marched Charlie 
 Balgonie, with the colors of the Regiment of 
 Smolensko on his shoulder. 
 
 Everywhere the rebellious Empress was received 
 with enthusiasm, and the Great Chancellor Woro- 
 slaff, who was sent against her, was among the first 
 to join her party. 
 
 The Emperor, abandoning his fiowers and his 
 fair ones, fied to his yacht or galley, which was 
 rowed to Cronstadt, of which his enemy, the High 
 Admiral Talizine, had already made himself master. 
 The imperial galley (relates M. Rulhiere in his 
 ^^Histoire sur la Revolution de Russie came 
 under the ramparts in the night, while the great 
 alarm bells rung, the drums were beaten and scarlet 
 rockets ascended in showers from the dark mass of 
 the Castle of Kronslot ; and then, all along the line 
 of fortifications, Peter saw two hundred portfires 
 shedding tlieir weird unearthly glare through the 
 yawning embrasures upon the twilight sea and sky 
 — each port-fire beside a loaded cannon — ^loaded 
 against liimself ! 
 
 This was at ten o’clock ; but ere the great oars of 
 the galley were lain in, or the anchor dropped, a 
 sentinel challenged : 
 
THE DAG-GSR OF BERNIKOFF. 
 
 39 
 
 Who comes there ? ” 
 
 His Imperial Majesty the Emperor/’ replied 
 the Captain of the galley, who was standing on its 
 gilded prow. 
 
 There is no longer any Emperor ! ” was the 
 stern reply of some one on the ramparts. 
 
 ’Tis false ! I am here — I, Peter Antonovitch,” 
 said the Emperor, growing pale at these daring and 
 terrible words, as he stood up and threw back his 
 cloak to show himself and his well-known Prussian 
 star, by the clear, lingering twilight of the northern 
 evening. 
 
 Steer off,” shouted Admiral Tahzine, or, by 
 our Lady of Kazen, I will fire on you ! ” 
 
 ^^We are going — give us but time,” cried the 
 Captain hopelessly, through his speaking-trumpet. 
 
 At that moment a thousand voices on the ram- 
 parts shouted on the still twilight air — 
 
 Long live the Empress Catharine II. ! ” 
 
 On hearing this, Peter burst into tears, and fell 
 back into the arms of his attendants, saying : — 
 
 The conspiracy is general — from the first days 
 of my short reign I have seen it coming ! ” 
 
 He was soon after abandoned by all, even by his 
 obnoxious Holstein Guards, who surrendered to the 
 Hegiments of Smolensko and Yalikolutz; and then 
 he was committed by his wife, prisoner of state, to 
 the Castle of Robsch, in a solitary place, eighteen 
 miles from St, Petersburg. Six days afterwards 
 
40 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 had only elapsed, when it was suggested that 
 though young Ivan was still lingering a captive at 
 Schlusselburg, and some were not without hopes of 
 replacing him on the throne, tranquillity could not 
 be perfectly restored while Peter lived, though 
 lonely and abandoned now. 
 
 His wife’s lovers and favorites came to this deci- 
 sion, speedily ; so, late one afternoon, three horse- 
 men arrived at the residence of the fallen Emperor. 
 They were Count Orloff, v/ho had in his breast 
 a laced handkerchief of the Empress, the grim 
 Colonel Bernikoff, and a Hospodeen or gentleman, 
 wlio announced that they had come to sup witli 
 him ; and, according to the Russian fashion, glasses 
 of brandy were served round before they sat down. 
 
 In that given to the Emperor was poison. 
 
 Whether, adds the historian we quote, they were 
 in haste to carry back their dark tidings, or whether 
 the horror of the deed made them anxious to finish 
 it, none can know ; but to hasten their terrible 
 work, they insisted on giving him another glass. 
 
 Already the subtle poison was diffusing itsplf 
 through the vitals of the unhappy Emperor ; and 
 now, struck by the pallor of their faces and the fe- 
 rocious expre’ssion of their eyes, he started back, 
 refused the proffered glass, and despairingly sum- 
 moned assistance. 
 
 They tlien flung themselves upon him, and Count 
 Orloff, pulling from his l)reast the handkerchief lie 
 
THE BAHHER OF BEBNIKOFF. 
 
 41 
 
 had concealed there, threw it over the mouth of 
 Peter, to gag him and stifle his cries. He was 
 dashed again and again to the floor, where he de- 
 fended himself against his assassins with all the 
 fury that terror of death and despair could inspire. 
 
 Two young ofiicers of the guard now rushed in, 
 and, as the orders of all were to slay Peter without 
 a wound, they knotted the handkerchief round his 
 neck to strangle him, while the Count pressed his 
 knees upon his breast. 
 
 Still the dying Emperor struggled so fearfully 
 that the ferocious Bernikoff, losing all patience, 
 plunged a dagger into his throat; and thus, 
 poisoned, stabbed, and strangled, he expired with- 
 out further resistance. 
 
 A few hours after this, pale, dishevelled, and 
 covered with blood, dust and perspiration, with torn 
 garments and disturbed bearing. Count Orloff ap- 
 peared before the Empress. She arose in silence,’’ 
 says M. Rulhiere, and passed into an inner room, 
 whither he followed her. Some minutes after, she 
 called Count Panin, who was already named her 
 minister, and informed him that the Emperor was 
 dead, and consulted with him upon the mode of 
 announcing his demise to the people.” 
 
 It was given out that he had died a natural death. 
 
 The wound inflicted by Bernikoff’s dagger was 
 carefully sewed up ; the orifice was neatly covered 
 by a piece of gold-beater’s skin ; and the body, iu 
 
42 
 
 'THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 an old green regimental coat, with four wax candles 
 as a funeral state, was exposed for three days to the 
 people. The Russians were permitted to wear 
 their beards ; the Empress poured out her afflictions 
 in a ukase, and offered up her prayers, as became a 
 widow, in the church of our holy 'Lady of Kazan. 
 
 And it was in the service of this charming 
 people, 
 
 this new and polished nation, 
 
 Whose names want nothing but pronounciation,'’ 
 
 — a people, who, in the arts of peace, were little 
 better than the Scots when James I. was butchered 
 in the Black Friary at Perth, or the men of Merry 
 England ’’ when her crook-backed Dick was smoth- 
 ering the royal babies in the Tower — that, by an 
 adverse fate, our hero found himself a soldier of 
 fortune, when, as before stated, old George III. 
 was King of the British Isles, the first gentleman 
 in Europe” was a sinless infant on his mother’s 
 knee. 
 
 After Peter was laid in his grave, and Catharine 
 was firmly seated on his throne, her conduct Avas 
 cautious and judicious, and, as even her enemies ad- 
 mitted, at times magnanimous ; yet frightful atro- 
 cities were committed during her reign, when she 
 degenerated into ferocity and debauchery. 
 
 The captivity of the young and innocent Ivan in 
 Schlusselburg, in charge of the unscrupulous Ber- 
 nikoff, Captain Vlasfief, and a Lieutenant named 
 
THE DAGGER OF BEBNIKOFF. 
 
 43 
 
 Tschekin — three officers in whom Catharine had 
 implicit reliance — seemed more helpless now than 
 ever when the sceptre was in her firm grasp. 
 
 Now that Peter \vas disposed of, lier only dread 
 consisted in the chance of Ivan’s escape ; so his 
 guards were doubled, and her orders to Bernikoff 
 concerning him were to ensure his detention even 
 by death if necessary : and it was concerning this 
 very dread that Captain Charles Balgonie was pro- 
 ceeding with a dispatch from Novgorod, where 
 Catharine, with some of her favorites and courtiers, 
 was residing for a time in the ancient palace of the 
 Czars. 
 
CHAPTEE II. 
 
 THE PALATINE 
 
 I^OEPOKAL PODATCHKINE was an admir- 
 ^ able specimen of liis own type of Eussian, — 
 one who was more afraid of neglecting Lent than 
 of murdering his fellow-being, especially if that 
 fellow-being was a foreigner; ^^for,” saith M. L’ 
 Abbe Chappe at this time, they do not reckon 
 foreigners among the number of their brethren.” 
 His thick black scrubby hair was cut straight 
 across the forehead in a line wuth the eyebrows, and 
 at each side it hung perpendicularly down below 
 the ears, in the old Eussian and Mediaeval fashion, 
 and was, moreover, cut square across the neck be- 
 hind, just as the English wore theirs in the days of 
 Eichard III. ; and he kej)t alternately scratching 
 and smoothing his rugged front, nervously and as- 
 siduously, when he removed his fur Cossack cap ; 
 and, full of affected concern, even to exhibiting 
 tears in his small cunning eyes, presented himself, 
 through the bribed auspices of the dvornick, to 
 Natalie Mierowna next morning, and besought lier 
 to have him conducted to the chamber of his 
 brave, his beloved Captain, his comrade and brother, 
 44 
 
THE PAI^TINE. 
 
 45 
 
 who was, he now learned, seriously ill, helpless, and 
 delirious,” — and, in fact, just as the cunning Cor- 
 poral wished him to be. 
 
 There he found Balgonie, certainly too ill and 
 weak either to recognize him or understand what he 
 was about ; so the faithful Cossack made a rapid 
 and skilful investigation of all the oflScer’s pockets, 
 and especially his sabretasche, for the dispatch. 
 
 Not a vestige of it was to be found. 
 
 What the devil can he have done with it ? ” 
 muttered the bewildered Corporal, as he thought of 
 his 200 silver roubles ; can he have lost it in the 
 river, or swallowed it ? ” 
 
 The truth is, that Natalie Mierowna had her 
 doubts about the fidelity of Podatchkine, and even 
 of some of her own domestics, and aware of the risk 
 run by the stranger if he lost a dispatch of the- Em- 
 press, she had, prior to the introduction of the Cor- 
 poral, secured the document, and at that moment it 
 was hidden in her own fair bosom until she could 
 secure it in a safer place. 
 
 * In her bosom ! Poor Natalie ! Alas, she little 
 knew its contents, and the horrors they were yet to 
 produce. 
 
 Baffled thus in his attempt to seciire it, there was 
 no resource for the faithful warrier of the steppes 
 now but to take up his quarters, which he was 
 nothing loth to do, at the Castle of the Louga, and 
 there quietly and comfortably to smoke his pipe by 
 
46 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 the kitchen stove ; await the recovery or the death, 
 he cared not which, of Balgonie; and to concert 
 further measures with the huge gipsy, Nicholas 
 Paulo vitch, whom he saw daily. 
 
 It was no feverish dream of Balgonie that Natalie 
 Mierowna had been hovering about his bedside; 
 for she and her consin Mariolizza had been his 
 especial nurses. 
 
 In less than three days the feverish delirium sub- 
 sided, sense completely returned, and the young 
 Captain appeared to be laboring under a species of 
 influenza. A cold, as we understand that homely 
 but troublesome kind of ailment in foggy Britain, 
 is almost unknown in the latitude of St. Petersburg. 
 
 It is,’’ says Dr. Granville, “ indigenous to Eng- 
 land, and, above all, to London ; ” yet we fear Bal- 
 gonie had a most unromantic and unmistakable 
 cold, consequent on his immersion in the icy Louga, 
 together with an aguish shivering, which rendered 
 the quitting of his couch, and betaking himself to 
 the saddle, as yet quite impossible. 
 
 Balgonie had an insatiable thirst : he had visions 
 of iced champagne ; but in lieu, got only tea-punch, 
 if we may so call it — ^being tea in the fashion still 
 taken by the Pussians (who hold that milk spoils 
 it), with a slice of lemon or preserved fruit ; and as 
 he got stronger, Katinki, a strapping Polish dam- 
 sel with fine black eyes, who was Natalie’s particu- 
 lar follower, added thereto a dash of rum and then 
 
• THE PALATIJNE. 
 
 47 
 
 ts'cetochny^ or flowery tea, with cakes, which the 
 Captain seemed to relish all the more when he 
 understood them to be made by the white hands of 
 Natalie : an appreciation which showed a decided 
 improvement in the young officer’s health. But — 
 ‘‘ My dispatch,” he frequently said aloud,— ^ I 
 must begone with my dispatch ! ” 
 
 Might it not be entrusted to the Corporal 
 Podatchkine ? ” asked Natalie one morning, as she 
 personally gave him his warm and soothing drink 
 with her own hand, Katinka standing demurely by 
 with a silver salver. 
 
 ‘‘ Impossible, Hosphoza, for so I may call you ; 
 an officer alone can carry a dispatch of the Empress. 
 Its contents are most urgent : this delay, over 
 which I have no control, may be visited by royal 
 disfavor, even punishment ; and I fear that the air 
 of Tobolsk or Irkutsk would ill suit a Scotsman’s 
 lungs, Natalie Mierowna.’! 
 
 ^^Yet tarry here you must,” said she, with a 
 smile, the beauty of wEich proved very bewildering : 
 “ the Longa is coated with ice this morning, but 
 not so thick, however, that it might not be broken by 
 throwing a five-kopec piece from here ; but to 
 travel yet would only kill you, Carl Ivanovitch, and 
 cannot be thought of just now.” 
 
 Then as she glided away, with her beaming smile, 
 her white hands and taper arms, her rustling dress 
 of scarlet silk trimmed with snowy miniver, and 
 
48 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 all the sense of perfume that pervaded her, Bal- 
 goiiie sighed wearily yet pleasantly, and half 
 thought that beautiful figure a dream, as he turned 
 on his soft and luxurious pillow, and marvelled 
 whether his past or his present existence was the 
 real one. 
 
 A captain in the ducal Regiment of Smolensko, 
 and not yet twenty-five ! Some ten years ago, his 
 future seemed to point to a very different course of 
 life. 
 
 Far from Russian steppesi and icy streams, their 
 forests and barbarity, his mind had been wandering 
 home to Britain’s happier shore ; and he might 
 have said with the Bard who sang the Course of 
 Time,” — 
 
 Nor do I of that Isle remember aught, 
 
 Of prospect more sublime and beautiful. 
 
 Than Scotia's northern battlement of hills, 
 
 Which first I from my father’s house beheld. 
 
 At dawn of life ; beloved in memory still, 
 
 And standard yet of rural imagery.” 
 
 His story is a brief one, and not very startling, 
 save for its rapid career of injustice. 
 
 Charles Balgonie, son of John Balgonie of that 
 Ilk in Strathearn, had come into the world during 
 that wRich was perhaps the most stupid, lifeless, and 
 impoverished era of Scottish existence, the middle 
 of the reign of George II. ; when the country was 
 without trade, energy, or enterprise, and when noth- 
 ing fiourished save that which prospers there more 
 
THI5 PALA.TIKE. 
 
 49 
 
 than ever even under the rule of her present Ma- 
 jesty, and will do so apparently unto the end of 
 time, — gloomy fanaticism and canting hypocrisy: 
 more among the laity certainly, who make a trade 
 and cloak of outward religion, than among the 
 clergy, who dare not be liberal, even if so disposed; 
 for without a public and noisy exhibition of sanctity, 
 few have ever had much chance of place or profit 
 north of the Tweed. 
 
 Moreover, Charlie was born at a time when to be 
 a Scotsman or an Irishman was almost a political 
 crime in the eyes of their somewhat illiberal fellow- 
 subjects, and when for either to attain eminence in 
 the service of their native country was nearly an im- 
 possibility; and hence the Scots crowded to the 
 armies and fleets of Russia and Holland, and the 
 Irish to those of Fance and Spain. 
 
 By the early death of his parents, Charlie had 
 been cast, in his extreme boyhood, upon the tender 
 mercies of a bachelor uncle, Mr. Gamaliel Bab 
 gonie, a hard-hearted, grasping and avaricious mer- 
 chant in Dundee — one who was a noisy exhibitor of 
 religion, a fervent expounder of crooked texts, and, 
 of course, and Elder of the Kirk ; a great quoter of 
 Scripture upon unnecessary occasions ; one who al- 
 ways wore garments of sad-coloured broad cloth, 
 with a spotless white cravat, and whose quavering 
 voice and meek but cunning eyes were frequently 
 uplifted against the enormities, the wickedness, and 
 
50 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 the temptawtions and tribulawtions of this weary 
 world ; ’’ and who was, moreover, a vehement des- 
 piser of that which he stigmatized as ‘^its wretched 
 dross,’’ but which he left no means, fair or foul, un- 
 tried to acquire. 
 
 In the lovely vale of Strathearn — one of the 
 most exquisite tracts of verdant scenery in Scotland 
 — stood the home of Charlie Balgonie. In his de- 
 lirium, the present had fled, and the past returned. 
 He had been a boy again at his father’s knee — a 
 child with his curly head nestling on his smiling 
 mother’s breast; again, in fancy, had her kisses 
 rested on his cheek, and her soft voice lingered lov- 
 ingly in his ear ; again had he felt all that happi- 
 ness, perfect trust, and security which the boy feels 
 by his father’s hearth, and the man, in after life, 
 never more ! 
 
 He heard not the hoarse Louga crashing down its 
 ice-blocks to the Baltic Sea ; but the gentle mur- 
 mur of the Earn, flowing from the wooded hills of 
 Comrie towards the broad blue bosom of the Tay 
 — the Earn, where many a time and oft he had 
 lured the brown trout and the speckled salmon from 
 the deep, dark pools, near the old battle-cross of 
 Dupplin and the Birks of Invermay. Again he had 
 heard the leaves rustle pleasantly in the summer 
 woods, where he had nutted and birdnested when a 
 boy ; and he had seen, in a vivid dream, his glori- 
 ous native valley where it narrows at Dunira ; and 
 
THE PALATmE. 
 
 51 
 
 far beyond, the blue ridges of the mighty Gram- 
 pians, lifting their summits, alp on alp, to the 
 clouds, eternal and unchanged as when the foiled 
 legions of Julius Agricola fled along their slopes in 
 rout and disorder. 
 
 On the death of his parents his small paternal 
 estate of a few hundreds per annum would have be- 
 come, as all might have supposed, his inheritance ; 
 but the relation before mentioned — the paternal 
 uncle, Gamaliel, a man of the strictest probity, and 
 of that which was equally valued in Scotland, ex- 
 treme sanctimony ; one who, on the funeral day, 
 had shed abundance of tears at the uncertainty of 
 life, and had excelled even the minister in prayer 
 and in warsling wi’ the diel ” {i. e., wrestling with 
 Satan) — suddenly produced a will, by which, to the 
 profound astonishment of all, the entire estate was 
 left to him as a return for certain loans and sums 
 advanced to the deceased, of which, however, no 
 proof could be found ; but it was a veritable death- 
 bed will, written accm^afcely by a notary, and duly 
 signetted with the autograph of John Balgonie of 
 yt Ilk.’’ 
 
 Though tremulous and shaky, — strangely so, — 
 and rather unlike the usual signature of the de- 
 cesased laird, three men there were, accounted good, 
 worthy, and religious men, who solemnly deposed 
 to having seen the hand of the dead man pen those 
 four words.” 
 
52 • THE SECRET 3DISPATCH. 
 
 It was a case which made some noise in those 
 days, because thirty-six hours after the alleged sig- 
 nature was given John Balgonie died^ 
 
 The law of Scotland requires that, after framing 
 and signing such a deed, the testator must have 
 been able to go once at least to church or market. 
 How it came to pass we know not now, but the dis- 
 pute, though without a basis, was brought before 
 the Supreme Court by some friends of the orphan, 
 for there were not a few persons in Strathearn who 
 alleged that John Balgonie’s hand had certainly 
 traced the signature which was sworn to so solemn- 
 ly as his, — but had done so after death ; the pen 
 being placed in the fingers of the corpse, which 
 were guided by those of the pious and worthy 
 merchant of Dundee, who wanted his nephew’s 
 little patrimony in aid of certain speculations of his 
 own. 
 
 Pending a decision, the bereaved boy was re- 
 moved to the busy town on Tay side, and was left 
 to solace^ his sorrows at school, prior, as he sup- 
 posed, to becoming a drudge in his affectionate 
 uncle’s counting-house, when the last of his slender 
 inheritance had been frittered away in the fangs of 
 the law. 
 
 One day — poor Charlie never forgot it — his 
 worthy Uncle Gam returned from Edinburgh by 
 the packet. The case had been decided against him, 
 and the Court was about to name trustees to look 
 
THE PALATINE. 
 
 53 
 
 after the estate of the orphan boy : so that boy 
 learned long after. Mr. Gamaliel Balgonie was 
 unusually grave, stern, and abstracted ; but he de- 
 liberately seated himself at his desk, and while 
 hamming, as was his wont, a verse of a psalm, he 
 penned a letter addressed to the captain of a vessel 
 then lying in harbor, and gave it to his nephew 
 for immediate delivery, desiring him to wait for the 
 answer. 
 
 Charlie remarked that Uncle Gam did not, ac- 
 cording to his usual careful custom keep any copy 
 of this letter ; and that it was written in a hand so 
 unlike his usual penmanship as to be completely 
 disguised. 
 
 The boy, then in his fifteenth year, started on his 
 errand with alacrity. It was better to be out amid 
 the bustle of the sunlighted quays, than drudging 
 with a quill in the sombre merchant’s office in a 
 narrow gloomy alley of Dundee. He soon found 
 the ship, which was moored at some distance from 
 the shore, with her fore-topsails loose, and blue- 
 peter flying at the fore, to indicate that she was 
 ready for sea ; yet Charlie had no suspicion of the 
 trap into wMch he was running, or the cruel fate 
 that awaited him. 
 
 The skipper, a rough, surly, and brutal-looking 
 man, eyed the boy keenly, while tearing the letter 
 into minute fragments, after he had perused it, with 
 a grim smile of satisfaction. He then went to a 
 
54 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 locker, where he poured out a glass of something 
 that seemed to be port-wine. 
 
 Drink that, my lad,” said he, while I write 
 an answer to your uncle.” 
 
 Charlie, half afraid to refuse, though the skip- 
 per’s bearing began to inspire him with distrust, 
 drained the glass; but scarcely had he done so 
 when the cabin seemed to be whirling round him ; 
 he thought that he was becoming sea-sick, and was 
 in the act of staggering towards the cabin stairs, 
 when he was felled to the floor by a blow from the 
 skipper’s heavy hand — a blow dealt cruelly and un- 
 sparingly„ 
 
 He recovered consciousness some time after, to 
 And himself — stiff, sore, and bloody, from a wound 
 in the temple — lying on deck in the moonlight, with 
 some twenty-flve other boys, several of whom were 
 still in the same state of stupor or intoxication in 
 which they had been brought on board. Others 
 were loudly lamenting their parents and brothers 
 or sisters they never more would see, and all were 
 more or less covered with blows and bruises, To 
 his horror and dismay, Charlie now found that the 
 ship was at sea, and running between the dangerous 
 reef known as the Bell Rock and the flat sandy 
 shore of Barrie ; and that, through the machinations 
 of Uncle Gamaliel, he had been lured in to the hands 
 of one of the most notorious plantation-crimps tliat 
 ever infested the Scottish coast — Captain Zachariah 
 
THE PALATINE. 
 
 55 
 
 Coffin, of New England, whose craft, a Palatine ship, 
 the Piscatona^ was a letter of marque, carrying 
 twelve six-pounders and fighting her own way. 
 
 Many miserable little fellows who had been lured 
 to a certain den im Aberdeen, and there drugged, 
 robbed, and manacled, were brought on board the 
 Palatine ship as she lay off Girdleness and burned 
 three red lights, in the night, as a private and con- 
 certed signal with the crimps ashore : and some of 
 these same crimps were discovered, in after years, 
 to have actually been the magistrates of the city ! 
 
 After this, the Piscotana was hauled up, in order 
 to go north about by Cape Wrath, having on board 
 nearly fifty boys, who were to be sold as slaves to 
 the highest bidder in Virginia ; for nowhere was 
 the infamous crime of kidnapping carried to a 
 greater excess, even during the early years of 
 George the Third’s reign, than in the neighborhood 
 of the Granite City — where, in some instances, 
 whole families disappeared, and their horror-strick- 
 en and bewildered parents died broken-hearted and 
 insane. 
 
 Among the little Palatines — a name given by 
 Americans to individuals who were thus kidnapped 
 — some there were who pined and wept for home ; 
 and some who built castles in the air, and looked to 
 America as a land of promise. Others there were 
 who schemed out vengeance, and were sullen. Among 
 the latter was our hero, who hoped yet to repay his 
 
56 
 
 thk secret dispatch* 
 
 wrongs on Uncle Gam, but meanwhile was knocked 
 about mercilessly by the sullen shipper, and was so 
 repeatedly rope’s-ended by him, that he was often a 
 mass of blood and bruises ; and then, like a poor 
 little victim, as lie certainly was, Charlie would 
 creep away into a corner, or skulk between the lee, 
 carronades, where the salt spray flew over him, and 
 mingled with the tear^ he wept so unavailingly, for 
 those once tender and affectionate parents who were 
 lying side by side in their graves, in sunny Strath- 
 earn, far, far away. 
 
 Many times, after being beaten cruelly, he was 
 deprived of food for hours and put in the bilboes- 
 where the captain amused himself by hunting a 
 savage dog upon him. 
 
 But his time of vengeance was coming ! 
 
 Storms came on when the Piscatona entered the 
 Pentland Firth ; and four days after Dunnet Head 
 with its flinty brow, four hundred feet in height, 
 had vanished into the wrack and mist astern, a sud 
 den cry of Are caused every heart to thrill on board 
 the lawless vessel. 
 
 Whether an act of treachery or not, it was im- 
 possible to ascertain ; but it had broken out near 
 the ship’s magazine, to which it communicated with 
 frightful rapidity ; for suddenly, while the crew 
 were all running fore and aft with buckets, a 
 dreadful explosion seemed to rend the Piscatona in 
 two. Half of the main-deck was blown away with 
 
THE PALATINE. 
 
 57 
 
 two of the boats. A whirl-wind of fragments flew 
 in every direction ; and then the flames shot into 
 the air in scorching volumes, which soon set the 
 courses and top-gallant sails on fire. 
 
 Discipline, or such a system of it as Zachariah 
 Coffin maintained on board, was totally at an end. 
 Some of the crew lowered the only remaining boat, 
 and fought like wild beasts for possession of it, 
 knocking each other into the water without mercy. 
 Captain Coffin cocked his pistols at the gangway, 
 shot one man dead, and swore with a dreadful oath 
 that he would kill the next who dared to precede 
 him; but he was struck from behind by an iron 
 marline-spike, and falling, together with his savage 
 dog, into the flaming gulf that yawned amidships, 
 was seen no more. 
 
 Some of the crew ultimately pushed off in the 
 boat ; others sprang overboard and held on to spars 
 and booms. But these and nearly all the little Pala- 
 tines perished miserably, after being half scorched. 
 Some were crushed to death by the falling yards 
 and masts. Manj^- held on to the fore and main 
 chains, till these became so unbearably hot, that 
 they liad to drop off, with screams of despair — when 
 they sank, faint, w^eary, and helpless, to the bottom 
 at last. 
 
 How it all happened Charlie Balgonie never 
 knew. But hours after the whole affair was over, 
 and the detested Piscatona had burned down to her 
 
58 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 water-line and sunk, leaving all the sea around her 
 discolored and covered with floating pieces of 
 charred wood and the buoyant parts of her cargo, 
 he found himself adrift in the wide and stormy 
 Pentland Firth ; but wedged with comparative 
 safety in a large fragment of the fore-top, to which, 
 the yard being still attached by the sling, a certain 
 amount of steadiness was given; yet his heart 
 leaped painfully, each time, when the fragment of 
 wreck rose on the summit of a green glassy wave, 
 or went sm’ging down into the dark and watery 
 trough between. 
 
 To add to the terrors of his lonely situation, the 
 sun had sunk amid gloomy purple clouds, and a 
 rainy night was drawing on. Half drowned, per- 
 haps, the poor boy soon became faint and exhausted, 
 and would seem to have dropped into a species of 
 stupor ; for when roused by the sound of strange 
 voices, he found himself close by a great and tow- 
 ering ship, which lay to, now right in the wind’s 
 eye with her main-yard aback, and her gunports 
 I and hammock nettings full of weatherbeaten faces, 
 gazing at him with eagerness and curiosity in the 
 twilight, while a boat was lowered from the davits 
 and pulled steadily towards him by six sailors clad 
 in dark green. 
 
 She proved to be a Russian 50-gun ship, the Anne 
 Ivanowna^ commanded by Thomas Mackenzie, one 
 of the many Scottish admirals who have bravely 
 
THE PALATINE. 
 
 59 
 
 carried the Russian flag in the Baltic and the Black 
 Sea, the same officer who a few years after was to 
 build the great harbor and forts of Sebastopol, at 
 the little Tartar village then known as Actiare. 
 
 His youthful countryman became protege. 
 
 The worthy admiral sought to made a sailor of 
 the rescued Palatine ; but the latter had seen quite 
 enough of the sea wffiile on board the Piscatona^ 
 and while he was clinging like a limpet or barnacle 
 to the piece of drifting wreck ; so he became a 
 soldier, and served under General Ochterlony, of 
 Guynd, in the Regiment of Smolensko, where, as a 
 cadet, his superior smartness, intelligence and edu- 
 cation, not less than his courage, soon distinguished 
 him among his thick-pated Russian comrades : 
 thus, in less than ten years, he became, as we And 
 him. Captain Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, the most 
 trusted aide-de-camp of Lieutenant-General Wey- 
 marn, Commander-in-Chief of the City and Dis- 
 trict of St. Petersburg. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 
 
 can never know, Ivanovitcb Balgonie, 
 bow much I pitied yon — ’’ 
 
 “ You lady ? ’’ was tbe joyous repose. 
 
 “ That is, I and Mariolizza,’’ said Natalie 
 Mierowna, slightly blusbing (tbe Russians always 
 speak thus, putting the personal pronoun rirst), 
 wlien we found you sunk on a fever bed, in a 
 foreign land, so far from your country, your friends, 
 your mother, perhaps ; for you are young enough, 
 I think, to miss her still, at such a time, although a 
 soldier.’’ 
 
 “ Far indeed, in many ways ! ” replied Balgonie, 
 with a bitter smile, as he thought of Uncle Gam 
 and the Palatine ship ; or perhaps it was illness that 
 had weakened him. I have a country to which, 
 more than probable, I shall never return; but 
 father, mother, or friends, I have none there : all 
 who loved me once, have gone to the silent grave 
 before me.” 
 
 Yes, lady.” 
 
 But you are making manv friends in Russia, 
 60 
 
THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 
 
 61 
 
 said Mariolizza, cheerfully : there are my cousin 
 
 Basil Mierowitz, and my brother Apollo Usakoff, 
 who both, I know, love you a^ a brother.” 
 
 True ; and most grateful am I to them for their 
 regard, for both are polished gentlemen. I have 
 old General Weymarn, too, though I know not 
 what he will think of this delay in delivering the 
 Imperial dispatch.” 
 
 Alas, that most tiresome dispatch ! ” exclaimed 
 Natalie ; but I forget,” she added, with a curl of 
 her short upper lip, those who proceed on the 
 errands of the Empress Catharine, would need seven- 
 league boots, or the carpet of the prince in the 
 fairy tale, which transported the owner at a wish.” 
 ‘^Hush, cousin,” said Mariolizza, glancing timidly 
 round : but no one was near save Corporal Fodatch- 
 kine, who was stolidly smoking a huge pipe at a 
 little distance on the terrace, when this conversation 
 took place two days after Balgonie became con- 
 valescent, and fully a week since the night of peril 
 on which he swam the Louga. 
 
 I cannot describe to you, ladies, the relief that 
 came to my mind on discovering that it had neither 
 been lost nor stolen, but was safe—” 
 
 In Natalie’s bosom ! ” said Mariolizza, laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 Certainly the last place, where, for her own 
 sake, I would place a dispatch of the widow of 
 Peter III.,” responded the other, haughtily; but 
 
62 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Balgonie felt his heart beat quicker as she spoke. 
 Her voice was sweet and lo\v, and had a wonderful 
 chord in it. 
 
 The day was mild and beautiful, and truly an 
 April one. The last of the ice had disappeared 
 from the river ; not a flake of snow was visible 
 among the woods or on the distant hills; and the 
 bright sun of noon shone clearly and brilliantly 
 from a deep-blue sky flecked by floating masses of 
 white cloud, and cast across the bosom of the Louga 
 the shadows of the great flr trees that spread like 
 a sea of solemn cones for miles along its banks ; and 
 amid that woody sea, the most stricking feature 
 was a white-walled monastery with its ^^golden- 
 headed church ” and all its metal cupolas glittering 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 As they promenaded on the gravelled terrace 
 that lay before the Court’s residence, Balgonie 
 could see the domains of Mierowitz that lay for 
 miles around : the patrimonial village of the Count, 
 nestling among the coppice, containing a dozen or 
 so of stone houses, and double that number of quaint 
 tumble-down edifices of W’^ood, and a church with 
 a little gilt cupola,where his surfs said them prayers, 
 and thanked God and him for permission to live 
 and breathe, and to hoard their roubles in secret — 
 for wealth in a serf was a sure source of misery, ex- 
 tortion, and perhaps of torture, if discovered. 
 
 In the immediate foreground were wharves, where 
 
THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARIKA. 
 
 63 
 
 the wood for masts and spars from his forests were 
 launched, and formed into great rafts for conveyance 
 to the Gulf of Finland. The din of axes and the 
 crash of falling timber, with the cheerful voice of the 
 woodmen and labourers, were heard rising from the 
 echoing woods, as they lopped and trimmed the 
 giant pines for conveyance to the Baltic coast; for 
 his forest trees were one of the chief sources of 
 revenue to Count Mierowitz. 
 
 ^^Tour father’s mansion is indeed a noble one!” 
 said Balgonie, Avho after surveying the landscape 
 from the terrace, ran his eyes over the facade of 
 the castle, as it was named, though by no means so 
 well fortified as his patrimonial tower in Strathearn, 
 which dated from the days of the Sixth James. 
 
 So noble that the first Count of our name who 
 built it, when Ivan Basilovitch — Ivan the Terrible 
 — was Czar, put out the eyes of the architect, who 
 was, of course, one of his serfs,” said Natalie. 
 
 For what reason ?” asked Balgonie, starting. 
 
 ‘‘ Lest he should repeat the work for another,” 
 replied Natalie; but then the Count was a fierce 
 soldier, who had served under Yermack in the con- 
 quest of Siberia. I fear you think us very barbar- 
 ous, Captain Balgonie ; but I can assure you, that 
 even in the remote forests of Yakoutsk, on the banks 
 of the Lena, there is more regard for human life 
 and divine laws now, than existed when my father 
 was a boy. He has, indeed, seen terrible things ! ” 
 
64 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Balgonie did not see much of the Count, who 
 was generally occupied among his people, to whom 
 he was alternately a source of reverence and of ter- 
 ror. 
 
 Though infinitely more civilised than the old 
 Russian noble as described by Clark, unw^ashed, 
 unshaven, eating raw turnip and drinking quass,’’ 
 (for according to the Doctor, in 1799, ‘^raw turnips 
 were handed about in slices in the first houses, on a 
 silver salver, with brandy as a wdiet before dinner,”) 
 he was a fair average specimen of a fine old Musco- 
 vite gentleman all of the olden time,” who had a 
 cat-o’-nine-tails always at hand; who generally un- 
 bottoned his vest when the gold cup was brought, 
 in which he drank his pink champagne or rare 
 Hungarian wine, which he always had in equal 
 plenty with his fiery vodka and bitter quass ; who 
 reckoned his silver roubles by sacksful, and his 
 Sclavonian souls by thousands ; and who, though by 
 no means a bad fellow, as his imperious and outrage- 
 ous class go in Russia, had still the somewhat 
 czarish notion, that true nobility means the privi- 
 lege of being treated like a human being of intelli- 
 gence and feeling, and of treating others as if they 
 were nothing of the kind.” 
 
 Scandal said that in his wild youth he had fiogged 
 his serfs to fight with his favorite bear, and fiogged 
 them again if they maltreated or bit Bruin too 
 much : Balgonie certainly saw two or three old serfs 
 
THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 
 
 65 
 
 who had lost an ear in these combats. And when 
 the Count took his afternoon nap, if a cock crowed ^ 
 in the village, a dog barked, or a cat mewed, the 
 whole community were in trouble, when the stout 
 dvornick, or house-porter, was seen to issue forth 
 with his cat-o’-nine-tails in search of the proprietor. 
 
 A rich sash usually girt the waist of his oldfash- 
 ioned tunic, which was of fine cloth, and trimmed 
 with fur, broad or narrow according to the season ; 
 a square cap of crimson velvet, tasselled with gold 
 and edged with ermine as white as his beard, was 
 placed diagonally on his head,Vhen he went abroad ; 
 and then he carried a long gold-headed cane, with 
 the exact weight of which most of the shoulders of 
 the neighborhood were perfectly familiar. On holy 
 festivals the breast of his best velvet coat was al- 
 ways covered by orders of the empire ; a dozen of 
 servants usually hovered about him when he dined ; 
 and he always went to church and confession in a 
 clumsy old coach drawn by six white horses, three 
 abreast, in honour of the Holy Trinity. 
 
 He was proud of being one of the old hereditary 
 nobles, who are distinguished from the personal 
 nobility by their right to possess serfs, and to whose 
 earthly tyranny there was no limit, save the tomb. 
 All the wretched serf possesses, even his wife, was 
 the property of his lord. Fear, of secret murder 
 alone protected the latter species of property; 
 hence, no wonder it is that the land is without a 
 
66 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 middle class. Even in the present century, Heber, 
 in his Journal, mentions an instance of a Russian 
 noble who, in his profane cruelty and lust of power, 
 nailed a servant on a cross, for which he was only 
 imprisoned in a monastery. 
 
 But in the character of Count Mierowitz, there 
 was something of the rough and hardy country gen- 
 tleman. He it was who caught with his own hands, 
 and in his own forests by the Louga, the famous 
 team of brown bears which, in the marriage pro- 
 cession of the late Empress Elizabeth’s jester, drew 
 that jocular personage and his bride, when the new- 
 ly-wedded couple proceeded to the wonderful palace 
 of ice (which was built on the frozen Neva), all the 
 ornaments of which were icicles, and the appurten- 
 ances of which were also ice, even to the cannon 
 which were fired, and did not burst. 
 
 “ When Peter the great came to the throne,” said 
 he, one day, “ he found only two lawyers in all Rus- 
 sia ; so. Captain Balgonie, he hung one as an ex- 
 ample to the other. Ah, he was a truly great man, 
 Peter! The English admired him, solely because 
 he tried to imitate them ; but, for that very reason, 
 we don’t approve of many of his innovations. We 
 look from the north and south sides of the same 
 hedge.” 
 
 It is not surprising that Charlie Balgonie pre- 
 ferred the society of two beautiful young girls to 
 that of a testy old boyar. To enhance their natural 
 
THE SOLDIER OP THE CZARINA. 
 
 67 
 
 attractions and winning manners, they were always 
 dressed in the most fashionable French mode^ and 
 wore the rich stuffs which came from Moscow, and 
 even from China. 
 
 They and he had many topics in common, on 
 which they could converse, after old Count Miero- 
 witz had dined and dozed off to sleep — such as the 
 theatre erected some years before at Yaroslaff, by 
 Yolk off, whose troupe were now performing the 
 tragedies of Soumorokoff at St. Petersburg, wdiere 
 a government theatre had just been erected by a 
 ukase; while another ennobled the manager, Yol- 
 koff, who had died last year, after appearing at 
 Moscow in Zelmira. Their knowledge of French 
 and German opened up the best literature of 
 Europe to the two cousins, which was fortunate ; 
 for at the period of our narrative, Russia had al- 
 most none, save some barbarous national songs, 
 fabulous ecclesiastical records, and ferocious tradi- 
 tions: nor is she now much advanced in letters, 
 though certainly, two months after publication, 
 Charles Dickens may be read at Tobolsk — that ter- 
 rible Tobolsk — where, as we have all read in our 
 youth, Elizabeth wept such grateful tears on the 
 bosom of her Smoloff. 
 
 Exiled from court, and secluded amid these forests 
 by the Louga, a Russian lady had few resources for 
 amusement then ; so the unexpected visit of Cap- 
 tain Balgonie, with whose name and courage they 
 
68 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 were quite familiar, proved a most welcome and 
 fortunate circumstance to those two handsome girls, 
 who were merely enduring life, or simply vegetat- 
 ing, in the great old mansion of Count Mierowitz. 
 
 But there was one topic in which our soldier of 
 fortune could by no means agree with Natalie 
 Mierowna — her bitter and most unwise hostility to 
 the strongly established power of the Empress, or, 
 as she styled her, the woman who now occupied 
 the throne of Ivan ; ” a prince whom she viewed 
 exactly as the Scottish Jacobites did the Young 
 Chevalier,” and a few old Frenchmen do at the 
 present hour, Henry Y.,” the descendant of St. 
 Louis. These sentiments, however, she had to utter 
 in secret, or when none were by them ; and when 
 he gazed into her dark and beautiful eyes, so full 
 of romantic enthusiasm and of dangerous light, he 
 felt thankful that one so peerless and so perilous 
 was not, at all events, his enemy. 
 
 She had accompanied the Empress on her cele- 
 brated pilgrimage to the ancient cathedral of Rostov, 
 by the Lake of Nero, where the last of the Prince 
 of Jaroslay was murdered in cold blood by Ivan the 
 Terrible. Her expedition had taken place in the 
 May of the preceding year. Catharine and her 
 ladies walked ten versts afoot daily, and it was at the 
 conclusion of this devotional journey that the final 
 quarrel had taken place concerning the mazurka 
 with the Aide-de-camp Ylasfief. 
 
THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 
 
 69 
 
 That insult shall never be forgotten here ! ” 
 said she, stamping a little foot, in a prettily-em- 
 broidered scarlet shoe, on the carpet of the drawing- 
 room, where, fortunately for herself, she was alone 
 with Balgonie : an insult to me — to us, who have 
 
 the blood of Kuric the Yarangion in our veins ; and 
 from her — this woman of Anhalt-Zerbst ! ” 
 
 Balgonie laughed ; for the Kuric blood is to 
 Russians what Captain John Smith’s is to the Yir- 
 ginians, and the Norman element to the English. 
 
 Yes,” she continued, ’tis something novel, an 
 insult to us, from this Catharine, misnamed the 
 Great, who has enslaved all the Ukraine, and given 
 men and women away by thousands — like herds of 
 cattle, to her courtiers and her lovers ! ” 
 
 Oh, be wary ; I pray you, be wary, or speak in 
 French!” said Balgonie imploringly, while laying 
 his hand impressively — rather too impressively, we 
 fear — upon hers, which was so delicately smooth 
 and white, and was placed very temptingly within 
 his reach, as they sat near each other for the pur- 
 pose of conversing in low and confidential tones. 
 
 “ The people are mere slaves under her rule,” 
 continued Natalie, lowering her voice but without 
 withdrawing that coveted hand ; perhaps she forgot 
 it in her energy; but the omission made poor 
 Charlie Balgonie’s honest heart beat very fast in- 
 deed, and his color came and went painfully while 
 her dark and glorious eyes were bent on his : in 
 
70 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 her I behold only a usurper, who wields a knout in 
 lieu of a sceptre, and who seats herself on a throne 
 of human skulls ; but the time is coming when all 
 these things shall be altered.” 
 
 “ And this time, Natalie Mierowna — ^what do you 
 mean ? ” asked Balgonie, who had been long enough 
 in Russia to feel a thrill of terror at words so wild 
 and dangerous. 
 
 When it comes you will learn ; if the blow fails, • 
 woe unto those on whom it recoils! You may es- 
 cape as a stranger ; but I fear me, she will punish 
 the whole Regiment of Smolensko — ” 
 
 “ My regiment — mine, say you ? ” 
 
 Yes, yours, Hospodeen, even as Peter the 
 Great did the Battalion of Strelitz, for adherence 
 to his sister Sophia; and that we know to be one 
 of the most sanguinary sacrifices on record, even in 
 Russia.” 
 
 Heaven knows that is admitting a great deal; 
 but you say either too much or too little to satisfy 
 my curiosity ; explain this coming peril — this mys- 
 tery — to which you refer.” 
 
 In her growing energy, Natalie’s other hand was 
 now clasped above his, and truly ^Hhe situation had 
 its charm.” 
 
 Let us speak of it no more,” said she, recollect- 
 ing herself, and with a strange smile ; ere long you 
 shall know all; but not now — not now. Alas ! the 
 best I can wish you, Ivanovitcli Balgonie, is, that 
 
THE SOLDIER OF THE CZARINA. 
 
 n 
 
 your chance visit here may not also compromise 
 you with Catharine.’^ 
 
 They pressed each other’s hands : ' it was done, 
 perhaps, merely in the energy of conversation ; but, 
 to be brief, Balgonie found himself now hopelessly 
 and helplessly in love with Natalie Mierowna. 
 
 Though both cousins were remarkable for their 
 beauty — one blonde, the other dark — he had never 
 for a moment wavered between them ; for he had 
 been, from the first moment he beheld her, irresist- 
 ibly attracted by the brilliant and black-eyed Nat- 
 alie. Besides he knew well that Mariolizza was 
 betrothed, or, as the Bussians might justly phrase 
 it, assigned away, to his friend and brother-officer, 
 Basil Mierowitz. 
 
CHAPTEE YIIL 
 
 m LOVE. 
 
 I T was scarcely possible that the result of his 
 visit could be otherwise than it had proved; 
 for Natalie was no common-place beauty, but 
 one who had subdued the hearts of* many more 
 men than Charlie Balgonie — men, who now at 
 Moscow and St. Petersburg were counting the days 
 of her exile from the Court of Catharine : and when 
 Charlie thought of her in after years, the calm re- 
 pose of his days of convalescence, the aspect and 
 furniture of his chamber in the old Castle of Louga, 
 tlie genial glow of the peitchka, th^ double window 
 sashes with their bright false flowers between, the 
 Byzantine picture of the Holy Yirgin with its shin- 
 ing metal halo, and the varnished panels of the 
 walls, were all associated, as in a pleasant dream, 
 with the dark and beautiful eyes, the round taper 
 arms, the white and delicate hands on which so 
 many diamonds glittered, the jetty hair that was 
 twisted in massive braids (yet fell in ringlets, too) 
 round the superb head, — the graceful, floating, and 
 statuesque flgure of Natalie Mierowna, always so 
 richly, even coquettishly attired. Natalie, so soft, 
 72 
 
 
IK LOYE. 
 
 73 
 
 SO tender, and so true, in all the relations of life 
 and the amenities of society ; and yet who could be 
 so keen in her hate, so fiery in her political rancor, 
 when thinking of her own injuries, and the terrible 
 wrongs of the captive Ivan, whose adherent she liad 
 become. 
 
 Charlie Balgonie blessed the exile and choice of 
 circumstances, all so sudden and unforeseen, which 
 had cast him in her path. He loved her with all 
 the passionate adoration so beautiful and winning a 
 woman could inspire in a young and ardent heart ; 
 nor was it long before Natalie became aware of 
 this, and was affected by the same emotion. There 
 was one glance given, by which each read and 
 understood each other’s soul.” Lovers soon find 
 means to comprehend each other, and Mariolizza, 
 who speedily guessed their secret, which she cer- 
 tainly thought a dangerous one, found many excuses 
 to leave them often together. 
 
 The long, long dream of his youth and early 
 manhood, — the waking dream of many a lonely 
 hour of reverie in the summer woods, by the sea- 
 shore, or in the still hours of military duty, in camp 
 and bivouae — a fair face that would smile on him, 
 — a girl to love, and worship, and trust, — one who 
 would trust and love him in return, was embodied 
 at last ; and in Natalie he saw this hitherto imagin- 
 ary sphinx of whom he had been thinking, and for 
 whom he had been waiting so long. 
 
74 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Her voice, her smile, her presence, seemed to fill 
 the air as he breathed with a new charm, that made 
 every nerve thrill, investing the most simple and 
 common wants of every-day life with sudden de- 
 lights and joys ; in short, and in common phrase- 
 ology, the poor young man was over head and 
 ears in love.^’ 
 
 The declaration of his passion, and Natalie’s ac- 
 ceptance of it, came about just as others have done ; 
 and for three days after, — without looking the fu- 
 ture confidently or inquiringly in the face, — Bal- 
 gonie abandoned himself to the delight of his new 
 and successful passion, and forgot all about the 
 troublesome Empress, her pressing dispatch, and 
 the terrors of Lieutenant-General Waymarn. 
 
 How could he think of such, when seated in the 
 half-curtained alcove which opened off the drawing- 
 room, on those calm April evenings ; when the soft 
 breeze that fioated over the vast forests came laden 
 with the odor of the spruce and fir boughs ? Seated, 
 with Natalie — in all the glory of her youth, her 
 beauty, and the fiush of her first love — by his side, 
 often deftly and with rapid fingers weaving up the 
 coils of her heavy black ham (which would come 
 down, somehow, on these occasions) ; as she did so, 
 displaying to greater advantage than ever the mag- 
 nificent contour of her bust, her white shoulders, and 
 taper arms, and adding even to the coquettish side 
 glance of the half-veiled eye, the most splendid of 
 
IN LOVE. 
 
 75 
 
 all her natural ormaments were those great, heavy 
 loose braids on which the sunlight shone. 
 
 What was to be the future of all this ? 
 
 On the strong friendship of Basil Mierowitz he 
 could fully rely; but then Natalie was on bad terms 
 with the vindictive Empress, and he, Balgonie, was 
 a soldier, and, according to the rules of the Russian 
 service, could not marry without permission from 
 his colonel, who, at present, would not dare to ac- 
 cord it, circumstanced as the bride would be. 
 
 Marry ? What would the proud old Russian 
 boyar say, or do, or think, when he heard that the 
 penniless Scot — the mere adventurer — the soldier 
 of fortune, was the accepted lover of his daughter, 
 and that he had dared to lift his eyes to her other- 
 wise than in the way of solemn and aw^ful respect ? 
 
 If his High Excellency could have but peeped 
 into the aforesaid alcove on some of the occasions 
 referred to ! The mere fact of being a Scot would 
 not have conveyed much to the mind of the Count. 
 
 . If to any unlettered Englishman of the present day, 
 the names of Moldavia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Servia, 
 Pomerania, Grodno, Mingrelia, and so forth, give 
 but a vague idea of their whereabouts or history, it 
 was perhaps worse in the Count’s instance ; for so 
 far as he, worthy man, was concerned, or for all he 
 knew to the contrary, the Land of Cakes might have 
 been in the flying island of Laputa. 
 
 “ He would be furious, no doubt,” thought Bal- 
 
76 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 gonie ; but ne might soothe his troubled mind by 
 flogging a few serfs, shooting a few brown bears, 
 and draining sundry horns of quass.” 
 
 Charlie had been present at more than one Rus- 
 sian marriage and betrothal, and the coolness of the 
 ceremony had excited his astonishment and repug- 
 nance ; for, in that country, those life-enduring ar- 
 rangements are concluded by a mere match-maker, 
 who makes the proposal, not to the girl, but to her 
 father. He remembered particularly the case of 
 Lieutenant Tschekin’s espousal with the daughter 
 of General Weymarn, who, having stated her dower 
 to the go between, — a thousand pheasants or so, — 
 the gallant subaltern was satisfled, and thus, as usual, 
 the whole affair was settled without the taste or in- 
 clination of the young lady being consulted or con- 
 sidered. In Russia, the papa consents ; and, accord- 
 ing to some old custom, mamma pretends to object 
 and weep. 
 
 My daughter,” said the General, “ I have given 
 you away in presence of my aide-de-camp.” 
 
 To one I know, father ? ” she asked. 
 
 ^^No.” 
 
 “ To whom, then ? ” she continued, perfectly un- 
 disturbed. 
 
 One you shall soon know — here he comes ; and 
 this is thy bridegroom, daughter : art satisfled ? ” 
 The young lady, of course, declared she was sat- 
 isfied. She and the Lieutenant placed their hands 
 
IN LOVE* 
 
 
 behind them, stretched out their necks, pouting 
 their lips for a very frigid kiss, and the matter was 
 soon concluded by a priest. 
 
 When Balgonie thought of the delicacy and gen- 
 tleness of Natalie, and remembered the marriage 
 of the Lieutenant Tschekin, he shrunk alike from 
 the idea of seeing her subjected to the mummery 
 of a Greek espousal and the vulgar horrors of a 
 wedding feast and drinking bout a la Itusse. 
 
 At last he began to wake from his dream, to find 
 the stern necessity of departing ; and, indeed, the 
 snub-nosed Podatchkine, who was always hovering 
 about, seemed as a perpetual reminder of the duty 
 he was neglecting. The lovers were solemnly be- 
 trothed in secret, — Mariolizza was their only confi- 
 dant, — and at present they could but arrange to 
 wait until they could mutually confide in Basil 
 Mierowitz, whom Natalie, ere long, expected to see. 
 To write to each other, save by special messenger, 
 was deemed at present unwise ; but Balgonie would 
 visit her as he returned again to Novgorod. 
 
 So the last evening they were to spend together 
 came; and they were seated, wreathed in each 
 other’s arms, with Natalie’s cheek resting on Bal- 
 gonie’s shoulder, in an embowered rustic seat, not 
 far from the very place where he had so boldly 
 crossed the swollen rif^er on that eventful night. 
 
 Charlie’s heart was full of sadness and bewilder- 
 ment ; he could but mutter and whisper of his love 
 
THE SECRET DiSPATClli 
 
 and tlieir hopes, and again and again kiss Natalie 
 on the cheek, on the lips and snowy neck, her hands 
 and arms, wliile her tears flowed fast; for she had 
 all the cooing tenderness of a ringdove now, and 
 could only murmur from time to time : — 
 
 Oh, Carl, Carl — my own Carl ! ’’ and so forth ; 
 and, like other young ladies similarly circumstanced 
 on the eve of separation, believed herself to be the 
 most miserable being in the world. But, amid all 
 this, she suddenly started and grew pale, on seeing 
 a flgure approach. 
 
 See, Carl, see ! ” she exclaimed : that horrible 
 
 woman must be ominous of evil at suqh a time. 
 Why has she been permitted to approach ? ” 
 
 Balgonie saw, at a little distance, only a Russian 
 gipsy girl, possessed evidently of considerable per- 
 sonal attractions. She stood timidly, and irresolute 
 whether to advance or retire ; and bowed her head 
 with great humility, while crossing her flne but 
 dusky hands and arms upon her breast. In old age 
 the Russian female gipsies are as remarkable for 
 their extreme hideousness, as in youth they are 
 famous for personal beauty; so this young girl was 
 full of picturesque loveliness, and instead of being 
 clothed in rags, as the wanderers of her race are 
 elsewhere, her costume was brilliant in colours and 
 rich in material. She had large glittering ear-rings ; 
 a gaudy kerchief bound her black tresses ; and her 
 rounded cheeks being freely roughed, added to the 
 
m LOVE. 
 
 79 
 
 wonderful lustre of her dark and dusky eyes, and to 
 the generally theatrical character of her singular 
 beauty and bearing. 
 
 Oh ! ’’ resumed Natalie, with something of a 
 shudder, ’tis Olga Paulo wna: don’t let her speak to 
 us in our parting hour, Carl, lest we be compelled 
 to hear her sing, and that may perhaps bode evil. 
 The dvornick, I understand, has thrice by dog and 
 whip driven away this gipsy girl, who has come to 
 the house again and again, ostensibly to seek alms, 
 but doubtless only to steal or work mischief by her 
 cunning ; for though our Russian gipsies are not al- 
 lowed to pitch their tents on any land without the 
 express consent of the owner, this girl’s brother, 
 Nicholas Paulo vitch (as he calls himself), a half- 
 blood, has permanently settled on our estate, some- 
 where in the forests; though he is despised and 
 loathed by the peasantry, whom, doubtless, he 
 loathes and hates most cordially in turn. I do wish 
 she would go away without being ordered to do so.” 
 
 Little did Natalie know that those ill-requited 
 visits of the poor gipsy girl had direct reference to 
 the life and safety of him whose hand clasped hers 
 so tenderly and confidingly. 
 
 Faugh!” said Natalie, with increasing annoy- 
 ance ; she is about to sing, — something naughty no 
 doubt, — but her voice will soon summon the dvor- 
 nick.” 
 
 Many of those female wanderers in Russia can 
 
80 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 sing divinely ; and it is on record that even the 
 great Catalani was so enchanted by the melodious 
 voice of a gipsy girl at Moscow, that she took from 
 her own shoulders a superb shawl, which had been 
 given to her by the Empress, and placed it on those 
 of the nomadic singer, ^^as a tribute from art to 
 nature.” 
 
 And Olga now began to sing with great sweet- 
 ness one of those Russian songs, by which the gip- 
 sies, to flatter the people, sought to foretell the 
 downfall of the Crescent ; and many such prophetic 
 strains were current even during the war in the 
 Crimea, as foreshadowing the fate of the sick 
 man” at Constantinople. 
 
 Years after years shall roll. 
 
 Ages o’er ages glide, 
 
 Before the world’s control 
 
 Shall check the Crescent’s pride. 
 
 ' Banished from place to place. 
 
 Where’er the ocean’s roar, 
 
 The mighty gipsy race. 
 
 Shall visit every shore. 
 
 ‘‘But when the hundredth year 
 Shall three times doubled be. 
 
 Then shall the end appear 
 Of all their slavery. 
 
 Then shall the warlike powers 
 From distant climes return, 
 
 Egypt again be ours, 
 
 While the Turkish domes shall burn 1 
 
 “ Again the Christian’s cross 
 Shall over stamboul wave, 
 
IN LOVE. 
 
 81 
 
 And ruin, weeds, and moss, 
 
 Mark tlie last Sooltan’s grave I 
 Again shall Christmas hells 
 Ring where the Muezzins cry 
 When across the Dardanelles 
 The Moslem hordes shall fly ! 
 
 So Egypt shall he freed. 
 
 Her tribes return once more. 
 
 Their flocks and herds to feed 
 
 Where their fathers dwelt of yore : 
 
 When all our warlike powers. 
 
 From distant climes return. 
 
 Then Egypt shall he ours. 
 
 While the Turkish turrets hum ! 
 
 The last line ended in a shriek, with which a cry 
 from Natalie mingled ; for the cruel dvornick had 
 been stealing through the thicket unperceived, and 
 now bestowed a heavy lash across the tender should- 
 ers of the cowering and shrinking girl ; but ere he 
 could repeat it, Balgonie sprang forward, arrested 
 the descending whip, and then placing in the hand 
 of the singer a few Livonian groschen, bade her 
 hasten away, on which she departed, witli tears of 
 pain and gratitude, after pressing his fingers to her 
 lips ; and, in her terror and confusion, leaving her 
 task undone — her warning of coming treachery un- 
 told. 
 
 Oh, Carl ! ’’ said Natalie, laying her head again 
 on Balgonie’s breast, dearest Carl, I am so glad 
 she has gone without anathematizing us — or, or 
 weaving some mischievous spell ; for, smile as you 
 
82 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 may, I can’t help fearing those people ! I am a true 
 Russian, and dread the evil eye ! ” 
 
 Richer by a lock of dark and silky hair and a 
 diamond ring (both the objects of many a secret 
 kiss), but leaving his heart behind him, in one swift 
 hour after this little episode, Balgonie had departed 
 to meet, and, for greater security, to travel in con- 
 sort with, a caravan of a hundred and fifty boors, 
 who were conveying sugar from Moscow to St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 He was guided again by the sly Podatchkine, who 
 had resolved to take especial good care that the 
 said caravan should be avoided. 
 
 God be with you, Hospodeen — God be with 
 you — adieu,” said the old Count, lifting his square 
 velvet cap courteously, as he bade farewell to his 
 guest at tlie porte-cochere. 
 
 Balgonie so respectfully kissed the hands of Nat- 
 alie and Mariolizza, that none could have detected 
 a difference in his manner to either; and certainly 
 none could have suspected that the tears of the 
 former were yet wet upon his cheek — ^her kisses 
 lingering on his lip, that he seemed to leave his soul 
 upon her hand, and that the wrung hearts of both 
 were swollen with concealed emotion. 
 
 “ Uich ! ” thought Corporal Michail Podatchkine 
 as he rode after the officer into the deep forest Pd 
 as soon think of kissing the foot as the hand ; who 
 knows among what carrion either may have been 
 
IN LOVE. 
 
 83 
 
 stuck? By St. Nicholas, I would rather eat a 
 sheep’s tail or a rump steak from an old troop mare 
 than kiss either.” 
 
 Some hours after Balgonie’s departure, and when 
 Natalie in the solitude of her own room was aban- 
 doned to tears and unavailing regrets, a trusted mes- 
 senger from her brother arrived with a brief note, 
 vTitten so enigmatically that none save herself could 
 have understood or deciphered it ; but the spirit of 
 it was briefly this : — 
 
 All is arranged for freeing the prisoner of 
 S. (chlusselburg) by a stratagem. A dispatch that 
 may counteract, if not baffle our plans, and fatally 
 compromise us all, has been sent by pld Weymarn 
 to St. Petersburg. I know not who the bearer is ; 
 but be assured of this, he will never reach it alive. 
 "We have set Podatchkine on his track, and he, 
 worthy Livonion, for two hundred roubles, would 
 skin his own father alive.” 
 
 After reading this pleasant epistle, little wonder 
 is it that Natalie was found by Mariolizza, as the 
 twilight deepened, half senseless upon her bed, cold, 
 in tears, and utterly miserable. 
 
CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 DELUDED. 
 
 LOVEE has occasionally been likened to a 
 fool, as being a man possessed by one idea — 
 his mistress. This was certainly somewhat of poor 
 Charlie Balgonie’s state of mind. He saw only the 
 dark eyes, the half drooped lids, and the farewell 
 glance of Natalie ; so full of hidden and tender 
 meaning ; and while thinking of her and of her 
 last words and promises, their mutual hopes of the 
 future, based almost entirely on Basil, he fell an 
 easy pray to the plans and schemes of the wily Cor- 
 poral Podatchkine, who saw only his anticipated 
 two hundred silver roubles ; and who, knowing the 
 country as well as if it had been every acre, rood, 
 and verst this own property, led him on and on he 
 knew not where ; but, at all events, two hours after 
 they should have met the caravan, they found them- 
 selves, to all appearance, lost in a dense forest of 
 dark pine trees. 
 
 Failing the caravan, having now proceeded, as he 
 believed, some twenty miles or so, Balgonie had 
 thoughts of passing the night at the house of a 
 
 friend of Count Mierowitz, a duornin^ of whom he 
 84 
 
DELUDED. 
 
 85 
 
 had been told by Mariolizza, who laughingly as- 
 sured him, that this personage was a fine Russian 
 gentleman of the old school, who beat his wife reg- 
 ularly every Thursday and Saturday with a whip of 
 thongs/’ and was seldom sober. 
 
 Those duornins were country gentlemen, who 
 held them lands by knights’ service, and were bound 
 to attend the Czar on horseback in time of war. 
 Formerly it was sufficient to send a man well armed 
 and mounted ; but Peter the Great first compelled 
 them or their sons to serve in person, if they could 
 not pay for a substitute. 
 
 In short, though he knew it not, Balgonie had 
 been for the last two hours riding merely in a wide 
 circle, and, by the careful guidance of Podatchkine, 
 was now not many miles from the hut of the gipsy 
 woodman, Nicholas Paulovitch ; and, consequently, 
 he was much nearer the Castle of Louga than he 
 had the least idea of. 
 
 On this night there was a glorious Aurora in the 
 north; and full of his love, his own tender thoughts, 
 and inspired by the beauty of the scene, it seemed, 
 to the somewhat provoked Podatchkine, that the 
 dreaming Captain was quite disposed to pass the 
 nignt where he was. 
 
 When the dense wood of stupendous pines opened 
 into the long vistas, the whole northern quarter of 
 the sky could be seen, illuminated from the horizon 
 to the zenith. Gloriously bright as the most bril- 
 
86 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 liant phosphorus, masses of fire arose in the form 
 of columns that waved, to^vered, and shot into the 
 air, with streaks of fainter light between. Anon 
 they all blended and merged into each other with 
 renewed grandeur, aslant, or radiating from a centre, 
 like the sticks of a mighty fan. All that portion 
 of the heavens seemed a mass of shining gold, 
 rubies, and sapphires, with a wonderous light 
 streaming over them, broadening, brightening, and 
 deepening, then fading away, to fiash forth again in 
 greater beauty and glory, while, as if to enhance 
 the magnificence of this illumination, many falling 
 stars shot across it, leaving in their train sparkles 
 of light, more brilliant even than the glory that 
 blazed beyond. In black outline between, and in 
 the immediate foreground, towered the dark and 
 solemn pines, in solitude and silence. 
 
 Not a sound was heard but the occasional snort 
 of their horses, or the cry of a distant wolf. 
 
 Balgonie was surmising whether Natalie would 
 be surveying the beautiful natural illumination 
 from her window, or from the terrace : he forgot 
 that it was nothing new to her. Certainly it proved 
 of little interest to Michail Podatchkine, who under 
 his thick beard, growled at the officer for loitering. 
 
 The Scottish islesmen call the streamers of the 
 Aurora “ the merry dancers ; ’’ but the Siberians 
 name tliem the raging host : ” and • Balgonie was 
 reflecting what a relief their brilliance must prove 
 
DELUDED. 
 
 87 
 
 to the lonely hunters, who at that very time were 
 pursuing the white bear and the blue fox, far be- 
 yond the Lena, and along the shores of the Icy Sea, 
 when his attendant disturbed his reverie. 
 
 Well, Michail,’’ said he, in reply to some re- 
 mark in wliich the Corporal, who saw nothing won- 
 derful in the matter, urged that they should pro- 
 ceed, ‘^we liave missed the sugar caravan, and can- 
 not discover the residence of the duornin I spoke 
 of, so I am rather provoked with you.” 
 
 Oh, Excellency, who can withstand God or the 
 Great Novgorod ? ” whined the fellow, using an old 
 Russian proverb. 
 
 Jean Paul Richter says, the more weakness, the 
 more lying ; force goes straight, but any cannon-ball 
 with cavities in it goes crooked.” Some such 
 thought as this occurred to Balgonie, as he checked 
 his horse, and half turning, round, with a stern ex- 
 pression in his face, which the light in the north 
 made sufficiently plain, he said : — 
 
 Rascal ! I fear you are deceiving me again ! ” 
 Hustled up on his saddle, rather than in it with 
 his knees on his holsters and his lance slung behind 
 him, Podatchkine made many signs of the cross, and 
 called on St. Sergius and all the other moshtschi, or 
 saints of Russia, to bear witness that he was as in- 
 nocent as a young bear of any such foul idea; but 
 only begged that his Excellency would proceed, and 
 assured him that the track they were on must as- 
 
88 
 
 THK SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 suredly bring them, ere long, to some -woodman’s 
 dwelling. 
 
 At this time, such is the slavish influence of 
 superstition, that Podatchkine, for mere fellowship, 
 kept close to the very man against whom he had 
 formed the most flendish schemes ; for stories of the 
 Wood Fairies, — of the Leechie^ or^ Forest-demon, 
 whose fangs tore the benighted asunder, — of the 
 Domovoi^ or mischievous Russian Brownie, — of the 
 Yodianoi^ or smiling River- spirit, who lured travel- 
 lers to a watery doom, — of wolves and bears in 
 ravening herds, came fast upon his memory ; for the 
 forest was growing denser, and the darkness deep- 
 ened painfully after the Aurora faded away, and a 
 few solitary stars alone glinted through the open- 
 ings between the broad, flat, pendant branches of 
 the intertwisted pines. 
 
 The silence of the night was now broken only by 
 the whistling croak of the valdchnep^ or great wood- 
 cock, as he darted from amid the black gloom of a 
 pine tree, or the lighter shadow of the graceful, but, 
 as yet, leafless birch ; and the craven and clamorous 
 anxiety that had been giving real pangs, and even 
 qualms of conscience, to the superstitious Podatch- 
 kine began to subside, when the wood opened a little, 
 a red light appeared, and they approached the cot- 
 tage of Nicholas Paulovitch, the half-bred. 
 
 It was, as already stated, built of logs, squared by 
 the hatchet outside and inside, and whitened by 
 
DELUDED. 
 
 89 
 
 chalk : before it yawned a deep draw-well, with a 
 bucket, handle, and winch. 
 
 ’Tis the cottage of a man I know. Here, Ex- 
 cellency, we can pass the night,” said Podatchkine, 
 leaping from his horse and dutifully taking Bal- 
 gonie’s bridle, as if to anticipate any proposition of 
 proceeding further. There is a shed behind where 
 I shall stable ouis. horses : Nicholas, I know, will 
 make us welcome to his lodge.” 
 
 In a few minutes more, Balgonie found himself 
 seated in the cottage, the aspect of which struck 
 him as being peculiarly comfortless, dingy, and 
 squalid, as he viewed it by the light of a loutchin^ 
 or species of pine torch, which stood in a rusty iron 
 holder on the rough deal table, whereon lay a pack 
 of frayed and dog-eared cards. 
 
 On the walls were some rude images, stuck over 
 wdth crumbs of black bread, which attracted the 
 flies in summer and the dirt at all times. In a 
 place of honor was a holy effigy, with some train oil 
 flaring before it in a tin sconce, as a species of votive 
 lamp ; for the proprietor affected religion quite as 
 much as Mr. Gamaliel Balgonie did in a more civil- 
 ised part of the world. 
 
 The furniture consisted of a few plain stools, and 
 some very dirty bearskins spread on the floor in the 
 corners, as beds ; and on the table was a pitcher of 
 foaming and seething quass, with wooden bowls to 
 drink it by. 
 
90 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Balgonie took in all these details at a glance. 
 
 How great would have been his surprise, if he had 
 known that after riding so many miles, he was only 
 a short distance from lier^ from Natalie, who was 
 now weeping bitterly and sleeplessly on the bosom 
 of her cousin for him, and for the fate she dreaded, 
 and yet had not the power to avert, or from which 
 to save him. 
 
 In addition to Podatchkine and the host, Nicholas 
 Paulo vitch, who stood respectfully at a little distance 
 from Balgonie, and was appraising the exact value 
 of his costume, arms, and ornaments, even to Nata- 
 lie’s diamond ring, there was present another ill- 
 visaged fellow, with a powerful figure, square shoul- 
 ders, and giant beard, like every Russian of the 
 lower order ; eyes that were small and piercing, like 
 those of a mouse ; a long, fierce nose and jagged 
 teeth, hair shorn off close above the eyebrows and 
 brushed all down straight from the crown of his 
 head, which in form resembled a cone or a pine- 
 apple. 
 
 This Barbarian, who was dressed chiefiy in a 
 shoubah of sheepskin, and had a small, but sharp, 
 hatchet and dagger in his girdle, was a Stepniak, 
 from a district where nothing like a town was ever 
 seen or known, but whose aid and strength Paulo- 
 vitch thought might be useful and necessary in the 
 work he and Podatchkine had cut out for themselves 
 in the night. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWH TRAP. 
 
 ALGOXIE was rather weary after his long and 
 desultory ride by rough and unfrequented 
 roads, chiefly devious forest paths ; he felt thirsty, 
 and looked at the pitcher of quass. 
 
 Will his Excellency drink ? •’ asked Nicholas 
 Paulovitch, in his hoarse and husky voice. 
 
 Now as quass is simply a species of sour beer, 
 made of rye and oatmeal, colored by a red berry 
 and is generally the beverage by which the Eussians 
 wash down their coarse bread and salt, Balgonie de- 
 clined : the Stepniak proposed to add thereto a dash 
 of train oil ; but the suggestion made the young 
 ofiicer shudder. 
 
 I have fortunately one bottle of Ehine wine,” 
 said the woodman, with a rapid and furtive glance 
 at his comrades ; his Excellency will doubtless 
 honor us by taking it with his supper, at least with 
 such fare as the forest produces, a stewed rabbit or 
 so.” 
 
 I thank you, good fellow. Where is this cot- 
 tage situated ? ” 
 
 Situated,” replied Nicholas, with a quick and 
 
 91 
 
92 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 uneasy glance at the Corporal, fearing there might 
 be some discrepancy in their information. 
 
 “Yes, in what part of the country?’’ said Po- 
 datchkine ; “ for we naturally wish to know.” 
 
 “NearYelie.” 
 
 “ Then I am somewhere about forty versts from 
 the Louga ? ” 
 
 “Yes, Excellency, precisely,” replied the rascal. 
 
 “ Hence, if my horse is fresh, I may reach 
 Schlusselburg to-morrow ? ” 
 
 “ Scarcely, as it lies fully a hundred versts be- 
 yond Yelie,” said. Nicholas, 
 
 “ Is the distance so great ? ” exclaimed Balgonie, 
 little knowing that it was even more, and all un- 
 suspicious of how these wretches were deluding 
 him.* 
 
 “ But, Excellency, we may prove more able 
 guides than Michail Podatchkine,” said the gipsy 
 woodman ; “ for we — that is the Siepniak and 1 — 
 must proceed to St. Petersburg!! to-morrow, on a 
 little piece of business we shall have to perform 
 together.” 
 
 “ Poor devils ! ” thought Podatchkine, “ if you 
 take his body to St. Peterburgh, you will both be 
 
 *The cottage of those assassins is said to have been situated 
 ten versts, or about eight miles distant from Louga on the road 
 to Velie. Vide dispatch from General Weymarn to the Em- 
 press, dated 8th August, concerning Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, 
 a Scottish Captain in the Regiment of Smolensko /^ — Utrecht 
 Gazette, 
 
THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 
 
 93 
 
 accused of murder and kiiouted, as sure as my 
 name is Michail; so I shall save my fifty silver 
 roubles.” 
 
 Even at the present day in Russia, few will ven- 
 ture to receive or meddle with a dead body, or at- 
 tempt to succour a dying or a drowning person, in 
 dread of the dangerous accusations and extortions of 
 the police. 
 
 A sound, as of footsteps, and of something like a 
 drinking vessel falling on the floor of an upper 
 apartment, made the woodman start up with an oath 
 of astonishment and alarm. He hurriedly applied 
 a ladder to the trap which gave admission to this 
 place, and ascended into it ; but returned almost im- 
 mediately to say, there was no one there.” The 
 evident surprise and alarm of the three men at this 
 trivial occurrence, is said to have been the flrst cause 
 of exciting Balgonie’s suspicion. 
 
 He glanced at the Stepniak, who sat silently ob- 
 servant in a corner, drinking his quass, with his feet 
 resting against the rude peitchka, or stone stove, 
 which was built into the log wall of the cottage, and 
 when surveying his vast bulk and colossal stature, 
 together with his singularly ferocious aspect, the re- 
 flection occurred to. him, that he should have placed 
 his pistols in his girdle instead of leaving them in 
 the holsters of the saddle. 
 
 He was the reverse of timid ; he was brave even 
 to rashness, and had faced death many times ” (to 
 
94 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 quote General Weymarn) since his career of wander- 
 ing began ; but the idea certainly did flash upon his 
 mind, that his situation in that lonely forest had its 
 perils, and that two men more repulsive in aspect 
 and in bearing tlian the gipsy and Stepniak, he had 
 never seen, even in Russia. 
 
 Was it some mysterious and intuitive sense of 
 danger drawing near that made such thoughts pass 
 through the steady mind of Balgonie ? 
 
 He and Podatchkine were both armed, and even 
 were these men outlaws, they would scarcely, he be- 
 lieved, dare to assault an officer on military duty ; 
 besides, the very name of Schlusselburgh, whither 
 he was proceeding, carried a wholesome terror with 
 it; so dismissing his casual suspicions, Charlie un- 
 buckled his sword, and seated himself at the table, 
 on which a cold supper of stewed rabbits and coarse 
 rye bread was laid for the four who were present. 
 
 A platter was placed for a flfth person whom 
 Nicholas remarked to Podatchkine in a growling 
 tone was still abroad in the forest, or had not re- 
 turned from some place which was named in a 
 whisper. 
 
 With an affectation of extreme respect and cour- 
 tesy, none of the three worthies would seat them- 
 selves at the table, until Balgonie specially invited 
 and urged them in succession to do so. 
 
 The bottle of Rhine wine was produced from the 
 apartment above and opened. The lengtli of the 
 
THE CORPORAL IN HIS OWN TRAP. 95 
 
 \ 
 
 cork and the dust on the bottle (wherever it came 
 from originally) argued well of the contents; and 
 two horns, one of which had a handsome silver rim, 
 were placed for the Captain and Corporal. 
 
 The former was rather surprised to find such a 
 drinking vessel at this silver mounted cup in a 
 place so squalid, and he was about to lift and ex- 
 amine it, when Nicholas Paulovitch, with almost 
 nervous haste, filled it, and also that of the Corpo- 
 ral, to the brim. 
 
 To the surprise of Balgonie, the latter exhibited 
 some undisguised alarm on seeing wine placed be- 
 fore him ; it was an attention under all the circum- 
 stances he neither wished nor expected ; and so he 
 declined to drink of it, saying that lie was a true 
 Russ, and would adhere to t e quass.” 
 
 Nay, fear not, friend Michail,” said the wood- 
 man, ’tis the best of Rhine wine. The cup with 
 the silver mounting is of course for his Excellency 
 the Hospodeen,” he added with a quiet but grim 
 significance, which the wily Cossack quite uider- 
 stood, so he drained the wine horn without further 
 objection. 
 
 Soon after having supped, and imbibed his full 
 share of the wine bottle, Balgonie expressed a de- 
 sire for repose, as he wished to depart by day- 
 break; but he had other reasons for retiring so 
 early. He did not much relish the society of the 
 gipsy, the Stepniak, and the Corporal of Cossacks ; 
 
96 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 and he wished to indulge in reverie, to commune 
 with himself, and let the current of his thoughts 
 run undisturbed on Natalie and their adieux. 
 
 ^^This way, Excellency,’’ said Nicholas, with 
 alacrity, lifting the pine torch in its iron loutchin, 
 and ushering him up the stair, a mere common lad- 
 der, and through the trap-door into the little apart- 
 ment above, where his couch, composed merely of 
 skins of the bear and sheep awaited him, and where 
 he could see the dark forest and the occasional stars 
 through a small window that gave light and air to 
 the place, which was so limited in size, that it some- 
 what resembled a little cabin in a ship. 
 
 Left in this miserable den to his own reflections 
 and to darkness — when Nicholas descended with 
 the pine torch, carefully closed the trap-door and 
 secured it on the lower side by a wooden bolt, 
 moreover, softly removing the ladder — Charlie 
 Balgonie placed his sword conveniently at hand, 
 and cast himself upon the pile of skins that were to 
 form his bed, and thought he had often fared worse 
 in the bivouacs of Silesia and Bavaria. 
 
 So — he is safe,” said Nicholas Paulovitch, look- 
 ing upward with a grin of savage satisfaction at 
 the closed trap, as he replaced the loutchin on the 
 table, and then closely scrutinised the Corporal, 
 whose eyes had already become red and inflamed. 
 Hush ! ” said Podatchkine, take care.” 
 
 Why ?” asked Nicholas, in a hoarse whisper. 
 
THE CORPOKAL IX HIS OWX TRAP. 
 
 97 
 
 Bectose all may not be yet as you wish itj, and 
 in Russia sometimes the tongue flays the shoulders 
 and cuts off the head.’’ 
 
 True,” said the hitherto taciturn Stepniak, who 
 was carefully feeling the keen edge of his hatchet ; 
 
 as the Tartars have it, ^ when you have spoken the 
 word, it rules over you; while it is yet unspoken, 
 you rule over it.’ But it seems to me Michail Po- 
 datchkine, that you have taken a great deal of 
 trouble, and wasted much time in the matter of this 
 dispatch. As you passed through the forest to- 
 gether, why the devil did you not give him a good 
 tzchick ” — (which we can only render “ prod ”) — 
 “ in the back with your lance ? ” 
 
 “Because, if a wound is found on him, folks 
 might say he had been murdered ; and he must bear 
 not a scar.” 
 
 “And neither shall you, friend Podatchkine,” 
 said Paulovitch with a cruel grin. 
 
 “ Come — don’t make unpleasant jests,” growled 
 the Corporal, with a yarn and a shudder ; “ wounds 
 have not been fashionable since Orloff and Berni- 
 koff supped with Peter III.” 
 
 “ You grow wary as you grow older Corporal.” 
 “I have no desire to travel with the next cara- 
 van to Siberia, with one side of my head and face 
 shaved, and an iron rosary, some five pounds weight, 
 my wrists.” 
 
 “Fear not — you will never see Siberia.” 
 
98 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 “ Then you have made all sure about this Ivan- 
 ovitcli Balgonie ? ’’ said Podatchkine, whose utter- 
 ance was becoming somewhat inarticulate. 
 
 “ Ay, sure enough ; the cups were ” 
 
 “ The cups ! ’’ 
 
 The cup, I mean, was drugged with those black 
 berries which grow in the forest hereabout ; the 
 same stuff used by fine ladies to whiten their 
 hands.’’ 
 
 But why the cup and not the wine ? ” 
 
 “ For this reason: I might ha^e been constrained 
 to drink with him ; and I had no desfie to fall, like 
 some one else, into a trap of my own baiting.” 
 Podatchkine, on whom the powerful soporific 
 with which his cup had been drugged — the sleepy 
 nightshade — had been rapidly taking effect, and 
 whose small cunning eyes had been opening and 
 shutting alternately, while a numbness stole with a 
 weariness over all his faculties, seemed suddenly to 
 grasp at the terrible meaning of the speaker. He 
 gave a start — he essayed to rouse himself and shout, 
 but in doing so, toppled off his stool, and sank on 
 the clay fioor in a profound slumber. 
 
 At last ! ” said the half-breed, administering a 
 kick to the prostrate figure ; at last he has gone 
 to sleep ; now to make sure that he shall never 
 waken more. Ah ! the Asiatic ! he was just getting 
 suspicious at the end.” 
 
 There are two kopecs in his pocket/’ said the 
 
THK COKPOEAL lif HIS TEAP. 
 
 99 
 
 Stepniak, after investigating the garments of the 
 snorting Podatchkine, who was now breathing 
 heavily through his red snub nose, which, between 
 his scrubby beard and his shock of hair, was almost 
 the only feature of his face that was ^dsible. 
 
 Leave the kopecs where you found them ! ” said 
 Nicholas, with, a gipsy oath. 
 
 Wherefore? ” asked the Stepniak with surpiise. 
 
 ^^It wih seem all the more honest in thee, my 
 good Stepniak, when you take the body — bodies, I 
 should say — to the nearest military post. You have 
 but to say you found them dead in the forest.” 
 
 And the wet clothing ? ” 
 
 ^^Dew or rain — what a head you have ! ” 
 
 True — true; ah! what a man you are, Nicholas 
 Paulovitch, so full of bright thoughts ! That idea 
 would never have occmTed to me.” 
 
 Nor the other either. Quick, now; we have not 
 a moment to lose ! ” 
 
 They extinguished the pine torch, and tying the 
 Coi’poral’s hands securely with a cord, carried him 
 forth to the draw-well before the cottage. Then 
 they substituted that worthy warrior’s heels for the 
 bucket which was usually appended to the rope, and 
 permitting the winch to revolve softly and gently, 
 lowered him down, snorting and gasping in his un- 
 natural slumber, head foremost, into the deep dark 
 water below ! 
 
 The Stepniak turned the iron handle of the winch 
 
100 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 or windlass, while the gipsy guided the rope with 
 its heavy burden. He was deliberately lowered 
 down until only his heels remained above water, as 
 the two wretches could see by the starlight when 
 stoopitig and peering Into the darkness below. 
 
 The snorting had ceased now ! 
 
 The dying Corporal was heard to struggle with 
 his hands, as if he sought to free them from the 
 cords ; a few bubbles filled with air rose to the sur- 
 face and burst. This continued for a minute, dur- 
 ing which all was silent everywhere, save the half- 
 suppressed breathing of the two assassins, and the 
 dreary sound of the night wind, as it shook the 
 dark branches of the giant pines that towered in 
 solemn gloom around them. 
 
 Nicholas Paulovitch listened intently, and kept 
 his eyes fixed on the cottage where their other vic- 
 tim lay, as he doubted not, sunk in what was in- 
 tended to be his last sleep. 
 
 Anon, all became still — deathly still — in the 
 depths of the dark well; the rope ceased to vibrate, 
 and the bubbles came no more. 
 
 Let us leave him here for a few minutes, and 
 now for the Captain and his dispatch! By the 
 time that we return, the Corporal will be as stiff as 
 if he stood for sale in the frozen market on the fete 
 of St. Nicholas ! ” said tlie gipsy, with one of his 
 diabolical grins; while the Stepniak, with a smile of 
 satisfaction that showed all his huge yellow teeth, 
 
THE OORPORAI. TN HIS OWN TRAP. 
 
 101 
 
 smoothed down to his eyebrows the thick coarse 
 black hair that grew from the apex of his conical 
 caput. 
 
 They now re-entered the cottage, and again 
 lii>:hted the torch in its iron loutchin. All remain- 
 ed just as they had left it ; the quass pitcher, the 
 wooden bowls, the two cups, and the empty wine 
 bottle were on th,e table, and the platters, with the 
 debris of their rustic supper ; but the superstitious 
 gipsy felt a species of shudder come over him, for 
 when tlie torch flared up in the night wind and cast 
 strange shadows on the dingy and discloured walls 
 of the log-hut, it seemed to his diseased imagina- 
 tion, for a moment, as if the outline of the drowned 
 Corporal still occupied the stool on which he had 
 been seated. 
 
 Come,” said he huskily, the dispatch ! — and 
 then for the other ! ” 
 
 They listened intently, and placed the ladder 
 against the trap-door. All was still — not even the 
 breathing of Balgonie was heard. Ascending first, 
 with a knife in his teeth, in case of unexpected re- 
 sistance, the gipsy knocked thrice on the trap with- 
 out receiving any response. He then withdrew the 
 wooden bolt, pushed it up, and introducing his head 
 and shoulders, held aloft the pine torch, and turned' 
 towards the bed of skins. 
 
 It was unoccupied ; and in a moment he saw that 
 the bare and desolate chamber was without a tenant! 
 
102 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Malediction ! ” he shouted ; “ he has escaped us 
 — but how ? Search — search ! He cannot be far 
 oif, after the dose I have given him ; search — and 
 we must use our hatchets now ! ’’ 
 
CHAPTEK XL 
 
 OLGA, THE GIPSY. 
 
 fIJIALGONIE had scarcely thrown himself at 
 length on the soft, but not very odorous, 
 pile of skins which formed his couch, when a face 
 appeared at the little window, which was pulled 
 open, and a voice called to him in a low and earnest 
 whisper : 
 
 Hospodeen — Carl Ivanovitch ! Hospodeen, at- ^ 
 tend to me ; but oh, be silent, as you value your 
 life ! ” 
 
 He started up, softly approached the window, 
 and saw, by the dim starlight, a fair female face 
 with very dark eyes, white and regular teeth, and 
 long, glittering ear-rings. 
 
 I have seen this face before,” thought he ; “ but 
 when, and*where ? ” 
 
 Balgonie, in truth, was too much of a lover to 
 have more than one female face ever before his 
 eyes — that of Natalie Mierowna. 
 
 I am Olga, the gipsy,” said the girl humbly. 
 
 Olga ! Olga ! whom I saw at the house of Count 
 Mierowitz this evening ? ” 
 
 The same, Hospodeen ! ” (Balgonie expressed 
 
104 : 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 an exclamation of astonishment ^o find her, as he 
 thought, so far from that place.) You gave me 
 a silver kopec once upon a time, at Krejko, when 
 passing through that town with Michail Podatch- 
 kine ; and, this evening you saved me from the whip 
 of the dvornick, when, for the third time I had ven- 
 tured near the Count’s mansion, in a vain search for 
 you, or the Hospoza Mierowna.” 
 
 In search of us — and for what purpose, girl ? ” 
 To warn you, that for nearly a month past, a 
 plot has been formed to deprive you of a valuable 
 paper, and even of your life.” 
 
 My life — when ? ” 
 
 On the first opportunity.” 
 
 By whom — and where, girl — wliere ? ” 
 
 Here in this solitary hut — even now your as- 
 sassins are in consultation — listen.” 
 
 He placed his ear to the trap-door, and heard the 
 murmur of hoarse whispers below. 
 
 Hush,” said Podatchkine, as already related, 
 take care ! ” Then followed the question of the 
 subtle and ferocious Stepniak, as to why. he had not 
 given Balgonie a prod ” with his lance in the 
 forest ; and the whole conversation in all its horrible 
 details, up to the moment when the wretched Cor- 
 poral with death and terror mingling in his soul, 
 fell from his seat in a stupor. 
 
 “ Father in heaven ! ” exclaimed Balgonie, full of 
 despair and horror, as he mechanically felt for his 
 
OLGA, THE GIPSY. 
 
 105 
 
 fatal dispatch, to ascertain that it was yet safe, I 
 have drunk of this drugged stuff, and am also lost ! ” 
 
 ^^Nay,” said the gipsy, hurriedly, nay ’’ 
 
 I drank the accursed wine from a cup ’’ 
 
 True ; but not from the cup which was intended 
 for you.” 
 
 How ? — speak ! — speak ! ” 
 
 The wine and the cups too were all stolen by 
 Podatchkine, with many other things, at different 
 times, from the household of Count Mierowitz. 
 This night you were duly expected here, and thus a 
 plan was laid to destroy both you and your treacher- 
 ous guide. Two cups were fully and deeply drugged 
 by my brother Nicholas : one was richly mounted 
 wdth silver ; and knowing w^ell that it was to be set 
 before you, I abstracted it barely an hour ago, sub- 
 stituting another of the same kind, and now I have 
 it here. Oh, Hospodeen, a narrow escape you have 
 had!” 
 
 Balgonie began to breathe more freely ; but, as- 
 sured that never had he run so narrow a risk of 
 death, he felt, though enraged and furious, his blood 
 run cold, when contemplating the fate intended for 
 him. Peeping through a chink of the hatch or 
 trap-door, he saw that the ladder of access had been 
 removed, and that tlie door of the squalid cottage 
 was open now, for the loutchin flared more than 
 ever in the night wind. It was then extinguished; 
 but still he could see and liear them dragging forth 
 
106 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 the passive form of Corporal Podatchkine, whom 
 he supposed to be dead. 
 
 Personally, Balgonie felt that he was no match 
 for either of the powerful giants below — men 
 whose bodily strength was quite equal to their 
 ferocity, and whose daggers and hatchets might 
 make mince-meat of him. Moreover, they had now 
 deprived Podatchkine of his sabre and loaded pistols, 
 and were thus more completely armed. Charlie had 
 his hand on his sword — a handsome Turkish sabre ; 
 but relinquishing the ideas either of attack or de- 
 fence, while the glow of rage rose in his breast and 
 cheek, he thought only of immediate flight. 
 
 ‘‘ Tf you would save your life and the dispatch of 
 the Empress, follow me this instant, and get your 
 horse before they return : you have not a moment 
 to lose.” 
 
 It was the gipsy girl who spoke again, in her low 
 earnest whisper, and with perfect decision. 
 
 Then I owe my escape — my safety ” 
 
 To my gratitude. Pass through the window 
 and descend by the wall.” 
 
 “Women,” says a certain philosopher, “are not 
 at all inferior tp men in coolness and courage, and 
 perhaps much less in resolution than is commonly 
 imagined ; the reason they appear so is, because 
 women affect to be more afraid than they really are, 
 and men pretend to be less.” 
 
 Balgonie found tliat the courageous girl to whoso 
 
OLOA, THIS G^IPgT. 
 
 107 
 
 guidance lie now trusted himself, had been enabled 
 to reach the window by standing on the roof of the 
 outhouse, or shed, in which Podatchkine had sta- 
 bled their horses. The whole edifice being built of 
 squared logs, was not very high ; and it afforded easy 
 means of ascent and descent, by the interstices con- 
 sequent to its rude construction by the hatchet. 
 He soon leaped to the ground, and softly assisted 
 her to descend. 
 
 Here is your horse : you see, Hospodeen, that 
 your kindness to the poor gipsy girl was not thrown 
 away.” 
 
 Balgonie looked rapidly to his bit and girth, 
 adjusted himself in his saddle, hooked up the hilt 
 of his sabre, and shortened his rein, almost unaware 
 of the black tragedy being so cooly and deliberately 
 acted on the other side of the cottage. 
 
 Ten versts farther from this will bring you to 
 the monastery of the Troitza, which you will know 
 by its three domes. You have but to ride straight 
 ^ westward by the forest path ; God keep you, and 
 may you and the beautiful Hospoza be happy in 
 your loves ! ” 
 
 ^^Tell me, gipsy girl ” 
 
 Ah, I can foretell nothing, save that in love 
 mere merit is of little matter.” 
 
 What is of most importance — beauty ? ” 
 
 «Ko.” 
 
 What then?” 
 
108 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Success, Hospodeen.” 
 
 He almost laughed, as he slipped into her hand 
 two xervonitz (the largest coins he had,) and in a 
 moment more was galloping over the soft grass of 
 the forest path she had indicated. 
 
 By Jove,” thought he, as he spurred on, I shall 
 not he sorry when this infernal dispatch is safe in 
 the hands of old Bernikoff ; and to think of that 
 wretch of a Podatchkine ! I always expected the 
 fellow to be a rogue, but not of so deep a dye ! ” 
 
 The unfortunate Corporal, now, as he deserved, 
 hanging head foremost downward in the draw-well, 
 stark and stiff and cold, had been to all appearance 
 a good Russian, Balgonie reflected : he neither con- 
 fessed, fasted, nor did penance (too much bother all 
 that would have been for the Corporal of Cossacks) ; 
 but he kept Lent regularly to all appearance ; made 
 a sign of the cross fussily before and after every 
 meal; always went to church when in camp or 
 quarters ; and never omitted his prayers and genu- 
 flexions at night, if in haunted places or when pass- 
 ing a wayside cross, especially if any one was by. 
 All this w^as no doubt studiously hypocritical ; and 
 Charlie remembered that his worthy Uncle Gam 
 kept Fast-days and ‘‘Sabbaths” with stern and 
 gloomy rigour; that he said a long and sonorous 
 prayer before meals — a longer prayer after them ; 
 that he went thrice daily to kirk at the ordained 
 periods, and liad nightly a noisy expounding and 
 
OLGA, THE GIPSY. 
 
 109 
 
 out-pouring of the spirit that would have put the 
 frreat John of Geneva himself to the blush. 
 
 o 
 
 Ah,” thought poor Charlie, as he trotted on his 
 lonely way through the darkened forest, decidedly 
 there are Podatdikines in Scotland as well as else- 
 where and in Russia.” 
 
 The light was beginning to dawn, for it was the 
 morning of one of the first days of May, so long had 
 he been detained by illness — shall we say by love ? 
 — at the castle by the Louga, that Muscovite Eden, 
 as now it seemed to him. The birds were chirping 
 merrily in the woods ; and in some places he saw the 
 brown rocks shaded by a species of graceful silver 
 birch and dark rowan tree, similar to those that 
 grew in his native strath at home. 
 
 By midsummer he knew that the birchen glades 
 he traversed would be in full foliage, and that the 
 rowan berries would hang in ripe red clusters among 
 the thick green leaves ; and that there, too, would 
 be gray lichens on the granite cliffs, and in their 
 clefts soft emerald moss, the wild strawberries and 
 the drooping bells of the purple foxglove, just as 
 he had seen them where the Earn gurgling kissed 
 her pebbled shore ” as it flowed towards the Tay. 
 
 They seemed like old friends in that strange place, 
 and with a sigh of gratitude for his escape from a 
 perilous and deadly snare was mingled one of hope 
 — a wish — a bootless wish, that one day he might 
 sit by the banks of the lovely Earn with Natalie by 
 
110 
 
 "ths secret eispatch. 
 
 his side, amid all the security his native land af- 
 forded, and under the wliite blooming hawthorns 
 that cast their sweet fragrance to the soft winds of 
 the Perthshire valley. 
 
 Beloved i^atalie — so fair and delicate, so dark 
 haired and so bright-eyed ! Her diamond ring, and 
 still more her lock of soft and silky hair, brought 
 all the charm and sense of her presence vividly be- 
 fore him. He counted the brief hours since they 
 had parted, and sighed to think how many hours 
 and days and weeks must inevitably elapse before 
 they met again. 
 
 In memory and imagination, he conned over and 
 over again each tender speech and glance, each 
 mute caress and passionate kiss, with every circum- 
 stance and minutiae of their occurrence and bestow- 
 al ; and wdiat lover has not done so since time be- 
 gan, and apples grew, and roses bloomed in Eden! 
 Even liis recent narrow escape, and the gipsy’s grati- 
 tude were forgotten in the ardor of liis thoughts. 
 
 And he sighed again, when thinking how wild 
 and insane were the dreams in which he was indulg- 
 ing, as he touched his horse with tlie spurs, on seeing 
 the three shining do:nes of the Troitza, or monas- 
 tery of the Holy Trinity, rise before him amid the 
 green woodlands. 
 
CHAPTEE XII. 
 
 ST. PETERSBUKG. 
 
 FTEE traversing a green valley some five or 
 or six miles in length, bordered on each side 
 by forests of fir trees, dark, solemn and acutely 
 conical, where the sunlight could scarcely ever pene- 
 trate to the thick rank grass and herbage that grew 
 below, and where a merry gurgling brook rushed 
 noisely along by the side of the narrow horseway, 
 Charlie Balgonie drew his bridle at the gates of the 
 Troitza monastery, when its white walls, its three 
 great cupolas, shaped each like a gigantic onion in- 
 verted, covered with plates of burnished copper, and 
 all painted and bestarred, were shining gaily in the 
 morning sun. 
 
 There he was made welcome by the monks — 
 quaint-looking men, in long black caftans, with high 
 black caps, fashioned like our modern hats, but 
 without brims, and having black veils floating be- 
 hind over their long, straight hair. He deposited 
 some money with the treasurer, declined the invita- 
 tion of the sacristan to see tlie uncorrupted bcdy of 
 some saint with an unpronounceable name, reposing 
 in its shrine like a silver bedstead, and its head be- 
 lli 
 
112 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 girt by a diadem with pearls as large as pisfol bul- 
 lets; for the saint had been a martyr, w^ho, in the 
 day;s of Ivan Basilovitch, the Barters had rewarded 
 for his attempts to convert them by knocking out 
 his brains ; and now he was a miserable mummified 
 relic of humanity, before which, for many ages, 
 thousands of devotees had knelt and wept and smote 
 their breasts in paroxysms of prayer. Charlie 
 waived the invitation; and after having a good 
 breakfast in the refectory, and there telling his story 
 to the monks, he was somewhat bewildered when 
 informed by them, that after all his (certainly cir- 
 cuitous) journey with Podatchkine on the preceding 
 evening and night, and after his riding since he had 
 left the cottage of the gipsy, he was still barely 
 twenty miles from the Louga ! 
 
 Was a spell cast upon him? was his horse be- 
 witched, that he was to continue travelling thus, and 
 yet never make progress ? It almost seemed so ; 
 but one of the monks, a more shrewd man than his 
 brothers, explained the whole affair as being conse- 
 quent to the cunning of Po latchkine, and his scheme 
 for destroying the dispatch-bearer. 
 
 A large party of pilgrims on horse and foot were 
 returning to St. Petersburg that afternoon. With 
 them Balgonie travelled for the remainder of his 
 journey; and, after traversing a wild and desert 
 tract of country, on the evening of the next day he 
 had the pleasure of beholding, in the distance before 
 
6T. PETERSBURG. 
 
 113 
 
 him, that new but vast and splendid capital, — 
 
 ‘ " Proud city ! Sovereign mother thou 
 Of all Sclavonian cities now/" — 
 
 covering the once wild waste wliereon, before the 
 time of Peter the Great, the father of his country, 
 a few wretched fishermen were wont to contend 
 wdth the wolves and bears for a spot to erect their 
 huts — where, as Count Segur says, winter reigned 
 for eight months of the year, rye was an article of 
 garden culture, and a bee-hive a curiosity. 
 
 Its bulbous-shaped Byzantine domes, and tall 
 needle-like spires, and all its countless roofs, that 
 rose beyond each other in ridgy succession like the 
 waves of the sea, and are generally like the sea in 
 colour, being of a brilliant green or an ashy hue, 
 were now all tinted redly by the rays of the setting 
 sun, which cast the shadows of its many bridges on 
 the waters of the Neva and of the canals that glided 
 silently and darkly beneath them. 
 
 As the sun sank beyond the GuK of Finland, and 
 the shadows deepened on every plated dome and 
 granite rampart, the great gilt crosses of our Lady 
 of Kazan (a fane which was ten years in building) 
 and of many other noble churches glittered, or 
 rather seemed to burn like stars, amid the deep blue 
 of the cloudless sky beyond. 
 
 Balgonie’s satisfaction, on finding himself so near 
 the end of his journey, was somewhat clouded by a 
 trivial circumstance. 
 
114 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 After entering the city by a palisaded barrier, 
 where stood a guard of the Kegiment of Yalikolutz, 
 he checked his horse’s pace, while the caravan of 
 pilgrims, whom he now wished to quit, traversed a 
 long street of small wooden houses that lay beyond. 
 Here, close by the margin of the Neva, lay a man 
 with his loose caftan wet and dripping, and a piece 
 of sack or old canvas spread over his face. On liis 
 breast lay his fur cap, as if to receive alms for his 
 burial; for none doubted that he was a poor 
 drowned fellow just fished up from the Neva, and 
 that money was required of the religious and 
 charitable alike for his obsequies and masses for 
 the repose of his soul. So all the pilgrims from 
 the Troitza threw something into the fur cap, 
 where denuscas, kopecs, even roubles and Polish 
 ducats, jingled fast together, while the passers 
 muttered prayers and made signs cf the cross. 
 
 All the caravan had passed ; so the clatter of 
 Balgonie’s charger, steel-scabbard, and accoutre- 
 ments, seemed to create a different effect on the 
 attentive ear of the seemingly drowned man ; for 
 the knave, who had only been acting, started up, 
 and, with his spoil, fled like a hare down one of the 
 little alleys that opened off the wooden street. He 
 vanished in the twilight, yet not so quickly but 
 that Balgonie was able to recognise in his face and 
 form, the bulky and muscular half-bred, the gipsy, 
 Nicholas Pauldvitclu 
 
ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 115 
 
 What had brought him to St. Petersburg ? AVas 
 he still dogging the luckless dispatch-bearer, or had 
 he only fled thither that, among its thousands, he 
 might elude the punishment with which Count 
 Micro witz would be sm-e to visit him, if the murder 
 of the Corporal was discovered ? 
 
 This episode made Balgonie feel uncomfortable, 
 and suspicious that other and hidden dangers yet 
 menaced him, as he rode steadily but watchfully 
 through the densely crowded, but monotonously 
 regular streets of houses, which are stuccoed white- 
 washed, and decorated with different colours, roofed 
 with wood and iron, painted in most instances 
 green, and nearly all pillared and piazzaed — each 
 long vista, with its oil lamps, being terminated by 
 domes and spires ; and ere long he saw the lights 
 shining in the lofty windows of that magnificent 
 crescent, which, for a time, was the palace of 
 Catharine’s most cherished favourite, ^^the fair- 
 faced Lanskoi,” as Byron has it — 
 
 A lover who had cost her many a tear, 
 
 And yet hut made a middling Grenadier.^’ 
 
 And now the melodious bells were ringing for 
 vespers in the towers of our Lady of Kazan — a 
 Greek cruciform fane, which w^as founded as a rival 
 to St. Peter’s at Borne, and named after the Tartar 
 kingdom of Kazan. It is the greatest church in 
 the city, and one of high sanctity. 
 
 Along the northern margin of the Keva, a river 
 
116 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 broad as the Thames at London Bridge, but (un- 
 like the Thames) deep, blue, and transparent as 
 crystal, lined with solid granite quays, and bordered 
 by many stately palatial edifices, Balgonie pursued 
 his way ; but the stars were shining at midnight on 
 the vast sheet of water called the Lake of Ladoga, 
 before he, weary and worn with fatigue, dismounted 
 beneath the formidable gates of the castellated 
 prison of Schlusselburg, which had been strength- 
 ened and fortified anew by* General Count Todle- 
 ben, whose arrest and quarrel with the Empress 
 had made so much noise three years before the 
 time our story opens. 
 
OHAPTEE XIII, 
 
 WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 
 
 WENTY-FOUR miles eastward of the city, 
 the small town and fortress of Schlusselburg 
 stand, at a point where the Neva issues from the 
 Lake of Ladoga, and on the left bank of the river. 
 The little town had then somewhere about three 
 thousand inhabitants, who chiefly lived by the manu- 
 facture of cotton and porcelain. 
 
 On an island, where, the river joins the lake and 
 moats it round, is built the fort, which is about four 
 hundred yards square : its walls are of stone, mas- 
 sive, and fifty feet in height, terminating in battle- 
 ments and turrets of antique form. 
 
 The passage to this island is by a long draw-bridge. 
 
 The guard which kept this formidable state prison, 
 where many a hopeless sigh was wafted through the 
 rusty bars of its prison grilles across the waters of 
 Ladoga, was composed entirely of a body of dis- 
 mounted Cossacks, selected for the purpose, as the 
 task of keeping or secluding the dethroned Em- 
 peror Ivan was one of no small responsibility and 
 importance ; so these men were all Cossacks of a 
 high class, and were rather richly dressed. 
 
 117 
 
118 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Their short blue jackets were elaborately em- 
 broidered with yellow lace, and a multitude of gilt 
 buttons, but were hooked across the chest ; their 
 trowsers of scarlet cloth were loose, long, and 
 gathered into their boots, which were of brown 
 Eussian leather, and reached to six inches above 
 the ankle. Their busbies of black shining fur had 
 bright scarlet bags, tall white feathers, a cockade, 
 and tasselled cord. They were all clean and 
 soldier-like men, well moustached, and sternly reso^ 
 lute in bearing ; and all were armed with musket- 
 oons, short sabres, and brass pistols. 
 
 A guard of these men received Balgonie at the 
 gate and drawbridge with a profound military sa- 
 lute ; and a picturesque aspect they presented, as 
 their arms flashed in the murky light of the great 
 oil lantern that swung in the dark, weird, and deep- 
 mouthed archway, where a massive port-cullis 
 showed its iron teeth, all red and rusted by the 
 mists of the Neva and the stormy blasts that swept 
 across the Lake of Ladoga. 
 
 The great masses of the fortress, ghostly and 
 shrouded, with faint red lights gleaming out here 
 and there ; the enormous strength of the gates, their 
 planking, bolts, and bars ; the thickness of the 
 walls ; the number of embrasures and loop-holes for 
 cannon and musketry, all converging to one point, 
 the approach or river entrance ; the number of sen- 
 tinels, and, more than all, the vast strength of the 
 
WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 119 
 
 portcullis and double gates, together with the diffi- 
 culties he experienced in procuring admission, 
 though in uniform, and though a staff officer bear- 
 ing a dispatch of the Empress, all served to impress 
 unpleasantly on the mind of Charlie Balgonie a 
 state of extreme watchfulness, of suspicion, and 
 mistrust ; and also a sense of vast responsibility 
 of the charge confided by Catharine to Colonel 
 Bernikoff. 
 
 That gallant officer and estimable personage had 
 retired long since, after a deep drinking bout, and 
 would be — as Lieutenant Tschekin (the son-in-law 
 of General Weymarn), who was third in command 
 of the fortress, informed Balgonie — quite invisible 
 till breakfast time to-morrow, when the dispatch 
 would be delivered to him : and a sigh of real an- 
 noyance escaped Charlie, when he found that this 
 odious paper was to be yet some eight hours or 
 more in his secret pocket. 
 
 He repaired to the officers’ guard-room at the 
 ^barrier gate, and there, wrapped in his cloak, with- 
 out undressing (as he hoped next day to exchange 
 the atmosphere of Schlusselburg for that of some 
 hotel in the Yasili-Ostrov), lay down to sleep, and if 
 possible to dream of Natalie ; but he had undergone 
 too much toil for such gentle phantasms, so he slept 
 like a dormouse, till the sun was high in heaven, 
 unawakened even by the deep boom of the morning 
 gun, a 36-pounder, as it pealed across the Lake of 
 
120 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 •V 
 
 Ladogo ; but nltimately he was roused by Tschekin 
 and Captain Ylasflef, a very handsome young man, 
 but a cruel and heartless roue^ whom ultimately he 
 detested. These, after shaking him heartily, an- 
 nounced that Colonel Bernikoff awaited him at 
 breakfast, and was not in a mood to brook much 
 delay. 
 
 His hasty toilette was soon complete, and he was 
 speedily ushered into a plain, almost naked white- 
 washed apartment arched with stone. Through its 
 grated windows the morning sun shone cheerily, and 
 the blue waters of the lake could be seen with the 
 white sails of many a tiny coasting vessel. 
 
 Here, at a table of plain Memel timber, destitute 
 of cloth, but on which massive silver vessels with 
 rudely formed wooden bowls and platters were 
 oddly intermingled, was seated the Governor, who, 
 like the czars and boyars of old, still took quass for 
 breakfast with roasted beef or bear’s ham, bread 
 with caviare, greens with vinegar, salted plums and 
 other abominations. But Balgonie saw that coffee 
 ' and even tea, with ham, eggs, and kippered salmon, 
 were prepared, with other condiments, for those 
 who, like himself, had nothing of the Tartar in their 
 blood. 
 
 Hail to you — I wish you health,” said Berni- 
 koff, courteously enough, in the old Russian fashion, 
 and presenting his hand to Charlie, who took it, 
 shuddering as he remembered the fate of Peter 
 
WHAT THE SECRET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 121 
 
 III.; welcome to Schlusselburg, Captain Ivano- 
 vitch Balgonie.” 
 
 Bernikoff, who wore a dark-green undress uniform 
 faced with scarlet, was a man well up in years ; he 
 had fierce and shining black eyes that made soldier 
 and serf alike quail beneath their gaze ; yet they 
 were small, cunning, and twinkling eyes, the lashes 
 of which were lialf closed — the eyes of one who 
 could act the cruel tyrant on one hand, and the 
 cringing slave on the other. He had a massive, 
 square, and brutal jaw, thin wicked lips, a nose as 
 round as a grape-shot, close short grizzled hair, and 
 long snaky mustachioes. 
 
 He was of Tartar blood, aifd came of those 
 warlike and merciless tribes who studied nothing 
 but the use of arms; who passed their lives on 
 horseback ; who even lived on their horses in this 
 sense, that their chief food was horsefiesh and the 
 milk of mares ; who, at the same time, could go for 
 days without food ; and who, when they took a city 
 by storm, put all the inhabitants to the sword ex- 
 cept the working men.” 
 
 Seat yourself, Captain, and proceed to break- 
 fast, while I read your dispatch,” said the Governor. 
 
 Holy Sergius ! it is from Catharine Christianow- 
 na herself ! The Czarina is great, but Heaven is 
 higher ! ” he -added, placing the paper on his fore- 
 head, as he bowed over it ; and then taking an 
 enormous pinch of Beresovski snuff, a most pungent 
 
122 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 compound, from a gold box said to have been found 
 in the pocket of Peter IIL, he proceeded to peruse 
 that document which had proved of such trouble to 
 the bearer. 
 
 The eyes of Balgonie, Tschekin, and Vlasfief, who 
 alone were present, were fixed inquiringly upon 
 him, and they could see that the contents distm^bed 
 him greatly ; he grew pale and flushed by turns ; 
 his brows contracted to a terrible frown; a red 
 spark of devilish light glittered in his eyes, and his 
 lips were compressed. 
 
 Ah, the Asiatics ! the accursed Asiatics ! ” he 
 muttered. This is a most opprobrious epithet in 
 Russia, and excited some surprise in his hearers. 
 
 He carefully folded the dispatch, and turning 
 sternly to Cliarlie, who was keeping his eyes on him 
 and drinking his coffee the while, he said : — 
 
 Ivanovitch Balgonie, there is a feather in the 
 seal — the usual sign of haste among us here in 
 Russia ; yet you have not troubled yourself much 
 with speed, for this dispatch is dated at Novgorod 
 more than a month back ! ’’ 
 
 Permit me to explain. Excellency,’’ said Bal- 
 gonie eagerly, and anxiously too. 
 
 I shall be glad if you can explain it,” replied 
 Bernikoff, with increasing sternness. I have known 
 a general, a leader in ten battles, degraded, knouted, 
 and sent to hunt the ermine with a cannon ball at 
 his heels for a smaller dereliction of duty than this.” 
 
WHAT THE SEOKET DISPATCH CONTAINED. 123 
 
 Balgonie’s heart beat very fast while he related 
 his story — of his being misled by a traitor twice; 
 of the passage of the Louga at such terrible hazard; 
 of his subsequent illness ; and the episode at that 
 log hut. 
 
 ‘^ That you were in the guidance of a traitor, 
 I knew before your arrival ; and I am extremely 
 glad that he fell into his own snare,” replied Berni- 
 koff, a little more calmly ; but this matter is ex- 
 tremely awkward for you, and becomes more com- 
 plicated every hour.” 
 
 After glancing again at the dispatch, and bending 
 his keen rat-like eyes on Balgonie, he asked : 
 
 W ere Basil Mierowitz or Bsakoif, the grandson 
 of Mazeppa, at the Castle of Louga any time during 
 your sojourn there ? ” 
 
 “ No, Excellency, neither of them were.” 
 
 Spies- say differently — but you can swear it 
 On my honour do I swear it ! But why ? ” 
 
 “ I have had bad news from the head-quarters of 
 your regiment, and from Lieutenant-General Wey- 
 marn, since you left Novgorod.” 
 
 And these tidings. Excellency ? ” 
 
 “ Are to the effect that your friends, the two 
 subalterns, have both deserted, with several soldiers, 
 all of whom are natives of the Ukraine.” 
 
 Deserted ! ” 
 
 And are nowhere to be found, though pursued 
 by a whole sotnia of Cossacks.” 
 
124 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Deserted ! ” reiterated Balgonie with real con- 
 cern. 
 
 Yes — the cursed Asiatics ! ” replied Bernikoff, 
 expectorating with great vehemence, and thoroughly 
 believing that each’ time he did so he cast out a 
 devil. 
 
 For some moments intense anxiety and alarm be- 
 wildered Balgonie, and he felt himself grow pale at 
 a time when six searching eyes were bent with a 
 doubtful expression upon him. He remembered 
 the hostility, the threatening and mysterious words 
 of Natalie, and grew almost sick with apprehension 
 of he knew not what, as he muttered inaudibly — 
 
 Basil deserted — and his cousin too ! The whole 
 family will be inculpated and degraded. Oh, Nata- 
 lie, miy hapless love ! Did General Weymarn state 
 this in his dispatch ? ” lie asked aloud. 
 
 He did, and at its end referred to you.” 
 
 To me, Excellency ? ” 
 
 Yes; here is the document, and it concludes 
 thus: ^as I and the Begiment of Smolensko will 
 shortly march into St. Petersburg, Captain Carl 
 Ivanovitch Balgonie need not return to Novgorod ; 
 but, until then, shall attach himself to your staff, and 
 remain in Schlusselburg, where, ere long, you may 
 require all the good service he can render you. — 
 Weymarx.’” 
 
 Great were the mortification and disgust of Bal- 
 gonie on learning that he was to reipain for an in- 
 
WHAT THE SEOEET DISEATCH CONTAINED. 125 
 
 definite period in a place so revolting and uncom- 
 fortable, and with no other society than that of three 
 military jailers, — cruel, hard-hearted, and avaricious 
 Muscovites of the worst kind ; and with these orders 
 died his hopes of revisiting, as he intended, Louga, 
 on his return, and of seeing Natalie again. 
 
 Under ban as all the household of Mierowitz 
 would be now, should he ever see her more ? Every 
 way fate and the tide of events seemed to be against 
 him and her, already in the very dawn of their love. 
 
 And now, gentlemen,’’ said the Governor, low- 
 ering his voice, the Empress’s dispatch contains 
 only two lines, thus : ^ A scheme is formed to free 
 Prince Ivan. Let him not fall alive into the hands 
 of these who come to seek for him ! ’ Nor shall he ! ” 
 exclaimed Bernikoff with ferocious enthusiasm, as 
 he dashed a cup of vodka among his quass, and 
 drained the goblet, after shouting, The health of 
 Her Imperial Majesty Catharine Ohristianowna — - 
 hurrah ! ” 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah ! ” added Ylasfief and the Lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 Balgonie also, as in duty bound, essayed to hm’- 
 rah,” but the sound died away on his lips. 
 
CHAPTER Xiy. 
 
 Charlie’s first day m Schlusselburg-. 
 
 F ull of anxious thoughts, he passed more than 
 half of the succeeding day on the ramparts 
 of the castled-prison, alone, avoiding Colonel Berni- 
 koff, Captain Ylasfief, and their subaltern, Tschekin, 
 none of whom were consonant to his taste, for all 
 were deep gamblers and heavy drinkers. 
 
 His mind was full of care for Natalie and all her 
 family. Some desperate and revengeful plot, of 
 which the desertion of her brother and of his cousin 
 Usakoff was but the beginning, the means to an end, 
 was certainly hatching — a plot that might too surely 
 end in bloodshed, in the savage punishment and the 
 ruin of all. 
 
 He sorrowed keenly for his two friends Basil Mi- 
 cro witz and Apollo Usakoff, for both were polished 
 and educated gentlemen, men of a class and style 
 more common in some corps of the Russian army 
 now than in those days. And there was poor 
 Mariolizza, too — so brightly beautiful, so happy, 
 and so merry ! Her love, her hopes and schemes, 
 would all be crushed and blighted, as well as his 
 own. 
 
 12 ^ 
 
Charlie’s first day in sohluesselbug^. 12l 
 
 Balgonie was not without fears for himself, and 
 of being compromised in the affair ; or perhaps, 
 lured into subtle state intrigues and deep plots, in 
 the failure or success of which he could have no in- 
 terest politically or personally, save in his love for 
 Natalie — a love that had changed the whole current 
 of his ideas and opened up a new realm of thought 
 and incentive to action. 
 
 Already he was beginning to revolt at the Kns** 
 sian service, and yet he had been happy in the Regi- 
 ment of Smolensko, and had found in the land of 
 his adoption, like every Scottish adventurer that has 
 trod the Russian soil, honours scarcely to be won at 
 home. 
 
 How long was he to be on the staff of this fero- 
 cious Commandant, and in this horrrible prison, 
 where many an innocent victim was pining hope- 
 lessly in chains and misery ? “ The mutual dis- 
 
 trust in which people live in Russia,” says the 
 Abbe Chappe D’Auteroche in his scarce travels 
 about this time, ^^and the total silence of the 
 nation upon everything which may have the least 
 relation either to the government or the sovereign, 
 arise chiefly from the privilege every Russian has, 
 without distinction, of crying out in public, slowo 
 dielo ; that is say, ^ I declare you are guilty of 
 high treason, both in words and actions.’ All the 
 bystanders are then obliged to assist in arresting 
 the person so accused ; a father, his son, and the 
 
128 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 son his father, while nature suffers in silence. The 
 accuser and accused are at once conveyed to prison, 
 and afterwards to St. Petersburg, where they are 
 tried by the Secret Court of Chancery.” 
 
 Thanks to this pleasant state of society, the 
 chambers and chains of Schlusselburg were seldom 
 unoccupied. 
 
 Ylasfief was hollow-hearted, avaricious, and sen- 
 sual ; Tschekin, the Lieutenant, a slimy, cruel, reck- 
 less, and ignorant Muscovite ; but old Bernikoff was 
 really a character whom Balgonie equally dreaded 
 and despised. 
 
 His subtlety and oppression had been the means 
 of reducing, at different times, some thirty officers 
 to the ranks, with permission to serve and work 
 their way up again ; and many more were now 
 cursing him and their fate, at Irkutsk and remoter 
 Siberia, for their inability to purchase his mercy 
 or good-will. When commanding at Cronstadt, he 
 had been detected once in the act of transmitting 
 whole sledge loads of government shot, shell, lead, 
 and ropes, across the frozen gulf for sale in Sweden ; 
 and also in buying at a cheap rate base denuscas to 
 pay the troops : but so trusted was the old rascal 
 by the Empress, that he always escaped the degre- 
 dation, the hanging or shooting, which, on those 
 discoveries, were so freely meted out to his sub- 
 alterns. 
 
 On the estate of Bernikoff a serf once amassed 
 
Charlie’s first day m schlusselburo. 129 
 
 ten thousand roubles, and offered them for the 
 freedom of his daughter, who was about to be 
 married. 
 
 Let me see the girl ! ” was the reply. 
 
 As a serf can possess nothing, the father trem- 
 bled in his soul at this demand ; as his daughter, un- 
 fortunately for herself, was beautiful. 
 
 Holy Sergius ! ” exclaimed Bernikoff, what 
 business has a serf with ten thousand roubles ; the 
 girl and the money are alike mine ! ” 
 
 And so he literally and lawfully seized them both. 
 Though a savage soldier, like every old Musco- 
 vite, he was the slave of mechanical devotion. No 
 statue or pietm’e of the Holy Virgin, of St. Sergius, 
 or St. Alexander Newski, was ever passed by him 
 without a profound reverence and a sign of the 
 cross. To such eflSgies he would address himself 
 before he knelt even to the Empress : and before 
 them he had been known to kneel and kiss the 
 ground five minutes before or after he had knouted 
 a miserable boor (whose pockets were empty), or 
 nearly slain a soldier by making him run the gaunt- 
 let, for merely having the seams of his gloves 
 sewn outward instead of in ; for wearing his hat on 
 the left side of his* head instead of the right ; or 
 for some other offence equally heinous. 
 
 And it was on the staff of this distinguished 
 officer (temporarily, however) that Charlie now, to 
 his great disgust, found himself. 
 
130 
 
 THE SECRET DISTATCS. 
 
 On three sides, far around this island prison, 
 stretched the waters of Ladoga — the largest lake in 
 Europe, being one hundred and thirty miles long, 
 by nearly ninety broad ; full of rocky isles and 
 dangerous quicksands, over which, from its flat 
 shores, sweep frequent and perilous storms. 
 
 From the somewhat dreary view of this small in- 
 land sea, whose northern and eastern coast could 
 not be discerned, he turned to survey the fortress, 
 with all its strength of gloomy walls, grated win- 
 dows, and frowning cannon, till suddenly his eye 
 was arrested by a very remarkable face, which 
 was observing him from the sombre depth of a 
 strongly barred and arched window of the great 
 tower. 
 
 It was a pale face, but singularly handsome — 
 grave, and even sad in expression — a young man’s 
 face with the slightest indication of a moustache, 
 but for which, in its paleness and extreme delicacy 
 of feature and tint, it might have passed for that of 
 a twin brother of Natalie Mierowna ! 
 
 Suddenly it was detected by a Cossack sentinel, 
 who shouted shrilly, and slapped the but-end of 
 his loaded musketoon : on this, the face instantly 
 disappeared. 
 
 This was he concerning whom Balgonie had 
 brought that terrible dispatcli — Ivan, the deposed 
 Emperor — the prisoner of Schlusselburg ! 
 
 ‘‘ Twenty-three years ! ” thought Balgonie with a 
 
Charlie’s first day in sChlhsselburg. 131 
 
 shudder ; twenty-tliree years in that tower — since 
 his very babyhood — oh, it is terrible ! ” 
 
 Other ears had heard the shout of the sentinel ; 
 for now a man, who in a boat had been fishing near 
 the fortress, suddenly shipped a pair of sculls and 
 pulled away towards the town with an air of alarm 
 that seemed equalled only by his dexterity. This 
 fisher had been hovering about the fortress all day. 
 
 Can he be the gipsy — the half-breed ? ” thought 
 Charlie : ah ! the dispatch is out of my liands 
 
 now.” 
 
 Lieutenant Tscheldn now approached with an in- 
 vitation from Bernikoff to join him at dinner, add- 
 ing, “ Remember that with the Colonel, eating is in- 
 deed a science ; and temperance he views as mere 
 want of spirit.” 
 
 As they proceeded together through various arch- 
 ways and gates, the shrieks and entreaties of a man 
 apparently in mortal agony rang through the echo- 
 ing prisons with a horrible cadence, that chilled the 
 free blood in Balgonie’s veins. 
 
 A court through which they had to pass was 
 crowded by soldiers, formed in hollow square, and 
 Balgonie was compelled to linger and look on with 
 Tschekin, who seemed rather to enjoy the spectacle. 
 
 Hah,” said he, the punishment is nearly ended 
 — let us wait and see the hatogg ! ” 
 
 It was a soldier being knouted, which is simply 
 the Russian word for wdiipped.” 
 
 / 
 
132 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Stripped to the loins, he was strapped to an erect 
 board, formed like an inverted cone, and having 
 three notches at the upper end, one to receive his 
 chin, and the other two his wrists, while the tortur- 
 er wielded a knout, the handle of which is usually 
 eighteen inches long with a thong of thirty-six 
 inches. This is always boiled in milk, by which 
 process it swells and the edges become sharp, hard, 
 and more destructive. 
 
 The whipper was skilful : he laid on his lashes 
 from the neck to the loins, so as to deal them at in- 
 tervals of one inch' artistically apart, leaving a stripe 
 of flesh between each ; but these regulated and 
 omitted stripes, after receiving a fresh knout, he 
 proceeded to take off in succession, with wonderful 
 and terrible precision, till the man’s entire back was 
 a mass of blood, and he hung, fainting and well- 
 nigh speechless, by the wrists. 
 
 Oh, Excellency,” said he, in an imploring voice, 
 remember that my brother, Alexis J agouski, aid- 
 ed you in escaping from the battle of Zorndorff ! ” 
 This was most true, but the story was a terrible 
 one. At Zorndorff, where the Russians were de- 
 feated with such slaughter and driven towards the 
 frontiers of Poland, the horse of Bernikoff was shot 
 under him, and he was in danger of being cut 
 down by the Prussian Hussars. In this sore ex- 
 tremity a Cossack named Alexis Jagouski took his 
 leader behind him on his crupper ; but that person- 
 
Charlie’s first day usr schlusselblrc. 133 
 
 age, finding that the double weight impeded the 
 horse’s speed, and that the Hussars were close be- 
 hind, shortened his sabre in his hand, and plunging 
 the blade into the body of his preserver, fiung the 
 corpse from the saddle, and escaped alone. 
 
 At this reminiscence Bernikoff only scowled 
 more deeply ; and now the lacerated back of the 
 sufferer was strewed with course gunpowder, to 
 which a match was applied.- This is technically 
 known as the hatogg^ and the agony it produced is 
 indescribable. 
 
 The culprit was now cast loose, but was still able, 
 according to the slavish usage of the country, to 
 crawl on his hands and knees towards Bernikoff, 
 and he gasped out : — 
 
 Hospodeen — Excellency, I thank you humbly 
 for this most merciful punishment.” 
 
 Begone, dog of an Asiatic ! ” replied the Gover- 
 nor, kicking him in the face ; when next you seek 
 to fill jmur pipe, this will teach you to keep your 
 filthy fingers out of my tobacco pouch.” 
 
 These w^ere the defenders of theii’ country, the 
 Holy Russia, among whom a wayward fate had 
 cast the Scottish palatine : the blood of the latter 
 boiled within him ; but he knew too well that to 
 expostulate would be but to excite suspicion, and to 
 court degradation and the musket. Something, 
 hovrever, in the expression of his face did not es- 
 cape Bernikoff’s keen and angry eyes. 
 
134 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Ivanovitch Balgonie, a superior can never act 
 unjustly to his inferior/’ said he sternly; and these 
 words terribly embodied the genuine spirit of the 
 true Russian Tchinnovnik^ or noble class. I am 
 in the service of the State/’ he added ; and the 
 State is the Czarina ! ” 
 
 Yet this upright Governor, who knouted the poor 
 Cossack for pilfering a pipeful of tobacco, had al- 
 ways a garrison double its actual strength on paper, 
 the pay and rations of the men of straw forming a 
 pleasant addition to his many secret perquisites, 
 while his soldiers starved and frequently begged 
 food from the very prisoners they guarded. 
 
 It was neither hospitality nor love of soicety 
 which had procured the honor of an invitation for 
 Balgonie ; but Bernikoff shrewdly suspecting that 
 he might have some loose cash, resolved to possess 
 himself thereof at cards ; so barely was a dinner of 
 sJtee (which is identically Scotch broth,) croquettes, 
 with^^^r^^ of beet-root, beef in the Hussar style, 
 with salad of baked beet-root and biscuits, dismissed, 
 than champange-cup, and vodka (or corn-brandy) 
 punch became the order of the evening ; and Ber- 
 nikoff, who was a great gourmand, with his face 
 flushed and his uniform open, after signing the 
 cross and bowing thrice to a picture of St. Sergius, 
 sat down to cards with Ylasflef and Tschekin, who 
 were quite as sharp as himself, and with poor simple- 
 hearted Charlie Balgonie, who dreaded to decline. 
 
Charlie’s first day in Schlusselburg. 135 
 
 circumstanced as he was on all hands ; and who was 
 glad when allowed to quit the table with the loss, 
 he never could understand how, of twenty xervon- 
 ite, or pieces worth nine shillings sterling each. 
 
 “ Now, Ylasfief — ’tis you and I ; rouge-et-noir ! ” 
 exclaimed Bernikoff, draining a goblet of vodka 
 punch at a draught. 
 
 I am too weary too play, most excellent Colonel ; 
 pray excuse me,” urged the Captain, who had lost 
 considerable to his senior also. 
 
 You, then, Tschekin ? ” said Bernikoff savagely. 
 
 I hav’n’t a kopac to spare. Excellency ! ” 
 
 Well — I saw a pretty housemaid at your man- 
 sion in the town yesterday — the daughter of a serf 
 apparently.” 
 
 ^^Feodorowna?” 
 
 ^Wery likely — with red hair and brown eyes.” 
 
 Ah ! the same ; she came with Madame Tschekin 
 from the household of her father. General Wey- 
 marn.” 
 
 By all the devils, she is very like old W eymarn ! ” 
 “ She is the daughter of my old nurse, Colonel,” 
 said Tschekin gravely, with an air of annoyance. 
 
 I don’t care whose daughter she is ! ” 
 
 “Well?” 
 
 “ I’ll put a hundred silver roubles on her.” 
 
 “ Done ! I put her on the ace.” 
 
 “ The ace hath lost! ” exclaimed Bernikoff, with 
 a shout of laughter. “ Holy Sergius ! the girl is 
 
136 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 mine. To-morrow,” he added, I’ll send a corporal 
 and a file of men for her, with a covered kabitka. 
 See that all her things are packed and ready, friend 
 Tschekin, or write to your wife about it, and say 
 you have lost her at cards.” 
 
 The devil ! — Excellency — this can’t be.” 
 
 Why ? I won her fairly.” 
 
 ^^But the girl is about to be married to her 
 cousin.” 
 
 WaSy you mean; the cards have changed her 
 destiny, like that of the serfs whom Yalsfief drank 
 away in champagne last night.” 
 
 So passed Charlie’s first day at Schlusselburg. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE IMPERIAE PRISONER. 
 
 F ortunately for Balgonie, there was a 
 chaplain, or priest, of the Russian Greek 
 Church, attached to the fortress ; and his society, at 
 times, tended to alleviate what he endured from hav- 
 ing to associate with such a human bear as Colonel 
 Bernikoff, — an annoyance from which he would only 
 be relieved by the longed-for return of General W ey- 
 marn and the Regiment of Smolensko to St. Peters- 
 burg. 
 
 The ceremonies of religion retain in Russia all 
 their pristine influence, and afford the miserable and 
 unlettered serf a short season of relaxation from 
 labour and severity during festivals, when he may 
 enjoy his can of flery vodka and revel in intoxica- 
 tion. Unlike many of the Russian clergy, who 
 adopt the cowl merely as the means of evading 
 slavery in civil life, or slavery added to peril in the 
 army, and also as a chance of attaining to power 
 and nobility. Father Chrysostom, the Chaplain of 
 Schlusselburg, was a humane, gentle, and learned 
 old priest, whom th6 Commandant had been de- 
 praved enough to strike with his clenched hand on 
 
 137 
 
138 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 more than one - occasion ; but prior to doing so, he 
 had always contrived, oddly and superstitiously 
 enough, to have the chief badge of the father’s 
 sacred ofl&ce, his — baretta — abstracted and hidden. 
 
 Through the good offices of the chaplain, with 
 the permission of the Governor, which was yielded 
 very unwillingly, Balgonie (whose curiosity and 
 commiseration were greatly excited) was presented 
 one evening to the deposed Emperor Ivan, and the 
 particulars and incidents of that interview made a 
 deep and sad impression upon him. 
 
 The entrance door of the central tower was small, 
 arched, and of great strength. Above it were 
 carved the Kussian arms, first adopted by Ivan 
 Basil ovitch in the sixteenth century: a spread-eagle, 
 having on its breast an escutcheon bearing St. 
 Michael and a dragon, with three crowns in chief 
 for Muscovy and the two Tartar kingdoms of Kazan 
 and Astracan. 
 
 On passing through a little paved court, grated 
 over with iron, where the royal recluse was permit- 
 ted to breathe the external air, while a sentinel trod 
 to and fro above his head, another door-way, se- 
 cured by a portcullis grooved into the wall, gave 
 access to the narrow stair which led to his apart- 
 ments. These were two in number : their windows 
 and doors were all grated with iron ; and sentinels, 
 with loaded arms, watched every avenue by day and 
 night. 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 139 
 
 His sitting-room m’rs plainly, even neatly fur- 
 nished : its chief ornaments being a pretty Madonna 
 and some gaudy pictures of Muscovite saints ; and 
 it had one window, which opened towards tlie vast 
 expanse of the lake of Ladoga. 
 
 Pale, handsome, and resigned, gentle in eye and 
 manner, the poor young prince had grown to man- 
 hood in total ignorance of the outer world and of all 
 he had lost. He knew only the four walls of the 
 prison, the changing hues of the weaves and clouds, 
 the wild swans and the waters of Ladoga. 
 
 As related in our fifth chapter, the Prisoner of 
 Schlusselburg was the eldest son of the Princess of 
 Mecklenburg, Elizabeth-Catharine, niece of the 
 Empress Anne. His father was Anthony IJlric, 
 Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, whose wliole 
 family was banished from Pussia by the usurping 
 Empress Elizabeth. 
 
 Tlie infant Ivan had been dethroned, after being 
 a king for exactly one year. 
 
 , During the reign of the Empress Catharine, he 
 was detained in Schlusselburg under tlie denomin- 
 ation of a Person Unknown^ and it was given out 
 that his senses were impaired, though it is pretty 
 well understood that this is witlioiit foundation.” 
 His fate has been particularly lamentable,” con- 
 tinues a newspaper of the period ; torn from the 
 bosom of his family, he has now passed twenty- 
 three years in close captivity. The late Empress 
 
140 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Elizabeth, towards the latter end of her life, seemed 
 disposed to treat this noble captive with clemency 
 and favor — either from sentiments of justice and 
 compassion, or to render two great personages more 
 circumspect and submissive.” 
 
 These personages were her successors, the un- 
 fortunate Peter III. and Catharine II. 
 
 Ivan’s mother is said to have died of grief ; but 
 Duke Anthony Ulric and his four other children 
 were all confined for life in a house at Horsens, a 
 town of Jutland, at the extremity of the Baltic 
 where they had a precinct of a mile English ; but 
 it was surrounded by high palisades, beyond which 
 they dared not venture under pain of death ; and 
 there the Duke, old and blind, passed the last years 
 of his melancholy life. 
 
 His youngest daughter, Elizabeth, was a woman 
 of high spirit and elegant manners,” according to 
 Coxe, the traveler, who visited her ; she possessed 
 portraits of her father and mother, and even con- 
 trived to procure a rouble of her brother Ivan, 
 struck during his short reign. It is difficult to con- 
 jecture how she could obtain a coin, the possession 
 of which was more than once punished by the Em- 
 press Elizabeth as high treason, as it is still more 
 difficult to imagine how she could secret it from the 
 knowledge of her guards during her long imprison- 
 ment.” 
 
 Confinement had rendered Ivan’s features un- 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 141 
 
 naturally pale and delicate ; and, by years of syste- 
 matic constraint and oppression, his fine, clear, and 
 very beautiful dark eyes had a soft, subdued and 
 chastened expression, that was singularly touching 
 and winning. 
 
 The tone of his voice was also gentle and al- 
 luring. 
 
 Hospodeen,” said he, presenting his hand to 
 Balgonie, I rejoice to meet you, if one who leads 
 a life so strange as mine can be said to rejoice ; but 
 you are one to whom I may talk a little without 
 danger — eh. Father Chrysostom ? And he has told 
 me, Hospodeen, that j^ou are not a Russian, but a 
 native of some island that is for away in the sea. 
 What are you ? A Tartar — a Tcherkesse ? Oh no, 
 you cannot be either. I know them ; for they 
 guard me,” he added, with a little shudder. 
 
 ‘‘ I am your friend, believe me, Ivan Antono- 
 vitch,” replied Balgonie, who was touched by the 
 childlike simplicity of the poor recluse, who was 
 plainly attired in a caftan of fine green cloth, edged 
 with a narrow trimming of yellow fur ; the square 
 crowned cap, which he only wore when in the 
 grated court, was of the same materials. A small 
 gold cross was at his neck, a rosary of amber hung 
 at his right wrist, and a little pipe, the only luxury 
 allowed him, was dangling from one of his breast 
 buttons. 
 
 When in his presence Balgonie always thought 
 
142 
 
 THE SECR^:T BiSPAfCH. 
 
 with horror of the cruel tenor of the dispatch he 
 had brought, and trembled for the result of his 
 friends’ conspiracy. 
 
 To teach Ivan anything, even to read or to write, 
 was treason ; yet ho had gleaned a little of his own 
 history, and that of his family, from the casual re- 
 marks of his guards and from the Chaplain, during 
 the long, long years of his captivity, the reason for 
 which he failed to understand, but the system of 
 which had become as a second nature to him ; and 
 the little he learned, made a deep, rather than a 
 bitter, impression upon him. 
 
 The whole energies of each successive Chaplain 
 had been given to preparing him for another and a 
 brighter state of existence, and to turning his hopes 
 and wishes towards it, rather than to this world, of 
 which he was well-nigh weary if not utterly ignor- 
 ant ; and so much was he impressed by the uncer- 
 tainty of human life in general, and of his own in 
 particular, that daily, for years, he had seen the sun 
 rise from the waters of Ladoga in doubt whether 
 he would see it set ; and nightly had he laid down 
 his liead without the assurance of being a live man 
 in the morning. 
 
 Life had no charm — death no terror for Ivan. 
 
 In his visits, which were frequent, as the young 
 Prince had conceived a great regard for him, 
 Charlie Balgonie knew not upon what topes to con- 
 verse 5 for he experienced great difficulty in fashion- 
 
IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 143 
 
 ing his sentences and observations to suit a listener 
 whose knowledge of the external world and of all the 
 machinery of life was so limited. In those visits 
 Balgonie was always accompanied by the Chaplain, 
 or Captain Ylasfief, as the watchful and suspicious 
 Bernikoff would by no means permit them to have 
 an interview alone. 
 
 I am so glad to have you for a friend, Ivano- 
 vitch Balgonie,” the Prince would say sometimes ; 
 
 though Father Chrysostom assures me that kings 
 may have peers and soldiers, serfs and slaves, but, 
 alas ! they can never have 2 ^ friend! I have heard 
 my guards say that I was once a King — an Em- 
 peror ; but 1 cannot remember when. It must have 
 been long, long ago, as Bussia has had four mon- 
 archs since. I have not even a dream of it — an Em- 
 peror ? Yet I shall, too, probably die even as Deme- 
 trius did. I cannot remember even my mother ; 
 for they tell me she died of sorrow, when I was 
 brought here from a place called Moscow. Do you, 
 Hospodeen, remember yours ? ” 
 
 “ When I was but a child she died, to my sorrow. 
 Had she lived, I might not have been here in Bussia 
 to-day,” replied Balgonie. 
 
 Well — but you may remember,” persisted the 
 young Prince. 
 
 True, your Highness ; memories I have of a 
 soft fair face that bent over my little bed at night ; 
 of one who kissed and hushed me to sleep ; but those 
 
144 : 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 memories are faint and vivid, broken and uncertain, 
 according to my mood of mind ; and strange it is 
 that they come to me more in dreams by night than 
 thoughts by day, especially as I grow older.” 
 
 I should like to have some such dreams, but 
 then I have nothing to remember ; I know not even 
 my own age or when I came here,” said Ivan 
 thoughtfully. If I do dream by night, I seem to 
 hear only what I hear by day — the voices of the 
 Cossack sentinels, the screams of the sea-birds, the 
 dashing of the waves when the wind crosses the 
 lake, or the clanging of the castle bell. Then there 
 are times when I dream that I see Demetrius, and 
 then I awake in a cold perspiration. Tell me 
 of the things that are being acted in the great 
 world that lies beyond the Lake of Ladoga, for 
 Father Chrysostom speaks to me only of Heaven.” 
 It is said that the King of Prussia has agreed 
 to the proposal of — of — the Empress, about the 
 county of Wirtemberg, in Silesia.” 
 
 How, agreed ? ” 
 
 Count Biron is to have the estate as Duke of 
 Courland, on paying eight thousand guineas to 
 Field-Marshal Count Munich,” said Balgonie. 
 
 The Prince sighed with a bewildered air, for all 
 those names were quite new to him. 
 
 And who is Count Biron ? ” he asked. 
 
 A friend of the Empress,” said Father Chrysos- 
 tom rather hastily, to anticipate the reply of Balgonie, 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 145 
 
 ^^Tell me something more. Nay, Father Chry- 
 sostom, don’t chide us, pray,” said he, seeing that 
 the white bearded chaplain looked uneasy and rose 
 to retire. 
 
 Conversation of this kind is strictly forbidden,” 
 
 said he ; and if Captain Ylasfief was here ” 
 
 Oh ! ” exclaimed the Prince with a shudder, 
 but not of anger (he seemed too gentle for that 
 emotion), don’t talk of Ylasfief I implore you. 
 Pray tell me more news, Hospodeen ; I shall learn 
 all the names in time, and try to remember 
 them.” 
 
 There are strange tidings from Warsaw,” re- 
 plied Balgonie, who began to get bewildered and 
 knew not on what to converse, if the most simple 
 topics of the day were forbidden ; a battle has 
 been fought at Slonim, between Prince Padzivil 
 and the Russians, who defeated him after a five 
 hours’ engagement; and the Princess Eadzivil, who 
 is newly married and remarkably beautiful, fought 
 on horseback among the Polish troops.” 
 
 Ah, Demetrius fought on horseback too,” said 
 the Prince, as if speaking to himself, and a gesture 
 of undisguised impatience escaped the chaplain ; 
 “ pray tell me something more, for no one ever 
 speaks of such things to me.” 
 
 A new theatre has been opened at St. Peters- 
 burg,” replied Balgonie (who thought to himself, 
 the devil is in it, if I cannot speak of that / ”), 
 
146 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 “ and there was represented an opera, entitled 
 Charles the GreatP 
 
 Ah, I don’t quite understand all that ; say it 
 again.” 
 
 Indeed, Balgonie might as well have spoken of 
 carbonic gas or the Atlantic cable, had he ever 
 heard of such things ; for the mind of the young 
 Prince could not comprehend the most simple mat- 
 ters of every day-life. This was merely the result 
 of his entire seclusion ; but the adherents of the 
 Empress, her favorites and lovers, industriously 
 circulated through Russia the report that he was in 
 a state of idiotcy. 
 
 ‘‘ And this place that you spoke of ? ” he resumed 
 enquiringly. 
 
 ‘‘ The theatre ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ Yes, Hospodeen ; who lives in it ? ” 
 
 ‘^One of the actresses performed a magnificent 
 cantata, in honor of the Empress.” 
 
 Ah ! ’tis she, I understand, who keeps me here,” 
 said the Prince, with a sad smile ; and now in real 
 terror, and quite repenting the introduction he had 
 brought about. Father Chrysostom rose to hurry 
 Balgonie away. 
 
 As they were retiring, the Prince said : — 
 Hospodeen, you have dropped something.” 
 
 It was the locket with Natalie’s hair. 
 
 What is in this ? ” asked Ivan, with childlike 
 interest. 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 147 
 
 “ A lock of hail’, your Plighness.’^ 
 
 “ How odd ! and you wear it, just as I wear my 
 cross ? ” 
 
 It is the gift, the souvenir of a lady I love, and 
 who loves me : a countrywoman of your own.’’ 
 woman ? ” said Ivan, ponderingly. 
 
 Yes, Excellency.” 
 
 “ I have never looked upon a woman’s face, and 
 know not what it is like ; though the Empress (whom 
 God long preserve ! ) visited rne when a child, as I 
 have been told. I have heard that they are not 
 bearded like men. I shall never see one, it is for- 
 bidden; yet — yet — as I often tell Father Chrysos- 
 tom, I have dreams by day — dreams of something 
 else than wild swans and bearded Cossacks — of 
 something to cling to, some one to love and be 
 loved by. It must be this kind of love you speak 
 of: — oh yes, it must ! ” said Ivan, as he gazed with 
 stupid, but reverent wonder at the lock of hair, ere 
 he returned it to Balgonie. 
 
 Poor young Prince ! ” exclaimed the latter, as 
 the chaplain hurried him away, and the portcullis 
 clanged behind them in its grooves of stone. 
 
 The priest now urged upon Balgonie, that if his 
 visits were to be continued, the affairs of the outer 
 world must in no way be referred to, or the result 
 might be most disastrous for all concerned. 
 
 ‘‘ The seclusion in which the prisoner is kept, has, 
 I fear, impaired his understanding,” said Balgonie. 
 
148 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Hah ! do you think so ? ” grunted Colonel Ber- 
 nikoff, who overheard the remark, as they issued 
 from the tower of Ivan. You must know, that 
 your genuine Russian is like a tiger, as some writer 
 has it — a tiger who licks the hand of his keeper, so 
 long as he is chained ; but who tears him asunder 
 wdien loose. The Empress quite understands this ! ” 
 How is it that you intrust me so freely to visit 
 your prisoner ? ’’ asked Charlie, who began to fear 
 that Bernikoff might be laying some snare for him, 
 by according this hitherto unwonted permission. 
 
 Do you really wish to know ? ” 
 
 Yes, Colonel — why I in particular — I only ? ” 
 Because you are the safest man in Russia to 
 have this liberty.” 
 
 ^^How?” 
 
 “ As a soldier of fortune, — a stranger among us, 
 — ^you can have no sympathy with anytliing but the 
 strict and steady execution of your duty ; and the 
 line of that,” added Bernikoff, darting a keen glance 
 at the Scot, as with us all, lies in fidelity to the 
 Empress.” 
 
 True,” replied Balgonie, with something of sad- 
 ness in his tone, and very little of enthusiasm. 
 
 ‘‘ Thus, were I to order you to blow Ivan Antono- 
 vitch from the mouth of a cannon, I should expect 
 you to obey ! ” 
 
 I trust that no such test of my obedience will 
 ever be necessary,” replied Balgonie, with a hauteur 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 149 
 
 which Bernikoff was somewhat unused to see among 
 his subordinates. 
 
 “We shall have some other and more trouble- 
 some prisoners in Schlusselburg ere long,” said the 
 Governor, with knitted brows. 
 
 “ Whom do you mean ? ” 
 
 “ Old Count Micro witz and his family. Warrants 
 have been issued by the Chancellor to arrest them 
 all.” 
 
 “ All ! ” said Balgonie, in a faint voice. 
 
 “ Yes, women as well as men : an escort of the 
 Regiment of Smolensko arrived at St. Petersburg 
 yesterday with the Count and the Hospoza Mario- 
 lizza. His daughter, who seems to be deeply in“ 
 volved in some plot, has for the time effected her 
 escape. But they will soon be all before the Secret 
 Chancery, and then the knout and the wheel will be 
 at work with a vengeance ! ” 
 
 The reader may judge how these and similar re- 
 marks affected poor Charlie ; while the Governor, as 
 if pleased that he could thus inflict pain, walked 
 away with a malicious smile on his sombre visage, 
 cramming tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. 
 
 There were times, however, when the captive 
 Prince, after his acquaintance with Balgonie, was a 
 little less resigned, and had strange longings to see 
 something of the great world that lay beyond his 
 prison walls, and the waves that lashed them ; to see 
 other faces than those of the fierce and bearded 
 
150 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Tcliernemoski and Volga Cossacks who guarded 
 him ; a longing even to do something great and dar- 
 ing, to be remembered in after years with love and 
 reverence ; to be remembered, as he said, in tradi- 
 tion, like Demetrius.’’ Then, feeling all the utter 
 hopelessness of such new aspirations, he would strive 
 to be contented, to repeat with fresh energy the 
 daily prayers set for him by Father Chrysostom, and 
 to be grateful for life, lest he should die even as 
 Demetrius died. 
 
 Who is this Demetrius, of whom he constantly 
 speaks, and whose fate he fears .so much may be his 
 own ? ” asked Balgonie one day. 
 
 “ It is an old, but a strange and terrible story,” 
 replied the chaplain. When Ivan Basilovitch 
 died about the end of the sixteenth century, his 
 widow was banished to Northern Russia by the new 
 Czar Feodor, whose Prime Minister urged that he 
 could never reign in peace or security unless he im- 
 itated the Turks by sacrificing all who were nearly 
 allied to the throne ; so he exiled his mother, as I 
 have said, and ordered an officer to assassinate his 
 younger brother Demetrius. 
 
 The officer, being a humane man, was filled with 
 horror on receiving an order so barbarous ; but fear- 
 ing alike to disobey, or to leave the terrible task to 
 he fulfilled by one less scrupulous, he took the child 
 with him to a remote district, travelling many days’ 
 journey from Moscow. Then he wrote some words 
 
THE IMPERIAL PRISONER. 
 
 151 
 
 indelibly on the skin of the little Prince, tied a cross 
 of brilliants about his neck, laid him at the door of 
 a peasant’s hut, and galloped away. 
 
 the tyrant Feodor he gave a circumstantial 
 detail of how and where he had killed the infant 
 Prince, and sought the promised reward. 
 
 ^ Receive it thus ! ’ replied Feodor, who plunged 
 a sword into his heart, the further to suppress all 
 proof of guilt. 
 
 “ The young tyrant died of a poison administered 
 by his Chancellor, and others inherited his crown ; 
 but all to perish miserably, in succession. And no 
 less than four pretenders all appeared, each calling 
 himself Demetrius, to contest for the throne ; and 
 all the land was deluged with blood. 
 
 Some twenty years after the alleged death of 
 the brother of Ivan, a young Cossack of the Volga 
 was bathing in that river with some of his compan- 
 ions, who saw with surprise that he had chained 
 round his neck a cross of brilliants, and that certain 
 ^ words in the old Muscovite character were pricked 
 upon his back. They were examined by a neigh- 
 bouring priest and found to be — 
 
 ^ This is Demetrius^ son of the Czar^ 
 
 Then all exclaimed that the true Demetrius had 
 been found at last, and that a miracle from Heaven 
 had saved him. His life was soon in peril, so he 
 fled to Holstein, the Duke of which, after keeping 
 
152 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 him long in prison, sold him to the Emperor Mich- 
 ael, by whom he was savagely quartered alive. And 
 it is the fate of this hapless heir of Russia, whose 
 story he thinks in some points resembles his own 
 (although he really knows but little of his own an- 
 nals), that haunts the unfortunate Ivan in his gloom- 
 iest hours.” 
 
 I 
 
 V 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TRATKIK. 
 
 JWjflTH evident suspicion and mistrust, Bernikoff 
 VW4 viewed the growing intimacy between his 
 prisoner Ivan and the Scottish Captain ; and 
 though he neither recommended that it should 
 cease or interdicted it, as he might and perhaps 
 ought to have done, he made many mental notes 
 thereof. 
 
 Though Balgonie sympathised with Ivan to the 
 fullest extent, he knew too well the danger of doing 
 more ; and he felt that he had his own share of 
 secret sorrow and anxiety, and might yet have 
 greater to endure. The girl he loved with all the 
 strength of a first and romantic passion was already 
 a political fugitive ; her father and cousin were 
 prisoners, and perhaps in chains ; her brother and his 
 kinsman, Usakoff, already viewed as criminals; and 
 with the terrors of despotism hanging over them all. 
 
 Natalie a fugitive — and where ? In the wild 
 forests, perhaps, where wolves and outlaws lurked, 
 what perils and privations might she not be suffer- 
 ing ! Natalie so delicate, so pure, so gently nur- 
 tured, and so highly bred. 
 
 153 
 
154 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Balgonie was aware, also, that intimacy with the 
 family of Count Mierowitz, and the deep interest 
 he had in their fate, was fraught with personal 
 peril to himself in such a land of tju^anny as Russia. 
 Full of such thoughts as these one forenoon, he 
 was leaning on a cannon in one of those deep em- 
 brasures of the fortress which faced the drawbridge 
 communicating with the land. The guard was in 
 the act of lowering the bridge to permit a man to 
 pass out. This person was just parting from Berni- 
 koff, with whom he had been for some time in close 
 and earnest conversation, and from whom he w^as 
 evidently receiving money — an unusual circum- 
 stance, as that distinguished field-officer generally 
 lavished more kicks and cuffs than thanks or 
 kopecs. 
 
 On beholding this man, as he bowled humbly, cap 
 in hand, cross the bridge and disappear among the 
 houses of the town beyond, Balgonie experienced a 
 species of nervous shock. He could not doubt that 
 this fellow, so gigantic in stature and pow^erful in 
 muscular development, in the coarse caftan and 
 leathern girdle, with the long lock of grizzled hair 
 dangling behind his right ear, was JSicholas Paulo- 
 vitch, the murderer of Podatchkine, the gipsy 
 woodman, and the swindling mendicant of the bar- 
 rier at the Neva. 
 
 This man here in Schlusselburg,” thought Bal- 
 gonie, with indignation and alarm ; here in earnest 
 
THE TRATHIH. 
 
 155 
 
 conversation with Bernikoff ! The spirit of mis- 
 chief seems to pervade the air again ! ” 
 
 A few minutes afterwards the Cossack Jagouski 
 who, as related, had been so severely knonted by 
 Bernikoff for pilfering a pipeful of tobacco, came 
 forward with tottering steps, and looking painfully 
 thin and feeble from recent suffering ; and with 
 the crouching bearing of the Muscovite towards a 
 superior, said that his Excellency, the Governor 
 wished to speak with him in his quarters, whither 
 Balgonie at once repaired, after having, as military 
 etiquette required, buckled on his sword. 
 
 Carl Ivanovitch,” said Bernikoff, who certainly 
 had rather a perturbed air, “ some suspicious charac- 
 ters are in our vicinity, and have actually been 
 hovering in boats about the fortress. What think 
 you of that ? ’’ 
 
 “ Suspicious characters. Excellency — how ? ” 
 
 In a Tratkir of the town, one dropped this coin 
 — a silver rouble of the prisoner Ivan — Ivan the 
 Unknown Person. To possess one, unless as I do 
 this^ for proof of treason, is to court death or Si- 
 beria.” 
 
 And from whom had you this ? ” 
 
 A spy,” replied the Colonel curtly. 
 
 The man who has just left you ? ” 
 
 The same.” 
 
 Nicholas Paulovitch,” continued Balgonie, with 
 increasing astonishment at the other’s coolness ; 
 
156 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH, 
 
 the assassin of the Corporal — the wretch of whom 
 I told you when I first arrived here ! ” 
 
 “ All that may, or may not be,” replied Berni- 
 koff, with a stern air, almost amounting to rude- 
 ness : when I require this devil of a fellow no 
 
 more, you may impale him, if you please ; but mo- 
 lest him not, at present.” 
 
 I do not see. Excellency, that all this in any 
 way concerns me,” said Balgonie haughtily, as he 
 lifted his hat, and put his sabre under his arm, as if 
 about to retire. 
 
 “ It does concern you thus far. I shall anticipate 
 any attempt that be made by those lurkers, who- 
 ever they may be. You must remember,” he 
 added, lowering his voice, the tenor of the dis- 
 patch you brought me ? ” 
 
 “ Perfectly,” replied Charlie, in a somewhat faint 
 voice, as he knew not how terrible or repugnant 
 might be the duty assigned him by this military 
 despot. 
 
 ‘‘Well, you shall pass forth into the town to- 
 night, with a patrol of twenty men, armed with 
 sabres and carbines. Surround and search the Trat- 
 kir in the main street, and compel all therein, who 
 seem suspicious, to produce their papers ; and, if 
 they are without such, bring them to me^ and I shall 
 question them in a fashion of my own.” 
 
 By the laws of Russia, at that time, persons 
 could not travel from St. Petersburg, or even from 
 
THE TBATKIR. 
 
 157 
 
 place to place, without a passport — describing their 
 occupation, appearance, and route, which they were 
 not at liberty to alter ; and in the rural districts, 
 travellers required a pass from the lord whose estate 
 they may have been upon, before they were at lib- 
 erty to quit it. Without such a document, no one 
 would dare to furnish them with food or shelter; 
 nor would a postmaster give them horses, however 
 high their rank, or great their offer of reward — to 
 such complete subjection had the system of ac- 
 cepted despotism reduced the people. 
 
 And I am to take twenty men with me ? ” said 
 Balgonie, after an unpleasant pause. 
 
 “ Yes ! the bridge will be lowered for you after 
 sunset. Whoever these lurkers are, they have been 
 seen and overheard ; and this coin is proof sufficient 
 to warrant the transportation of a whole province. 
 Be they who they may, by every dome in sacred 
 Mother Moscow, they shall find me ready for 
 them ! ” 
 
 And Bernikoff grimly touched his small dagger, 
 a species of weapon which a Russian officer is sel- 
 dom or never without, even in the present day ; and 
 when Charlie Balgonie remembered how that same 
 dagger had been thrust into the throat of the half- 
 strangled Peter III., a fiush of indignant hate and 
 aversion crossed his honest face. To him it was evi- 
 dent that tlie spirit of mischief or malevolence made 
 Bernikoff select him, as one whom he suspected of a 
 
158 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 friendly Interest in the family of Count Mierowitz, 
 for this unpleasant duty, instead of Captain Ylasfief, 
 the Lieutenant of Schlusselburg, or any other officer, 
 who must have been better acquainted with the ad- 
 jacent town and all its places of entertainment, than 
 he, a total stranger, could ever be. 
 
 But he was a soldier ; he had no resource but to 
 obey in silence ; and an angry sigh escaped him as 
 he stuck his loaded pistols in his girdle, when the 
 sun sank behind the green painted roofs of the 
 wooden town, and the evening gun boomed from the 
 ramparts across the Lake of Ladoga. 
 
 Defiling in the twilight through the streets of 
 Schlusselburg, he marched straight to where he knew 
 that the principal Tratkir, or tea-house, was situated ; 
 and while his heart sank within him in fear of whom 
 he might arrest, — perhaps Natalie herself, — he at 
 once surrounded the building, to prevent all egress, 
 and to the evident alarm and perturbation of all who 
 were within. 
 
 These tea-houses are no longer to be found in the 
 capital of Russia now, for there all the restaurants 
 are constituted and arranged upon the French and 
 German models ; but they still exist in Moscow and 
 elsewhere; and under their roofs, the genuine Mus- 
 covite consumes what would seem a fabulous amount 
 of the Chinese plant. They are chiefly the resort of 
 soldiers, porters, and droski drivers, all of whom 
 must behave in a polite and orderly manner while 
 
THE TRATKIE. 
 
 159 
 
 there. All must enter the great room where the 
 tea is served, cap in hand, alike out of respect for 
 the company, and to the holy pictures, Souzdal daubs 
 of SS. Sergius, Alexander Newski, and so forth, 
 which decorate the walls ; and all must salute the 
 bar-keeper, after first saluting the Holy Image, 
 which is to be found in every Russian apartment, 
 and before which, a lamp of train oil is frequently 
 burning. 
 
 When the crooked sabres of the dismounted Cos- 
 sacks were seen flashing in the porch, and when Bal- 
 gonie entered with his sword drawn, passing along 
 the narrow way between the numerous tables, at 
 which the groups were seated, amid an oppressive 
 odour of strong tea, coarse tobacco, and Russian 
 leather from boots, caps, and girdles — many a peasant 
 in his canvas caftan, and many a stout moujik in his 
 fur shoubah, felt his heart quail with apprehension, 
 he knew not of what ; and every saucer — the tea is 
 not drunk from cups — wsis set down untasted, while 
 one or two men nearly choked themselves with their 
 lumps of sugar ; for usually it is not put into the tea, 
 but is retained in the mouth of the drinker, so that, 
 in a spirit of economy, the poor Muscovite may in- 
 dulge in two, perhaps three cups of his favourite 
 beverage, and use thereto but one piece of sugar. 
 
 For his intrusion Balgonie apologised; this, 
 though a very unusual proceeding in a country so 
 despotic, failed to reassure the tea drinkers, who 
 
160 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 were all hushed in silence and expectation ; and a 
 girl who had been singing for their amusement, 
 crouched down in a corner for concealment. 
 
 Balgonie counted the number of persons in the 
 Tratkir, and noted the exact hour by his watch ; he 
 then proceeded, with a heart full of anxiety and 
 dread, to examine each person in succession, in real- 
 ity looking for those he had no wish to find. 
 
 All who possessed the requisite papers, showed 
 them ; others proved, all in succession, to be soldiers 
 in uniform, moujiks, and droski drivers, with their 
 brass badges, sailors, and serfs ; thus, after a time, 
 a load seemed to be lifted from the mind of the 
 young officer. As he turned to leave the apartment 
 without a prisoner, the Cossack Jagouski rather 
 roughly dragged the singing girl from the nook 
 where she had sought concealment, and then Bab 
 gonie recognised the fine dark face, the black eyes, 
 and the large glittering ear-rings of Olga Paulowna, 
 the gipsy girl whom he had befriended at Louga — 
 she who saved him from a terrible fate in the forest. 
 
 Let the girl go free, Jagouski,” said Balgonie ; 
 
 I shall answer for her if required.” 
 
 Olga drew a paper from her bosom and showed 
 that it was her passport from tho Commandant of 
 Krejko, permitting her to travel to and from Schlus- 
 selburg. 
 
 Jagouski saluted and withdrew a few paces ; and 
 now, as if the cloud of doubt and dread Balgonie’s 
 
THE TRATKIU. 
 
 161 
 
 arrival had cast over all was dispersed, again the 
 noisy hum of voices pervaded the long room of the 
 tea-house, and laughter even broke forth at intervals. 
 
 Olga,” said Balgonie, you here — so far from 
 home ? ” 
 
 “ Yes, Hospodeen, for my home is anywhere, or 
 wherever night finds me ; but I have news for you.” 
 “ News — and for me ? ” 
 
 Yes,” said she, sinking her voice to a whisper ; 
 
 I have news of Natalie Mierowna ” 
 
 “ Hush, for heaven’s sake, girl ! — hush ! ” said 
 Balgonie with a nervous start. 
 
 “ She is here ” 
 
 “ Here in this house ? ” 
 
 No, Hospodeen.” 
 
 ‘‘ Where then ? — oh, speak quickly ! ” 
 
 In the neighborhood of Schlusselburg.” 
 
 Charlie felt his heart die within him at this in- 
 telligence, for such a vicinity was full of peril. 
 
 “ Be to-morrow at noon on the road that leads to 
 Tosna, and you shall learn more ; but do you know 
 it, Hospodeen ? ” 
 
 I shall soon discover it — and the place ? ” 
 
 “ The skirts of the wood four versts from this.” 
 
 “ Good — till then, adieu ; and God be with you.” 
 Balgonie retired all unaware or heedless that his 
 Cossacks were secretly jesting at his whispering 
 with the pretty gipsy ; and through the dark streets 
 he marched them tov/ards the great and sombre 
 
i62 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 masses of the fort which loomed between him and 
 the star-lighted sky, his heart the while being liter- 
 ally sick with alarm and dismay, in the conviction 
 that the long-dreaded crisis was coming — that Nata- 
 lie was near, and the place of her concealment was 
 known to a vagrant gipsy girl, the sister of Nicho- 
 las Paulovitch, who, if he knew it not already, 
 might wrest the secret from her with the point of 
 his knife, for the information of him whose spy he 
 was — the hateful Bernikoff ! 
 
 Ruin and sorrow was close at hand, indeed. 
 
 On receiving the official but verbal report of Bal- 
 gonie, and learning that the visit to the identical 
 tea-house where the dangerous rouble was found 
 had proved abortive, and that there was no one to 
 be knouted or hanged in the morning. Colonel 
 Bernikoff became transported with rage, and lifted 
 his cane somewhat threateningly. On this, Bal- 
 gonie’s hand was instantly laid on the hilt of his 
 sword. 
 
 “ Beware, Excellency,” said he firmly : “ a blow 
 to an equal is a foul insult ; to an inferior it is 
 mean tyranny ; and, in either instance, blood alone 
 should wash it out.” 
 
 On this the Colonel’s rage assumed a new phase ; 
 he trod on his cocked hat, and ordered the wax can- 
 dles which he had always burning before the image 
 of his patron, St. Sergius, to be extinguished. He 
 loaded the effigy with the bitterest reproaches, and 
 
THE TEATKIR- 
 
 163 
 
 for that night left the poor saint in total dark- 
 ness, despite the intercession of Father Chrysos- 
 tom. 
 
CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 noon of the following day saw Charlie 
 ^2/ Balgonie — after an anxious and almost sleep- 
 less night — proceeding on foot along the road that 
 leads southward to Tosna, a little town which stands 
 on a stream of the same name, a tributary of the 
 Neva, but some thirty versts distant from Schlus- 
 selburg. 
 
 His military ardor was already fading, so far as 
 the Kussian service was concerned, amid his press- 
 ing anxiety for the dangers that menaced Natalie; 
 and he felt liimself only a species of serf in an im- 
 perial uniform. Unlike the Admirals Douglas, 
 Mackenzie, Count Balmaine, and hundreds of other 
 Scotsmen who served the Empress by sea and land, 
 he had thoughtlessly omitted to stipulate, as they 
 had more warily done, that he was to be at perfect 
 liberty, as a British subject, to return to his native 
 land whenever he felt disposed to do so. The poor 
 friendless boy — the kidnapped Palatine, who had 
 been rescued from the burning wreck of the Pis- 
 catona^ while floating adrift in the North Sea — could 
 know little how necessary such stipulations w’^ere 
 164 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 165 
 
 when he joined the Regiment of Smolensko as a 
 cadet ; and now he felt himself literally a military 
 slave of the ambitious and lascivious Catharine II. 
 
 Before him rose the tall fir trees of the forest 
 w’here he w^as to meet Olga — the Wood of the 
 Honey Tree, as it was named from an episode (re- 
 lated by Demetrius, the ambassador, in his History 
 of Muscovy) which occured to a serf of Beriiikoff’s, 
 Alexis Jagouski, father of the same man whom he 
 slew so wickedly and ungratefully in the flight from 
 Zorndorf; and the whole anecdote reads so very 
 like one of the adventures of Baron Munchausen, 
 or Sir Jonah Barrington’s ‘^bounces,” that we may 
 be pardoned translating it here. 
 
 This man,” says Demetrius, when seeking 
 honey, got into a hollow tree, where the bees had 
 concealed such a quantity thereof, that it sucked 
 him up to the breast, and being unable to extricate 
 himself, he subsisted for two days upon honey alone; 
 and finding that his shouts were answered only by 
 the echoes of the vast forest, he began to despair of 
 being freed from his sweet captivity. At last, to 
 his terror, there came a large brown bear from the 
 Neva, to eat of the honey which the old tree con- 
 tained, and of which these animals are greedily 
 fond. As the bear was descending with hinder 
 part foremost, the poor serf caught hold of his loins. 
 This sudden grasp among his fur so terrified the 
 bear, that he started and fled, and in doing so, drew 
 
166 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 the peasant from that sweet prison, which other- 
 wise had proved his grave : hence was the forest 
 named, the Wood of the Honey Tree.’’ 
 
 There, as Balgonie approached, all was still save 
 the voice of the valdchnep, or woodcock, and the 
 hum of insects ; he lingered for a few minutes on 
 the outskirts, just where the highway to Tosna 
 dipped down into a deep and gloomy dingle of in- 
 tertwisted branches, which formed a species of 
 leafy tunnel overhead. 
 
 Three miles distant to the northward, he could 
 see the place he had left, the gloomy Castle of 
 Schlusselburg, moated round by the Neva and Lake 
 of Ladoga, jutting into the latter on its rock, its 
 towers wearing a sombre brown tint even in the 
 noonday sunshine, as if no light could brighten 
 them ; and the white flag of Russia was fluttering 
 on the summit of the keep, where Ivan was pining 
 away the years of youth in silence and seclusion. 
 
 Balgonie heard a voice waking the echoes of the 
 dingle ; three notes were struck on a tambourine, 
 as a signal to him, and Olga approached singing a 
 verse of that prophetic song, which is so soothing 
 to Russian military and religious vanity : — 
 
 But when the hundredth year 
 Shall three times doubled be ; 
 
 Then shall the end appear 
 Of all our slavery. 
 
 Then shall the warlike powers 
 From distant climes return, 
 
wood of the honey tree. 
 
 16 Y 
 
 Egypt again be ours, 
 
 While the Turkish domes shall burn ! '' 
 
 I have kept my appointment, Olga.” 
 
 And I mine,” she replied gaily, while tripping 
 towards him in a playful manner ; now follow me, 
 Hospodeen, and I shall take you to those who will 
 be right glad to see you.” 
 
 First let us be sure that we are unwatched.” 
 
 ‘‘ Right,” said she ; and stooping in her earnest- 
 ness, her keen, dark, and glittering eyes swept the 
 whole landscape that lay between the wood and 
 Schlusselburg, and glanced keenly beyond the stems 
 of the trees into the dingles and vistas ; but, save 
 the birds on the branches and the gnats revolving 
 in the sunshine, no living thing was visible. 
 
 ^‘Follow, me Hospodeen,” said the gipsy; we 
 have not far to go.” 
 
 They descended into the dark dingle, or hollow, 
 and then quitted the highway ; Olga gathering up 
 her skirts that she might tread with greater facility 
 among the thick gorse and long rank grass, display- 
 ing, as she did so, two very handsome and taper 
 ankles cased in scarlet stockings with elaborate 
 clocks of yellow braid. 
 
 She explained to Balgonie that, as there was no 
 path to guide them, her chief clues were a set of 
 notches, cut to all appearance carelessly, as if with 
 a woodman’s axe, on the bark of the great pine 
 trees. 
 
168 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 These marks seem fresh, and recently cut — 
 who made them ? ” asked Balgonie. 
 
 “ The Hospodeen, Basil Mierowitz,” she whis- 
 pered. 
 
 “ Poor Basil ! ” responded Charlie, in a low tone. 
 
 After .toiling through the dense forest for more 
 than half an hour, pausing ever and anon to listen 
 and watch whether they were observed, they arrived 
 at the foot of a grey granite cliff, the face of which 
 was screened, or nearly covered, by masses of de- 
 pending ivy, creepers, and green lichens, forming a 
 background which, at a little distance, blended with 
 the greenery of the woods. 
 
 “We have arrived,” said she, turning, with a flush 
 on her dark face which made it radiantly beautiful. 
 She struck three strokes on her tambourine, and 
 shook its bells. 
 
 Charlie thought of her kinsman, Nicholas Paulo- 
 vitch, and instinctively grasped one of the pistols at 
 his girdle, on seeing the dark and bearded face of a 
 man appear among the ivy leaves some twenty feet 
 above him. A rope ladder was lowered, and what- 
 ever doubts or misgivings were in his mind, he felt 
 himself constrained now to go through the adventure 
 to its end. 
 
 He clambered up, and on the great screen of ivy 
 being lifted aside, found himself face to face with 
 his old friend Basil Mierowitz, the subaltern of his 
 company, who, grasping both his hands with kindly 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 169 
 
 warmth of manner, led him into a cavern or grotto, 
 one of a series of many, into which the granite rocks 
 had there been hollowed by some long past convul- 
 sion of nature. 
 
 Another hand was instantly laid on his, — a smaller 
 and softer one, — and two beautiful dark eyes were 
 bending tenderly on his face. 
 
 Natalie ! ” he exclaimed, in a tremulous voice, 
 and would have pressed her to his breast, but for the 
 presence of Basil and several other men. 
 
 Amid the twilight of the cavern, he could per- 
 ceive its rough natural walls and arch, with hazy but 
 sunny rays that streamed faintly in the background, 
 athwart the obscurity, as if the vault communicated 
 with other galleries in the rock, through which the 
 upper light of day stole in by the crannies and 
 chasms. He was also enabled to see, that, with 
 Natalie, her brother Basil, and her cousin Usakoff, 
 who had been a Lieutenant of the Valikolutz Grena- 
 diers, there were about twenty men in the place, all 
 clad in sheepskin shoubahs, canvas doublets, or the 
 caftan, the invariable dress of the Bussian peasant, 
 and nearly all had red serge breeches, rough boots, 
 and girdles of rope or untanned leather. 
 
 Though attired like woodmen or labouring serfs, 
 all these men had unmistakably the bearing of well- 
 trained soldiers : all were strong, active, and resolute 
 in aspect ; and Balgonie had no doubt that they 
 were those natives of the Ukraine, the deserters from 
 
170 
 
 THE SEOKET DISPATCH. 
 
 the Livonian frontier, of whom Bernikoff had 
 spoken ; for against the walls of the cavern were 
 ranged a number of muskets and bayonets, with sets 
 of accoutrements, sabres, and pistols. There, too, 
 stood a regimental drum, decorated with the impe- 
 rial arms, and the forbidden name of the Emperor 
 Ivan ! 
 
 Every moment seemed to increase the perils that 
 surrounded the luckless Balgonie, for now he was in 
 the very den of the conspirators. 
 
 All carried in their girdles a dagger or knife and 
 double brace of pistols. They seemed to be chiefly 
 soldiers of tlie Regiment of Yalikolutz: and his 
 sudden appearance among them, in the full uniform 
 of the Smolensko Infantry, evidently excited, if it 
 did not alarm them ; for discipline becomes so com- 
 pletely a habit — a second nature ; and, as if the pre- 
 sence of an epaulette rendered them uneasy, they all 
 withdrew into the back or more obscure portion of 
 the cavern, leaving him and their two leaders together. 
 
 ^‘Oh! Basil — Usakoff — my friends, if indeed I 
 may yet dare to call you so, and live,” said Balgonie, 
 in a voice that was liroken by emotion, “ for what 
 rash and dreadful purpose do I find you and these 
 unfortunate fellows here ? ” 
 
 You, and all Russia too, shall learn ere long,” 
 replied Mierowitz calmly and sternly ; yet with a 
 grave and noble air, with which his coarse canvas 
 caftan assorted oddly. 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HO^EY TREE. 
 
 171 
 
 ^‘And poor Natalie!” exclaimed Balgonie, in a 
 tone of grief and reproach; ‘4aave you no pity for 
 her?” 
 
 “Until Natalie informed me, I knew not, my 
 friend, Carl Ivanovitch, that you were the bearer of 
 that secret dispatch, which might have cost you limb 
 or life, when it was too late to arrest those T had set 
 upon 3 mur track.” 
 
 “ Wei], certainly, I was not much indebted to the 
 good offices of your rogue, Uodatchkine.” 
 
 “The Corporal’s orders were simply to abstract 
 the document, and bring it to me ; not to slay its 
 bearer, unless such a catastrophe became unavoid- 
 able.” 
 
 “ He fell into his own snare— a dark and deadly 
 one.” 
 
 “ Happily you escaped it ; and I have saved two 
 hundred silver roubles, for the service of the Em- 
 peror.” 
 
 “ Who do you mean ? ” asked Balgonie, in a 
 ^ whisper. 
 
 “ Ivan — the Prisoner of Schlusselburg I ” ex- 
 claimed Usakoff, with enthusiasm. 
 
 “Alas!” added Balgonie, “you court but your 
 own destruction.” 
 
 “ Think not so; but join us, and share our perils 
 and our glory,” replied the other. 
 
 “ I am bound by allegiance to the Empress.” 
 
 You are but a toolinher hands, Carl Balgonie,” 
 
172 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Perhaps so ; but one with a devilish sharp edge, 
 I hope,” replied Balgonie, who felt only genuine 
 sorrow; and a silence of nearly a minute ensued. 
 
 The manner and voice of Basil Mierowitz were 
 singularly soft and winning, yet he was bold and 
 resolute ; and though a young man, he had all the 
 free and easy bearing of a courtly soldier, blended 
 with something of the calm severity of a priest — a 
 manner that was very impressive. 
 
 The Polish and Cossack blood that mingled in 
 the veins of Appollo TJsakofiP gave a freer and bolder, 
 perhaps a wilder, bearing and style of language ; hia 
 nose was aquiline, and expressed fierceness of dis- 
 position ; yet his features otherwise were essentially 
 delicate and noble, and his eyes were strangely beau- 
 tiful in colour and variety of expression. They were 
 dark gray, encircled by a ring of light, clear brown ; 
 and when he spoke, or became excited, the iris con- 
 tracted and expanded, as the blood fiowed and ebbed 
 in his fiery and enthusiastic heart, for he was a grand- 
 son of the Hetman Mazeppa — that Pole, whose 
 story is so well known, and who, after being bound 
 naked on a wild and maddened horse, to punish him 
 for having an intrigue with a noble lady of his own 
 country, was carried by his steed through woods and 
 ‘ wastes, and herds of wolves and bears, into the heart 
 of the Ukraine, where he lived to become the prince 
 and leader of those wild Cossacks who dwell upon 
 fhe banks of the Dnieper. 
 
THE WOOD OE THE HONEY TREE. 1^3 
 
 Sleeping in a cavern, among rough soldiers, on a 
 bed of dried leaves and moss, had not improved 
 either the costume or the appearance of Natalie 
 Mierowna. With pain and sorrow, — almost with 
 agony, — Charlie Balgonie could perceive how her 
 once rich dress of yellow silk, with its trimmings of 
 narrow ermine, was faded and soiled — even tattered 
 and worn ; her laces and her soft hair alike dishevel- 
 led and uncared for ; and that already had a hunted 
 and haggard expression been imparted to her beauti- 
 ful eyes, and soft, pale, delicate face. Anger and 
 pride alone remained ; but both were for a time sub- 
 dued by the sudden presence of Balgonie, and the 
 love she was compelled to repress outwardly, at 
 least, when before so many eyes. 
 
 Katinka, the sturdy Polish attendant, who loved 
 Natalie dearly, alone seemed unimpaired by the 
 hardships of a forest life. 
 
 Concerning the secret dispatch of the woman, 
 Catharine Christianowna, to the Governor of Schlus- 
 selburg,” said Usakoff, resuming the subject of con- 
 versation, “ you, Carl, are perhaps aware of its con- 
 tents ? ” 
 
 “Yes,” replied Balgonie, and then paused. 
 
 “ Say on, my friend,” said Usakoff ; “ we can hear 
 anything now.” 
 
 “ They were to the effect, that a scheme had been 
 formed to free the Unknown Person in Schusselburg, 
 and that he was not to be permitted to fall alive 
 
174 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 into the hands of any one who came to seek him.^^ 
 “ Savage orders, which there can he no mistaking.” 
 
 Orders which Bernikoff is quite capable of ful- 
 filling,” added Mierowitz in a sad and stern voice, 
 wdiile their listening followers burst into low and 
 whispered, but fierce, imprecations against the Em- 
 press. 
 
 Bernikoff is a man wdthout one human sym- 
 pathy,” said Basil. 
 
 “ And no marvel is it ? ” exclaimed Usakoff, while 
 the strange light already described gleamed in his 
 dark grey eyes; ‘^his mother, like a true Tartar 
 woman, is said to have anointed her breast daily 
 with blood, as she suckled him — even as Dion tells 
 us the mother of Caligula did, that her child might, 
 in manhood, be merciless.” 
 
 Vlasfief they stigmatised as the son of a goat,” 
 being originally a boy of the great foundling Hos- 
 pital at Moscow, where, when the increase of child- 
 ren became so great that nurses could not be found, 
 the lacteal food of animals was introduced, and a 
 herd of goats adopted as wet-nurses for the estab- 
 lishment. 
 
 “ Carl,” said Basil, taking the hand of Balgonie, 
 ‘‘ Natalie has told me all.” 
 
 ^^All!” 
 
 Yes — all that passed in Longa. Dear Natalie 
 has never had a secret from me.” 
 
 ‘‘ And you forgive me ? ” said Balgonie earnestly. 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 17^ 
 
 I do — but on tliis condition.’’ 
 
 “ Oh name it, Basil ! ” 
 
 That if you do not join us, you will, at least, 
 not actively oppose our scheme.” 
 
 ‘‘ 1 scarcely know what it is.” 
 
 Know this, then,” replied the other emphati- 
 cally, yet softly, that on its success depends the 
 success of your love ; for if it fails, then all our 
 lives are lost ! ” 
 
 You say that you love my cousin, Natalie ? ” 
 said young IJsakoff, in a somewhat loftier tone. 
 
 With all my heart — with all my soul, I do ! ” 
 replied Balgonie, pressing a hand of Natalie be- 
 tween his own. 
 
 Yet, Carl, if you valued generosity and loved 
 piety — if you loved glory and honor, as a soldier 
 should, you would risk the loss even of her, — ^yea, 
 give her up, if necessary, — and join us ! ” 
 
 What w^ould either life or glory be after such 
 a sacrifice ? Ah, my friend, you never loved as I 
 do ! ” replied Charlie, with some irritation of man- 
 ner. 
 
 Perhaps ; but I have always thought how 
 grandly terrible a figure was made by Mohammed 
 the Great, when, on a stage, before his discontented 
 army, he struck off the head of a favorite Sultana 
 to convince his soldiers that he preferred glory to 
 love.” 
 
 Cousin, cousin,” said Natalie, who felt all thq 
 
176 
 
 THE SECRET EISPATCH. 
 
 peril and delicacy of her lover’s position, you talk 
 thus to-day, when last night you shed tears — ^yes, 
 bitter tears for the loss of your sister. We were 
 all taken prisoners together, Carl — ^my poor father, 
 Mariolizza, and I. Bound with cords-, — see, the 
 marks are on me still,” she added, showing her 
 white wrists, while her dark eyes filled with a dusky 
 fire, — ^^we were conveyed in a covered kabitka 
 towards St. Petersburg, on the way to wiiich it 
 broke down, in a wood near Paulovsk, not far from 
 the outer walls of the imperial gardens. There, in 
 the confusion, I was enabled to escape, by the aid 
 of the gipsy girl Olga, who, hoping some such 
 chance might occur, had followed us afoot from 
 Louga; and through her further knowiedge and 
 assistance, I was enabled to join my brother Basil 
 here.” 
 
 My dear old father — and my soft and tender 
 Mariolizza — a blow must be rapidly struck if we 
 would save them from greater horrors than those 
 they now endure ! ” exclaimed Basil ; “ the die has 
 been cast now : and if I cannot save them and our 
 legitimate Emperor, we can at least all perish to- 
 gether.” 
 
 “ Dangers menace you closely ; the roads around 
 the fortress are patrolled, and gun-boats watch the 
 shores of the lake. A coin of Ivan found in a tea- 
 house ” 
 
 ‘‘ Malediction — ^yes ’twas I, Carl, who dropped it 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 177 
 
 there,” exclaimed Basil : well, and this coin ? ” 
 
 Has roused all the suspicions of Bernikoff ; and 
 he knows that you and your cousin have deserted 
 from your posts in Livonia.” 
 
 Already, does he know of this ? ” 
 
 Yes, with many other details.” 
 
 ‘"Then,” replied Basil Micro witz, with growing 
 sternness, “ we have not an hour to loose. Who in- 
 formed him ? ” 
 
 “ Lieutenant-General Weymarn, by a special mes- 
 senger, while I was loitering at Louga.” 
 
 “ So, so ! By our Lady of Kazan, we must be 
 prompt in action. I have cruised thrice round 
 Schlusselburg disguised as a fisherman, and know 
 well all the approaches.” 
 
 Basil, Usakoff, I implore you by all you hold 
 dear on earth and sacred in Heaven to pause while 
 there is yet time — to abandon your wild scheme, and 
 make your peace, if possible, with the Empress.” 
 
 “ You were right to add ‘ if possible,’ my friend,” 
 j replied the other calmly but bitterly. “Already 
 compromised by desertion, my father and betrothed 
 wife chained in a fortress by the Neva, what terms 
 would Catharine offer us ? Carl Ivanovitch,” he 
 added, with a lofty smile, “ I do not press you to 
 join us, or seek to lure you into the dangers of an 
 enterprise the enthusiasm of which you cannot share. 
 I do not seek even to turn your presence as a trusted 
 staff officer in Schlusselburg to account, though it 
 
178 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 might further our objects, and be the means, per- 
 haps, by strategy, of saving many a valuable life. 
 Still less do I desire to turn to account your intimacy 
 with the young Emperor Ivan, though I envy you 
 that great privilege. Even in the love I bear my 
 sister (though it might tempt you to cast your lot 
 with us — with her shall I say ? ), I leave you un- 
 questioned and free.” 
 
 “ I thank you, Basil,” said Balgonie sadly, and 
 with a lieightened colour, caused by irrepressible an- 
 noyance at the last remark of Mierowitz. 
 
 But we have all sworn before the altar of our 
 Lady of Kazan, and the image of St. Sergius, to 
 devote our lives to the matter in hand ; so retreat 
 is impossible — advice and entreaty alike unavail- 
 ing.” 
 
 Balgonie felt an acute pang on hearing this ; for 
 he knew that in Russia no place was esteemed as 
 more holy than the churcli of our Lady of Kazan in 
 St. Petersburg. Around its shrine — the sanctum 
 sanctorum of which no woman has ever entered — 
 are the keys of conquered cities, the banners of a 
 thousand slaughtered armies, and the batons and 
 sabres of their leaders — the Frenchman, the Turk, 
 the Pole, the Persian, and the Dane, the Swede and 
 the German ; and he knew, too, that no image, to 
 the Muscovite mind, is more sacred than that of St. 
 Sergius — the same absurd idol which the Kazan 
 cplumit bore with them at the battle of the Alma, 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 179 
 
 and displayed in vain to the advancing bayonets of 
 old Sir Colin’s Highland Brigade. 
 
 The blow once struck,” resumed Basil, “ we shall 
 be joined by the Cossacks of the Ukraine and the 
 Don, among whom we have many impatient adher- 
 ents, and by all who hold of the Houses of Bruns 
 wick- Wolf enbuttel, of Holstein Gottorp, and of all 
 who hate Anhalt Zerbst ; all Bussia will soon follow, 
 from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the 
 White — from Bevel to the Ural Mountains. We 
 have not forgotten the reign of Elizabeth: how 
 many noses were slit, how many foreheads were 
 branded, how many ears cropped, and tongues 
 shortened, and how many eyes were darkened for 
 ever during the time of tyranny ; how many backs 
 flayed by the knout ; how many nobles banished to 
 Siberia, or drowned in prison vaults by the swollen 
 waters of the Beva. Pure nationality is dying now ; 
 but we must revive Bussia — not as it is ruled by a 
 lascivious woman and her jealous lovers, but Holy 
 Bussia of Peter the Great — strong, invincible, and 
 the terror alike of the Eastern and Western world. 
 Let us save our country from those who oppress it, 
 and replace upon its throne the Grand Duke, the 
 Czar — the Emperor Ivan ; for the right given by 
 God and by inheritance, can never be destroyed ! ” 
 A murmur of applause from his followers suc- 
 ceeded this outburst (which we can render but feebly 
 in English), and they clashed their weapons in ap^ 
 
180 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 proval, while, fired by her brother’s energy, Natalie 
 sung a verse of a well known Russian song : — 
 
 " Now, as of old, the sabre’s ready. 
 
 And its might they’ll feel afar, 
 
 When hut three short words are utter’d, 
 
 God, our Country, and the Cza/r! ” 
 
 Without cannon, you cannot mean to assault a 
 place so strong as Schlusselburg, fortified as it has 
 been by all the skill of Todlebin ? ” said Balgonie, 
 after a pause. 
 
 Ask me not what we mean to do, Carl : for your 
 own sake, my dear friend, the less you know of us, 
 and of our plans, the better. We shall come upon 
 you all when you least expect us, and in that hour 
 take no heed of what you see or hear. Mix your- 
 self up with it as little as you can : if we fail, we 
 perish in our failure ; if we triumph, and Ivan is re- 
 placed upon his throne, be assured that Basil Mier- 
 owitz will not forget the lover of his sister — the 
 comrade of many a brave and happy day with the 
 Regiment of Smolensko. Now adieu — and come 
 hither no more, lest your steps be watched.” 
 
 Balgonie pressed the hands of his two friends, 
 whom he viewed as fated and foredoomed men ; he 
 kissed Natalie with a tenderness that was alike sor- 
 rowful and despairing, for he trembled in his heart 
 lest he should never see her more ; and, in another 
 moment or so, like one in a bewildering dream, he 
 had descended the rope ladder, and was traversing 
 
THE WOOD OF THE HONEY TREE. 
 
 181 
 
 the forest — the Wood of the Honey Tree — ^forget- 
 ful or oblivious of whether he was watched or not. 
 
 He foresaw but woe and ruin now ; and proceeded 
 slowly back to Schlusselburg, with his mind a prey 
 to doubt, anxiety, and dread of what might be the 
 sequel to the impending catastrophe. He felt as- 
 sured of one thing only — that a deed, bold, reckless, 
 and desperate, would be the result of his friend’s 
 desertion from Livonia, their political rancour, and 
 personal desire for vengeance on the Empress and 
 her favorites. 
 
 In that deed, and its too probable failure, he fore- 
 saw the destruction of his love ; and he felt bitterly 
 that rather than have known and lost Natalie, it 
 would have been better had fate drowned him when 
 the Palatine ship was burned, or shot him when 
 warring in Silesia! 
 
CHAPTER XVIIL 
 
 DOUBT AND DREAD. 
 
 •Jj^EARLT all the events which followed the 
 secret visit of Balgonie to the conspirators 
 will be found in the more recent histories of Russia, 
 and in the manifestos published by the Empress 
 Catharine at the time — especially her oukaz subse- 
 quent to the revolt of Basil Mierowitz. 
 
 On returning to Schlusselburg, Balgonie found 
 the Governor, Colonel Bernikoff, in a very bad hu- 
 mor indeed. The Grand Chancellor had recently 
 sent him a prisoner, with a note to the effect that 
 he wrote verses, and was otherwise a dangerous fel- 
 low — to keep him for a week or two, and then get 
 rid of him. He had thrice sent to the Chancellor, 
 to learn under what name the man was to be huried^ 
 for the fellow was dead now — so much had the damp 
 atmosphere of the lower vaults disagreed with his 
 poetical temperament; but no answer liad been re- 
 turned, which was very annoying. So Bernikoff, 
 whose patience was never very extensive, was fu- 
 rious ; but he strove to soothe his ruffled feelings 
 by several enormous pinches of the sharp snuff of 
 
 Beresovski, from the box which — as we have before 
 182 
 
DOUBT AND DREAD. 
 
 183 
 
 hinted — had been found in tlie fob of the late Peter 
 III.; and by batooning, or beating with his cane, the 
 Cossack Jagouski, whom he had suddenly detected 
 in the act of praying secretly before the little image 
 of St. Sergius, which was his — Colonel Bernikoff’s 
 — own peculiar and particular property. 
 
 By the old laws of Muscovy, to be found worship- 
 ping at an image, erected by, or the property of an- 
 otlier, designing thereby to have a share in the favor 
 of the saint it represented, without being at any 
 expense, was punishable by a fine, to refund the 
 owner some part of the money laid out for the said 
 image ; ” but as the poor Cossack had not a copper 
 denusca wherewith to bless himself, the Governor 
 took it out of his back and shoulders (scarcely healed 
 after his recent knouting), with the aid of a knotted 
 walking cane. 
 
 ^^^To steal and to lie,’ according to Bulharyn, a 
 famous Russian writer, ^are the two auxiliary verbs 
 of our language,’ ” said the Colonel, panting with 
 ^exertion, as the Cossack crept away with a glance of 
 subdued ferocity in his stealthy eyes ; we take all 
 that for granted ; but this slave has been stealing 
 the interest of my saint for himself ! ” 
 
 He ordered an extra supply of wax candles to be 
 liglited before the image, and then he knelt, bowed, 
 and muttered 
 
 Holy St. Sergius, heed not the prayers of that 
 rascal ; he is only a vile serf, a slave, a Cossack from 
 
184 : 
 
 THE eiiCRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Ukraine. Thou hast been very good to me, and 
 shalt be treated handsomely. Candles of the finest 
 wax shall burn before thee all night. I will love 
 and pray for thee, so do thou protect and intercede 
 for me, most holy Sergius ? ” 
 
 And so he prayed till the dinner drum beat ; and 
 then, muttering an oath as he tripped over his sabre, 
 the old savage hobbled away, to commit at least two 
 of the seven deadly sins at table. 
 
 ^^No tidings yet, Carl Ivanovitch, of those trai- 
 tors ! ” said Bernikoff, when he had somewhat re- 
 covered his breath, after a deep draught of quass, 
 the froth of which adhered to his grisly mustachio ; 
 ‘‘the Captain Ylasfief, and my faithful friend Tsche- 
 kin, with forty picked Cossacks, and a clever guide 
 
 “ Nicholas Paulo vitch, I presume.” 
 
 “ The same,” continued Bernikoff, with a fierce 
 grimace on his lips and a cruel leer in his eyes, as he 
 masticated a huge mouthful of green horsch with 
 beef and eggs : the same, sir, — and w^hat then ? ” 
 
 ' “ Nothing, Excellency ; but this ouJcha of ster- 
 
 let is excellent. Well, these and the forty Cos- 
 sacks ” 
 
 “ Are scouring all the roads between this and St. 
 Petersburg on one fiank, and between this and 
 North Ladoga on the other ; so the cursed Asiatics 
 cannot escape me.” 
 
 “ Who will betray them to you ? ” asked Balgonie, 
 
DOUBT AND DREAD. 
 
 185 
 
 making a terrible effort to appear calm and uncon- 
 cerned, as he played with his sword knot and the 
 tassels of his sash, and forgot to eat. 
 
 “ Who ? ” exclaimed Col. Bernikoff, grinding his 
 teeth, and eating very fast. Their own friends — 
 their own dear comrades — adherents, which you 
 will. Russia is full of people, yea of many nations. 
 The Empress can reckon her faithful slaves by mil- 
 lions ; yet, when a Russian hath his hat on his 
 head, its rim contains the only friend on whom he 
 can rely.” 
 
 “ This is a severe libel on your country, surely, 
 Excellency.” 
 
 ’ Tis truth though ; so Basil Micro witz, Usakoff, 
 and the rest, are all doomed men. No one was ever 
 lost on a straight road ; thus the soldier who diverges 
 from the straight line of duty must speedily find 
 himself face to face with degradation and death. 
 Punishment to those traitors will be swift and sure ! 
 So, I only fear that the Grand Chancellor will never 
 give me the pleasure of having them under my judi- 
 cious care in Schlusselburg. We have certain old 
 vaults, built below the tide mark by Ivan the Terri- 
 ble, for some of those people of Novgorod who 
 leagued with the King of Poland. They are always 
 full of fog ; and I am curious to know how long an 
 able-bodied prisoner might live there, or rather how 
 long he would be in dying. But excuse me, Hospo- 
 deen, I confess me to-morrow, and there rings the 
 
186 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 bell for vespers already ; ” and making many Greek 
 signs of the cross and other genuflexions, Bernikoff, 
 after having gorged himself at table, hurried away 
 to the chapel, where Father Chrysostom ofiiciat- 
 ed. 
 
 Charlie gladly sought the solitude afforded by the 
 stockades and outworks of the fortress on the side 
 towards the Lake of Ladoga. There, as elsewhere, 
 was of course, a chain of sentinels ; but they did not 
 interrupt his lonely communing with himself. 
 
 By his interest in Natalie, by his deep love for 
 her, and more than all, perhaps, by his recent visit 
 and interview, he already felt himself ^ art and part’ 
 (to use a Scottish legal or particeps criminis^ 
 
 with the rash adherents of Ivan. If one of these 
 deserted the cause in which they had embarked, then 
 would their lurking place be at once discovered, and 
 the story of his recent visit be revealed. 
 
 He dreaded lest Bernikoff and others suspected 
 his friendly interest in the family of Count Miero- 
 witz, and that more might yet be learned of it ; thus 
 he would have experienced neither shock nor sur- 
 prise, had he, at any hour, in that land of treachery 
 and espionage, seen either Captain Ylasflef, Lieuten- 
 ant Tschekin, or any other officer of the fortress, ad- 
 vancing towards him sabre in hand, with an armed 
 party, to demand his sword, to make him a prisoner, 
 and march him off to tlie same prison which already 
 held the old Count and Mariolizza, the innocent be- 
 
doubt and dread. 
 
 187 
 
 trothed of Basil, and might soon hold another, who 
 was dearer, still — Natalie ! 
 
 If 1 love her,” he would say to himself at times, 
 
 why should I shrink from sharing all that she suf- 
 fers now — all she may yet endure ? Yet it would 
 be wiser to watch well for her sake, and seek to save, 
 or bear her away ; but how — and where to ? ” was 
 the next bewildering thought. 
 
 And the generous Basil, the fiery and chivalrous 
 Usakoff, oh that he might save them too ! He 
 mourned for Usakoff, who was the very soul of 
 honor and heroism, the worthy grandson of that 
 Mazeppa who, when Charles the XII. was retreat- 
 ing from Pultowa, swam the Borysthenes by the 
 side of the fugitive king, and of whom the latter 
 said in the words of a bard : — 
 
 Of all our band. 
 
 Though firm of heart and strong of hand. 
 
 In skirmish, march, or forage, none 
 Can less have said or more have done 
 Than thee, Mazeppa ! on the earth 
 So fit a pair had never birth. 
 
 Since Alexander’s day till now. 
 
 As thy Bucephalus and thou ; 
 
 All Scythia’s fame to thine should yield. 
 
 For pricking on o’er flood and field.” 
 
 So worthy of such an ancestor, was he, too, to 
 perish ? 
 
 This was, indeed, a miserable mood of mind in 
 which to pass the nights and days of inactivity — -of 
 suspense and anxiety in which none could share, in 
 
188 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 that strong, guarded, and somewhat lonely fortress, 
 which was washed, ns we have said, on one side by 
 the Neva, and on the other by the Lake of Ladoga, 
 the very ripples of whose waves sounded hatefully 
 in the ears of Balgonie. 
 
 Oh,’’ thought he, to be with Natalie on the 
 side of a green and breezy Scottish mountain — on 
 any part of the shore of free and happy Britain ! to 
 be with her there in peace and security, far, far 
 from this land of suspicion and ferocious despotism, 
 of state intrigues and savage punishments, wLere 
 every second man is the spy upon, and the betrayer 
 of, his fellow.” 
 
 “ Britain he might never see more ; and now he 
 found himself vaguely speculating on the probable 
 comforts and public amusement afforded by Siberia, 
 and those growing cities of the sorrowing and the 
 banished, Tobolsk and Irkutsk, on the banks of the 
 Lower Angara. 
 
 He feared to look much, or often, towards the 
 distant Wood of the Honey Tree, lest watchful eyes 
 might be upon him to gather hints therefrom ; still 
 more did he fear to visit Natalie again, lest, by do- 
 ing so, he might lead to the discovery and arrest of 
 all. So the days and nights of dread, of longing, 
 and suspense, passed slowly after each other now. 
 
 The barriers of rank and wealth — the wealth af- 
 forded by the Count’s estates and mines, his popu- 
 lous villages of serfs, and vast forests of timber — 
 
DOUBT AND DREAD. 
 
 189 
 
 had all been removed now, and Natalie was reduced 
 to a level lower even than her lover’s; yet he cursed 
 the mad schemes that had brought about such a 
 revolution, and tossed feverishly and sleeplessly on 
 his bed, when he thought of Natalie Mierowna, — 
 his own loving and beloved Natalie, — so delicate 
 and so tender, with her white soft skin and silky 
 hair, her earnest and beautiful eyes, lurking among 
 stern and outlawed soldiers in yonder damp cavern 
 of the rocks, upon her bed of leaves and moss ; at 
 the mercy, perhaps, of any adherent of Basil’s, who, 
 to save his own head, might prove a traitor to them 
 all ! This dread was ever before him. 
 
 The whole affair reminded him of some of the 
 old Scottish raids, or Jacobite plots, of years long 
 passed away ; and it was fated to resemble the for- 
 mer more strongly in some of its features, as the 
 dark sequel will show. 
 
 The guards and sentinels at Schlusselburg were 
 doubled ; the patrols were incessant by land, while 
 on the lake the gun-boats of Admiral Mackenzie 
 cruised near the walls ; the canons were loaded ; the 
 watch-words changed sometimes twice within four- 
 and-twenty hours ; and the general state of prepara- 
 tion for a sudden attack was unremitting. But time 
 passed on quietly until the night of the fifteenth of 
 September, when the crowning catastrophe came. 
 
CHAPTEK XIX. 
 
 ' THE NIGHT OF THE 15TH SEPTEMBER. 
 
 WfHE past day had been unusually gloomy for 
 the season. The sun had set in fiery clouds 
 beyond the spires of St. Petersburg. The night 
 was without a moon, and a strong east wind rplled 
 the waters of the Ladoga in billows of inky hue 
 against the massive walls of the fortress in foam and 
 fury on one side ; while on the other, the waters of 
 the Xeva, swollen by recent rains, gurgled and chafed 
 round the mouldy and moss-grown piers of the draw- 
 bridge. 
 
 The wind moaned with a sullen sound past the 
 mouths of the cannon, and whistled drearily through 
 the deep embrasures and the loopholes for musketry 
 in the casemates. Thunder had been heard at times, 
 but afar; Elias, as the Russians poetically phrase it, 
 was driving his chariot among the stars. Lightning 
 had reddened all the lake, and cast the weird shadow 
 of the castle athw^art it for an instant ; and, that a 
 complete and melodramatic omen of impending evil 
 might not be wanting, a huge sea-bird had perched 
 upon the castle clock, and forcing round the hands, 
 
 struck midnight four hours before the proper time, 
 190 
 
ME NIGHT OF THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. 191 
 
 Since morning roll-call, Jagouski, the knouted, 
 beaten, and ill-used Cossack, had been missing ; he 
 had quitted the fortress on some trivial pretense and 
 had not since returned ; patrols had seen nothing of 
 him. Then Colonel Bernikoff was more than ever 
 on the alert ; but Balgonie, who now deemed any- 
 thing better than the torture of suspense, had gone 
 weary and feverishly to bed, to court for a time the 
 happiness of oblivion, after having spent nearly the 
 entire day upon the lake with an armed boat’s crew, 
 patrolling by water. 
 
 From sleep, however, a sudden sound aroused him ; 
 he looked at his watch, and saw that the hands in- 
 dicated twelve o’clock, midnight. 
 
 What had he heard ? 
 
 In another moment the sound came again — the 
 drums were beating to arms ! He heard the clamor 
 of hoarse Muscovite voices in court and corridor; 
 the clanging of the castle bell ; and he saw the gleam 
 of torches reddening the old black walls and towers, 
 and flaring on the grated windows as they were borne 
 to and fro. 
 
 His heart was beating with wild anxiety as he 
 threw on his staff uniform, belted his sabre about 
 him, placed his pistols in his girdle, and hurried forth 
 to meet — it might be to cross blades — with tlie only 
 friends he had in Russia ! 
 
 As he crossed the castle-yard by torchlight, he 
 could perceive that the Cossacks, clad in their short 
 
192 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 blue jackets, red loose breeches, short boots, and tall, 
 black, woolen busbies, were falling into their ranks 
 with musketoon and sabre ; and that the gunners 
 were standing by their cannon with port-fires lighted : 
 the latter casting a pale, ghastly, ana unearthly glare 
 upon the yawning embrasures, the walls of the fort- 
 ress, and on their own stolid visages, which were 
 pale and cadaverous as those of people usually who 
 are hastily summoned from sleep in the night. 
 
 As a staff officer who had no particular post, 
 Charlie Balgonie knew that his duty attached him 
 chiefiy to Bernikoff , whom he now met hurrying forth 
 in uniform, with a great cocked hat thrust angrily 
 oyer his cunning and twinkling eyes, which were 
 sparkling with anger, while every hair of his grizz- 
 led moustachioes, though these were long and snaky, 
 bristled with excitement. There was a dangerous 
 pallor in his visage ; his square jaw looked still more 
 tiger-like in contour, as his teeth were clenched ; and 
 he had his sabre drawn. 
 
 By his side were his two favorite brother officers, 
 who — ^in face, form, and bearing — bore indications 
 of being each, originally, a serf of the lowest, basest, 
 and most unthinking kind — Captain Ylasfief, cruel 
 and hollow-hearted, with his unfathomable smile ; 
 and Lieutenant Tschekin, the slimy, savage, and un- 
 scrupulous Muscovite. With these came several 
 officers of the Cossack guard, with their elevated 
 eyebrows, black mustachioes, their keen features. 
 
rnGUT OF THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. 193 
 
 the plumes and cockades in their black fur caps, and 
 their glittering costumes, forming altogether a strik- 
 ing and picturesque group, when seen by the light 
 of several torches, which streamed through the deep 
 and small arch, or doorway, of the keep in which 
 Ivan was confined. 
 
 The portcullis of this tower was up ; and Balgonie 
 could perceive its row of lower bars, like a line of 
 black fangs in an open jaw, between him and the 
 outline of the lighted archway. 
 
 ^^What is the matter. Colonel Bernikoff,’’ ask- 
 ed Balgonie ; what is the cause of all this 
 alarm ? ” 
 
 Matter enough ! We have had sax alerte — the 
 place seems to be invested by troops — Infantry of 
 the Line, by all the devils — the head of a column — 
 look for yourself, Balgonie ! ” exclaimed Bernikoff, 
 with an oath. 
 
 To omit the Christian name of a person addressed, 
 and that of his father, also, is a direct insult in 
 Russia ; but Balgonie heeded it not then. He hur- 
 ried to the curtain wall which faced the landside, 
 the outer gate, and draw-bridge and then, by the 
 light of a torch, he could see that which certainly 
 seemed to be the head of a column — a front rank 
 of nearly fifty men, clad in the hideous uniform 
 then worn by the Russian army, before it was 
 altered, a few years after, by the superior taste of 
 the notorious Major Semple Lisle, a Scottish adven- 
 
194 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 turer,* who was well known as a lounger about St. 
 James’s Park, London, in 1804. Their coats were 
 green, lined and faced with red, very tight in the 
 body, with preposterously long skirts, tight breeches, 
 and boots to the knees, with cocked hats, having 
 long flannel flaps to cover the ears in Winter. 
 
 By the light of the same torch, Balgonie could 
 see the bayonets flxed ; and that two officers, with 
 their sabres drawn, and a drummer, were in front of 
 them little line. Having possession of the parole 
 and countersign, which, no doubt, had been betrayed 
 to them by the absent Jagouski, the whole party 
 had contrived to delude the Putparooschick (sub- 
 lieutenant) in charge of the outer guard, and were 
 now past the first barrier, and had actually taken 
 possession of the drawbridge, which they had lowered 
 across the Neva. The gate and guns of the second 
 barrier were yet to be forced or passed ; and thus 
 these midnight visitors were in a species of trap. 
 
 Too well could Balgonie recognise in the two 
 officers — Basil Mierowitz, wearing the familiar uni- 
 form of the Regiment of Smolensko ; and TJsakoff, 
 in the gay trappings of the Grenadiers of Valiko- 
 lutz ; and now, for the second time, their drummer 
 beat a chamade^ or summons for a parley, but as 
 yet there was no response. 
 
 Balgonie hastened after Bernikoff and the other 
 
 * Vide Life of Major J. G. Semple Lisle, written by him- 
 self, London, 1800. Printed for W. Stewart, 194, Piccadilly.'* 
 
THE NIGHT OF THE 15TH OF SEPTEMBER. 195 
 
 officers. They had now ascended to the chamber o£ 
 the unfortunate Ivan, from whose presence they had 
 somewhat roughly expelled the chaplain. Father 
 Chrysostom. On entering, he found that the royal 
 recluse had sprung from bed — inspired by natural 
 alarm, on finding his chamber suddenly entered at 
 midnight, and full of armed men ; but Ivan mani- 
 fested no indignation — he was too gentle, too sub- 
 dued, and completely broken in spirit for that. 
 
 His singularly beautiful face was very pale ; there 
 was a strange calmness in his manner ; and whatever 
 he thought or anticipated, there was more of calm 
 inquiry than of fear in his tone and in the expres- 
 sion of his fine soft eyes. Over his night-dress he 
 had thrown a robe-de-chambre of fine scarlet cloth 
 edged with white ermine ; and in this attire, with 
 his long hair and delicate features, so chastened in 
 expression by long solitude and complete seclusion 
 from the outer world, he seemed more like a tall 
 handsome woman, than a young man of three and 
 twenty years. 
 
 What is this you tell me. Colonel Bernikoff,” he 
 was asking, as Balgonie entered ; ^‘my unhappy life 
 threatened, say you ? ” 
 
 Even so,” said Bernikoff hoarsely, while avert- 
 ing his stealthy eyes, from the young man’s open 
 and earnest face ; even so, Ivan Antonovitch ; but, 
 your death will not be of our seeking.” 
 
 Whose then, whose then ? ” 
 
196 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Your friends.” 
 
 Oh, what dreadful paradox is this ? ” asked the 
 Prince calmly; ^^must I die, even as Demetrius 
 died ? ” 
 
 Yes,” replied the other hoarsely. 
 
 “ And wherefore ? ” 
 
 “ There are those without the gates who seek 
 you, and you must not fall alive into their hands,” 
 said Captain Ylasfief sternly, as he felt the point of 
 his sabre with a finger. 
 
 Alas ! I do not understand who can come to 
 seek me ! ” replied the poor Prince, shuddering 
 now, while an expression of horror began to spread 
 over lus fine face, — a horror gathered from the 
 fierce and relentless aspect he read in the visages 
 of those around him, — and he withdrew a pace or 
 so towards his bed, saying, in a touching voice : — 
 Ah, do not leave me, good Colonel Bernikoff, 
 
 or at least give me a sword — a sword ” 
 
 Fool — child — dolt ! thou with a sword, and for 
 what purpose ? ” thundered Bernikoff, as he sought 
 to lash himself into the requisite pitch of fury ; 
 “ for what purpose, I say ? ” 
 
 That I may defend myself.” 
 
 ’Tis needless,” said Tschekin, with a cold smile; 
 “ we shall take every care of you.” 
 
 Oh, Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, my friend, my 
 good friend ! you I can trust — you, I can command 
 — come hither, and remain by my side,” said the 
 
THE JSIHHT OF THE loTH OF SEPTEMBER. 197 
 
 Prince, in an imploring accent, as a solemn fore- 
 boding came upon him when he saw the sabres 
 stealthily drawn from their scabbards on every side, 
 and even the terrible Nicholas Paulovitch drawing 
 near, dagger in hand, with his long lock of hair, his 
 scrowling front, and a cruel expression, the very 
 lust of blood, in his deep set stony e}^es. Carl, 
 Carl,” cried Ivan ; your hand ! ” 
 
 Captain Balgonie — he here ! ” roared Bernikoff, 
 with one of his terrible maledictions. 
 
 “ Oh Excellency ! ” implored Balgonie, scarcely 
 knowing what he should ask or urge. 
 
 “ Begone, sir, to the barrier gate, and keep the 
 guard there to their duty — begone, sir, 1 command 
 you, on your allegiance to the Empress ! ” 
 
 To refuse or linger were alike impossible, though 
 a wild cry of entreaty escaped the lips of the young 
 Prince, who sprang forward, but was thrust rough- 
 ly back tow^ards his couch by many hands and many 
 levelled weapons. 
 
 The sword of Damocles, which had hung over 
 his unhappy head so long, was about to descend at 
 last I 
 
 Balgonie, his heart swollen almost to bursting 
 with shame, rage, and grief, rushed down the stair 
 of the keep ; but at the foot, and just as he passed 
 where the old Chaplain Chrysostom was saying de- 
 voutly on his knees the prayers for the dying ^ he 
 heard a shrill and protracted cry of agony ring 
 
198 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 through the vaulted tower — a cry that made his 
 blood run cold ! 
 
 Humanity, generosity, and all his own good im- 
 pulses would have drawn him back to the side, and, 
 if possible, to the aid, of Ivan ; but the force of dis- 
 cipline, and a knowledge of his own utter power- 
 lessness, made liim pause : for he was but one man 
 — a young officer — a foreigner, too, opposed to a 
 whole garrison of ferocious and unscrupulous sol- 
 diers. 
 
 When, from the inner barrier gate, he looked up 
 to the window of Ivan’s room, he saw that the 
 lights had been extinguished and all was darkness 
 now. 
 
CHAPTEE XX. 
 
 MORNING OF THE 16tH SEPTEMBER. 
 
 HEN Bernikoff appeared with his group of 
 VW4 officers, Charlie Balgonie perceived that 
 there were spots of blood upon his long, white 
 leather gauntlets, that his sabre blade was broken 
 off within six inches of the hilt, and that a terrible 
 expression of ferocity clouded his features and those 
 of all around him, the glare of the uplifted torches 
 now paling as the light of day stole in, adding to 
 the sinister significance of their faces. 
 
 At that moment the drummer of the summoners 
 beat a chamade for the third time, and Bernikoff, 
 advancing to the klinket, or wicket, in the palisades 
 of the second inner gate, opened it, and, with a great 
 sternness of manner, demanded what they required. 
 
 The release of His Imperial Majesty Ivan lY.,” 
 replied Basil Mierowitz,in a firm voice, while courte- 
 ously saluting Bernikoff, in recognition of his supe- 
 rior rank. 
 
 “ If I refuse ” 
 
 ^^You do so at your own peril,’’ replied Basil, 
 as sternly and as proudly as if, instead of a few 
 discontented deserters and enthusiasts, the whole 
 armies of Russia were at his back. 
 
 199 
 
200 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 “ You cannot be mad enough, Basil Mierowitz, to 
 think of assaulting us ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ That may or not be, Excellency, according to 
 circumstances,” was the reply. 
 
 What troops are these under your orders ? ” 
 
 A guard of honour for the Emperor, if you 
 peacefully comply — the first portion of an investing 
 force, if you refuse,” replied Mierowitz ; but a sin- 
 ister gleam of triumph flashed in the malicious eyes 
 of Bernikoff, who gathered more of his real weak- 
 ness from this evasive reply, than the rash young 
 noble intended. 
 
 Listen, Colonel Bernikoff,” he continued, while 
 drawing from his breast a long paper of official as- 
 pect, to which several green and scarlet seals were 
 attached : Her Majesty Catharine II. — for a time 
 
 of all the Bussias — having come to the conclusion 
 of resigning the imperial crown (convinced at last 
 that she has no claim thereto), and of replacing it 
 on the head of the Emperor Ivan (son of Anthony 
 Ulric, Duke of Wolfenbuttel), whom she now feels 
 herself compelled to acknowledge as her lawful 
 sovereign, though basely, deposed in infancy by her 
 predecessors, the Empress Elizabeth, and the Em- 
 peror Peter III. ; therefore she hereby commands 
 you. Colonel Bernikoff, Governor of her Castle of 
 Schlusselburg, to set the Prince at liberty, with all 
 speed and honour.” 
 
 For a document and summons of this artful and 
 
MORNING OF THE 16tH OF SEPTEMBER. 201 
 
 remarkable nature, Bernikoff was altogether unpre- 
 pared. For a moment he grew deadly pale, but 
 for a moment only, and glanced at the startled faces 
 of those around him. Had he been too precipitate 
 in bloodshed ? 
 
 Where is Her Majesty, just now ? ” he asked. 
 
 In the palace of the Czars, at Novgorod.” 
 
 ‘‘ Was Novgorod so empty of all the great nobles 
 and officers of Russia, that a document of such a 
 nature was entrusted to a mere Lieutenant of In- 
 fantry — a deserter from Livonia ? ” said Bernikoff, 
 with sudden rage. ’Tis an imposture — a forgery- 
 there is but one God in Heaven — one monarch on 
 earth, the Empress Catharine ; and you, Mierowitz, 
 and ^11 who league with you, are but base dogs and 
 traitors ! ” 
 
 Forward!” cried Basil, brandishing his sabre; 
 storm the gate — baj^onet all who oppose us I ” 
 
 Long live Ivan Antonovitch — long live the Em- 
 peror!” exclaimed his soldiers, rushing forward. 
 But the klinket in the palisades was at once closed, 
 and secured against them by an enormous transverse 
 beam of wood ; and though a confused volley of mus- 
 ketry was exchanged between tliem and the main 
 guard, no one was struck, save Bernikoff, who stag- 
 gered back into the arms of Ylasfief, having been 
 bayoneted in the breast by the deserter Jagouski, 
 who drove his weapon between the palisades, nearly 
 finishing what Basil had begun by the blow of a 
 
202 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 musket, but which crushed the Colonel’s hat and 
 nearly fractured his skull. 
 
 “ Ah ! dogs and Asiatics, you have struck me ! ” 
 shouted Bernikoff, whose voice was hoarse with rage 
 and pain. ^^Dost know the penalty of wounding 
 an officer — of striking a soldier who wears a deco- 
 ration ? ” 
 
 Accursed Tartar, I neither know nor care. I 
 revenge my brother’s death at Zorndorf, my own 
 wrongs, and the murder of Peter III. ! ” replied the 
 exulting Cossack, with a bitter laugh. 
 
 May my right hand wither and my tongue 
 cleave to the roof of my mouth, wffien most I need 
 them both, if I have not a terrible vengeance for 
 all this work ! ” cried Bernikoff. Ylasfief , Tsche- 
 
 kin, show them their Prince ! ” 
 
 While the undaunted Basil and his friend TJsa- 
 koff, with their soldiers, proceeded to wheel round 
 a cannon of the outworks, a 32-pounder, for the 
 purpose of blowing open the klinket of the inner 
 barrier ; and while Balgonie, a silent but excited 
 and sick-hearted spectator of the whole affair, 
 lingered close by, heedless whether the round-shot 
 and grape, with which they were charging the gun, 
 came this way, or not, — a window in the first story 
 of the keep was dashed open, and while every torch 
 and every eye were uplifted to the place, a terrible 
 spectacle, which hushed all into momentary silence, 
 w^as exhibited. 
 
:MORNmG OF THE 10TH OF SEPTEMBER. 203 
 
 It was the dead body of the young and handsome 
 Ivan, suspended by the neck, at the end of a rope, 
 stripped even of his night-dress, cold and white as 
 the marble of Paros, and gashed with ten gaping 
 wounds ; for, as we are told in tlie newspapers of 
 the period, the unfortunate prince had struggled 
 some time for his life, and even broke the Gover- 
 nor’s sword in the conflict ; but assistance was 
 called for, and another bloody assassin (Ylasflef) ap- 
 peared, who flnished the horrid work.” 
 
 An exclamation of dismay and grief escaped 
 Balgonie, on beholding this appalling spectacle; 
 the weird and ghastly horror of which was enhanced 
 by the uncertain light in which it was exhibited, 
 and which imparted a wavering and almost life-like 
 action to the corpse, as with its long hair floating, 
 head and arms pendent, it swayed to and fro in the 
 morning wind against the castle wall. 
 
 “Hospodi pomilui ! TIosjpodi jpomilui ! cried 
 Basil Mierowitz, covering his face with his hands? 
 j and permitting the musket with which he had armed 
 himself to fall to the ground with a clash, which, 
 together with his most mournful exclamation, alone 
 broke the silence. 
 
 ^Behold,’ said Bernikoff, in cruel triumph, while 
 blasphemously using the words of Ezekiel — ^behold, 
 I take away from thee the desire of thine eyes with a 
 stroke !’ Glory to God and to the Empress ! This 
 
 *Lord have mercy upon us ! 
 
204 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 is your Emperor — now let him head your troops. 
 Doubtless he will make a fine figure on the Im- 
 perial throne.’"' 
 
 Oh ! Bernikoff,” exclaimed Basil, you are like 
 Judas, as we may see him at the Kazan church — 
 one hand on the mouth denoting treachery, and the 
 other on a bag of money.” 
 
 Thou liest, Lieutenant ! my fingers know more 
 of the grip of steel than of gold,” said the other 
 furiously, as he hurled the hilt of his broken sabre 
 at the speaker. 
 
 So — so — this has been your work and decision ? ” 
 
 Yes — how do you like it ? ” was the mocking 
 reply. 
 
 Thou art a cruel judge ; but remember the law 
 
 of Peter the Great ” 
 
 “ Which makes the judge answerable for his de- 
 cision ? ” 
 
 “ Yes.” 
 
 Then shall I content me, traitor, and be answer- 
 able for my decision as well as for its execution. I 
 have done my duty to the Czarina.” 
 
 You have done a deed for which hell must blush 
 and angels weep,” was the forcible reply of Miero- 
 witz, who seemed so overcome by grief and horror, 
 as to lose all self-possession ; for he now ordered his 
 men to disperse to the woods — to seek safety in 
 flight ; and then calmly taking off his sword-belt 
 ^nd sash, be threw them on the ground saying : — 
 
MORKINO OF THE 16tH OF SEPTEMBER. 206 
 
 Since my Imperial master is dead, further re- 
 sistance would be vain in me.” 
 
 He was almost immediately afterwards struck to 
 the earth, and made prisoner by Lieutenant Tschekin, 
 who, with a party of dismounted Cossacks, had stolen 
 through the casemates and galleries to a postern open- 
 ing on the rear of the drawbridge, and these, after 
 firing a confused volley with their pistols and mus- 
 ketoons, fell with their sharp crooked sabres upon 
 the now thoroughly disheartened adherents of Mi- 
 erowitz. Lieutenant LTsakoff and Jagouski alone 
 made any vigorous resistance, resolving not to be 
 taken alive. 
 
 Fighting desperately, almost back to back, the 
 former armed with the sabre of Mazeppa, and the 
 latter with a musket, and both bleeding from many 
 wounds, they were driven through the outer barrier 
 towards the town. On the pathway Jagouski stum- 
 bled over a comrade, and was taken ; but Apollo 
 Usakoff, with a shout in which triumph and despair 
 were mingled, leaped into the Neva, the waters of 
 which swept him away, and he was seen no more by 
 his pursuers. 
 
 When Tschekin’s Cossacks joined in the mele^e 
 with the fugitives, Balgonie sprang through the 
 klinket, sword in hand, resolved to succour his friend 
 at all hazards ; and fortunately arrived just in time 
 to save him (when struck down and trod under foot) 
 from the bulky giant Nicholas Paulovitch, who, with 
 
206 
 
 THE SECRET EISPATOH. 
 
 a clubbed musket, was about to give him a blow 
 that must inevitably have proved fatal. 
 
 Paulo vitch he ran through the heart — or at least 
 the place where his heart might be supposed to have 
 been — and spurning him off the blade with his foot, 
 hurled the snorting ruffian to the ground, and raised 
 his friend, with the assistance of a soldier and Lieu- 
 tenant Tschekin. 
 
 Made prisoner, and by you too, Carl ! ” said 
 Basil, reproachfully and in a low voice, for he was 
 faint with wounds and bruises. 
 
 “ By me, but to save you.’’ 
 
 Seek rather to save Natalie, if you can,” he 
 whispered ; she is, she is — ” 
 
 Where, where ? ” said Balgonie, impetuously 
 and imploringly. 
 
 But there was no reply. Basil had fainted, and 
 was borne into the Castle of Schlusselburg, a pris- 
 oner of State. 
 
 Balgonie never saw the face of his friend again ! 
 
 So ended for a time, a scheme, the importance of 
 which was only equalled by its bold recklessness — 
 the scheme of two subaltern officers to revolutionize 
 the vast empire of Russia, and to subvert the firm 
 dominion of Catharine II., one of the most power- 
 ful and popular, though licentious, monarchs that 
 ever sat on the barbarous throne of the Czars ; and 
 such was the terrible sequel to the Secret Dispatch 
 of Balgonie. 
 
Morning of the 16th of September. 207 
 
 Day had completely broken when he was sum- 
 moned by Bernikoff. Shuddering as he passed 
 through the court of the Castle and under the very 
 window where the corpse was yet swaying mourn- 
 fully to and fro in the morning breeze that swept 
 from the broad waters of the vast lake, whose rip- 
 ples were shining like gold in the first beams of the 
 autumnal sun, Charlie sought the presence of this 
 detestable personage, the thunder of whose wrath 
 he feared was about to descend upon himself. 
 
 He found the Colonel in his shirt sleeves, and 
 almost covered with blood, which was fiowing from 
 a wound in his breast and another on the head, from 
 whence it was trickling to the ends of his long and 
 snaky grey mustacheos. To both of these cuts the 
 barber was about to apply dressings, while the pa- 
 tient solaced himself by scheming out some dread- 
 ful punishment for Jagouski, who, with several 
 others, had fallen into his gentle hands, and by ut- 
 tering deep oaths, and imbibing deep draughts from a 
 great wooden bowl of quass, dashed with fiery vodka. 
 
 Balgonie, whose thoughts ran chiefly upon how to 
 discover and succour hJatalie, was roused to attention 
 by Bernikoff saying grimly: — 
 
 Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, for aiding in the cap- 
 ture of the rebel Mierowitz, I thank you ; suspicions 
 I had, but they are gone. You are now, perhaps, 
 to rejoin the Regiment of Smolensko, and shall 
 bear a dispatch from me to Lieutenant-General 
 
208 
 
 teE SECRET iDiSPATca. 
 
 Weymarn and Lieutenant-Colonel Casclikin (who 
 are both in St. Petersburg), relating the affair of the 
 last twelve hours. Ylastief shall prepare it, and I 
 shall sign it. Place a feather in the seal, lest the 
 Captain lingers as he did at Louga ! Here, Carl 
 Ivanovitcli, taste the quass ; His the trisna of Ivan 
 the Unknown person ! ’’ 
 
 There was something so horrible in this levity 
 and impiety to the Cossacks, that even they ex- 
 changed uneasy glances ; for the trisna at funeral 
 feasts is a mixture of rum, beer, and wine, and is an 
 ancient Sclavonian beverage. When it is handed 
 round, all stand up uncovered, the clergy recite a 
 solemn prayer, and at its close the trisna is drunk 
 to the health of the departed Christian soul ; so 
 Balgonie shuddered, as he thought of the gashed 
 and dishonored corpse that swung by the neck with- 
 out the castle wall. 
 
 This emotion did not escape the fierce eyes of 
 Bernikoff, though his wounds were most severe, and 
 his mind was wandering. 
 
 Nay, look not at me thus, Scot,” said the 
 genuine old Bussian fatalist ; ‘‘ God willed it that 
 Prince Ivan should be put in my charge ; and the 
 devil, together with my duty to the Empress, in- 
 spired me to destroy him. What is done, is done, 
 and is the will of God ; and you know, or ought to 
 know, our Muscovite proverb — the Czar is high, and 
 God is everywhere ! ” 
 
MORNING OF THE 16TH OF SEPTEMBER. 209 
 
 “ Three times has this old reprobate mentioned 
 that terrible Name, and each time bowing his sinful 
 head!” thought Charlie, with disgust and wonder. 
 
 Hah ! ” resumed Bernikoff, pursuing his own 
 thoughts, and clenching his teeth in rage and pain, 
 ‘^did that suckling of a Lieutenant think to deceive 
 me — I, who have been forty years in the Bussian 
 army, and have to deal with the most cunning 
 scoundrels between the Black Sea and the Baltic I 
 Jagouski, too. I’ll fill his mouth with gunpoM'der, 
 put a fuse between his teeth, and blow his head off. 
 By St. Sergius, I will I But, holy Saint, alleviate 
 these pangs, by ever so little, and this night six 
 pounds of the finest wax shall burn before thee.” 
 He gnashed his teeth with pain, and added, Be 
 ready to ride in an hour. Captain ; till then, leave 
 me.” 
 
CHAPTEK XXI. 
 
 UNDERGROUND. 
 
 HE Empress’s court of Secret Chancery soon 
 ^2/ decided on the fate of Basil Mierowitz ; the 
 Count, his father, and his cousin Mariolizza, who 
 had been passive, though suspected in the matter, 
 had their cases taken into future consideration, so 
 they were kept close prisoners while their proper- 
 ties and possessions were given up to pillage and 
 military execution. Basil was condemned to be 
 broken alive upon the wheel; but the Empress, 
 who had a particular tenderness for handsome men, 
 mitigated his punishment to the less severe one 
 of being beheaded.” 
 
 A brief paragraph in the London Gazette of the 
 23rd October records this brave fellow’s death, 
 just fourteen days after his rash affair at Schlussel- 
 burg : 
 
 M. Mierowitz, in pursuance of his sentence, was 
 publicly beheaded on Wednesday last ; he behaved 
 at his execution, as he had done throughout the 
 whole transaction, with the greatest resignation. 
 Six of the soldiers and under-officers who were en- 
 gaged with him ran the gantelope the same day ; 
 
 ^10 
 
UNDERGROUND 
 
 211 
 
 they were so severely whipped that it is said three 
 of them are since dead. Many more are to be pun- 
 ished. One, Usakoff, a Lieutenant in the Regi- 
 ment of Welikolutz {sic) who was privy to the de- 
 sign, was accidentally drowned.’’ 
 
 Notwithstanding his rank and years, old Count 
 Mierowitz was retained in a dungeon among a 
 number of miserable Russian rogues and Polish 
 prisoners, clad in filthy sheepskin shoubahs, many 
 of them being afflicted with the terrible disease 
 known as ^lica jpolonica^ or matted hair, which 
 hung over their necks in clotted lumps, every tube 
 being swollen and dilated with globules of blood. 
 
 The lower vaults of Schlusselburg were those 
 built by Ivan the Terrible, for the reception of a 
 few of the revolters of Novgorod, after he had put 
 twenty-five thousand of her citizens to the sword. 
 They were such prisons as — ^let us hope — are no 
 longer in use, even in Russia ; although the London 
 press has asserted that, until lately, exactly such 
 oubliettes or dungeons were in active operation, and 
 never without tenants, under the royal rule of the 
 deposed Francis II., and prior to the remodelling 
 of Italy by Yictor Emmanuel. 
 
 They were like the frightful cells of the Bastile, 
 which Victor Hugo has described in Notre Dame 
 those of the Inquisition at Goa or Madrid, or of 
 old castles of the middle ages ; but apart from the 
 happily departed horrors of such places, even Eng- 
 
212 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 lish jails have been little better ithan living graves 
 within the memory of many now alive ; for one of 
 the greatest glories of modern civilization, in all 
 countries, have been the amelioration of prisons 
 and their government, and the substitution of mercy 
 and protection in their general, economy for that 
 irresponsible despotism and wanton cruelty which 
 have formed such ample materials for the romancer 
 and novelist to excite compassion and even dismay. 
 
 Yet it is exactly such a place — a prison of the 
 middle ages — a rival to that Chillon to which 
 Byron’s genius has given a greater name than ever 
 its terrors won it — we are now about to describe : 
 One of the lower vaults of Schlusselburg, a den, the 
 floor of which was below the rocks whereon the 
 seals of Ladoga basked in the sunshine, and which 
 was consequently liable to be flooded during those 
 inundations that, at certain seasons, overflow all the 
 country for a great way north, so that no crops 
 will grow save upon the eminences. 
 
 Vaulted with stone, it was nearly square, and 
 measured twelve feet each way, with a floor that 
 sloped down at one end, having been unevenly 
 hewn out when the rock was pierced ; and from a 
 portion of this rock sprang the solid arch of granite 
 blocks which formed the roof. A narrow slit, six 
 inches broad by twelve high, and having even in 
 that small space a thick iron bar, admitted to the 
 interior a feeble ray of light. This slit was paj’tly 
 
tJNDERtoOUNDi 
 
 213 
 
 built of stone, but its sill was the living rock of 
 Schliisselbiu’g. It opened towards the lake, but 
 gave no prospect save the clouds, for it was high 
 up in the wall ; yet the melancholy cries of the 
 waterfowl and of the seabirds, which often came 
 up the Neva from the Baltic, were heard through 
 it at times. 
 
 The prisoner, when seated on the stone bench 
 which formed a bed or seat alternately, could only 
 see the changing hues of the sky. and patches of 
 cloud, and know by the darkness which gradually 
 obscured this mere shot-hole that day was passing 
 away, and that another night, chill, dark, dreary, 
 and hopeless, was at hand. 
 
 As the floor sloped down some twelve inches or 
 more, the lower end was always full of water, into 
 which the slime that gathered on the vault of the 
 arch fell at intervals with a regular splash that, to 
 the silent and apparently forgotten prisoner, be- 
 came maddening in its monotony of sound, by day 
 and night, by morning and evening, by dawn and 
 sunset. Then, as the tides rose and fell, or as the 
 waters of the vast inland lake of Ladoga are af- 
 fected by the Baltic stopping the downward flow 
 of the Neva, or by rains flooding the many tribu- 
 taries that join them, so did this dark pool in the 
 dungeon rise and fall, when the current oozed 
 through secret and unknown channels or crannies 
 in the granite rocks. 
 
214 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 It was in this vault, or one of those adjoining — 
 such a den as that in which Dante placed his De- 
 mon — that the betrayed wife of Count Orloff, the 
 beautiful daughter of the Empress Elizabeth, was 
 drowned, ten years after the date of this history, 
 when the waters of the Neva rose ten feet; and, as 
 they subsided, bore her body to the Gulf of Fin- 
 land. 
 
 No one could live very long in such a place — 
 low, damp, cold, and horrible. And well did Berni- 
 koff know this, when, in the blind transports of 
 rage and agony resulting from his double wounds, 
 he barbarously consigned Natalie Mierowna to such 
 a place — ay, even Natalie the soft and delicate, the 
 high-bred and tenderly-nurtured daugher of Count 
 Mierowitz ; and she had now been in the under- 
 ground vault for three days and nights, — seventy- 
 two hours, — which to her had resembled a horrible 
 and protracted nightmare. 
 
 She was ignorant, as yet, of her brother’s execu- 
 tion, a week before. Betrayed by one of their most 
 trusted adherents, as the price of his own liberty, 
 she and Katinka had been taken. Of the fate of 
 the latter she knew nothing ; a mere Polish waiting- 
 maid, a pretty soubrette, she had too probably be- 
 come the lawful prey of the Cossacks, whom Nata- 
 lie had last seen in the forest, with terrible signifi- 
 cance rattling their dice on the kettle-drum head. 
 
 For herself, the poor girl only knew that she 
 
UNDERGROUND. 
 
 215 
 
 was placed there to await the pleas tu’e of her Em- 
 press and the Grand Chancellor. 
 
 Hope w^as dead, completely, in her heart ; and 
 though the desire to live was strong, her former life 
 seemed all a dream ; or something that had happened 
 long, long ago ! 
 
 Crouching on a damp pallet that lay on the couch 
 of stone, her hair dishevelled, her dress more than 
 ever torn, discolored, and disordered, her snowy 
 arms and hands stripped of every ornament and 
 ring, her tender feet well-nigh shoeless, her eyes 
 half dossed and surrounded by dark inflamed circles, 
 her cheeks sunk and haggard, — it would be diflicult 
 to recognise in her the once beautiful and brilliant 
 Natalie, whose coquetry had excited the ready jeal- 
 ousy of Catharine in that fatal Mazurka ; the Nat- 
 alie of the imperial salons at Moscow, at Oranien- 
 baum, or the palace of Tsarsky Selo ; or the Natalie 
 of that princely old chateau near the Luuga — the 
 proud, bright-eyed, and beautiful girl whom Charlie 
 Balgonie had loved, and worshipped as a god- 
 ^ dess. 
 
 As she crouched in a species of ^stupor beside a 
 wooden bowl of stale water and a mouldy loaf of 
 black bread, there seemed to be no breath in her 
 tender nostrils, no sound in those little ears over 
 which the black hair rolled in unheeded masses — no 
 sound save the monotonous plash of the dropping 
 slime. She was pale as white marbel, — cold as 
 
216 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 death, — a prey to utter confusion rather than pro- 
 found grief. There were times when she felt and 
 thought and knew of nothing ; but there were others 
 when all the past — the memory of her ruined house, 
 her shattered love, her slaughtered friends, their 
 fatal project, and her lost position in society — 
 brought a cruel and keen pang to her heart, and 
 made her writhe and start and wring her hands, but 
 not weep ; for she had not a tear left; and her hard 
 dry eyeballs were the only warm part of her shud- 
 dering frame. 
 
 When she did rouse herself to calm reflection and 
 the realities of her position, thought well-nigh drove 
 her mad. 
 
 Her old father — his sturdy figure, his venerable 
 beard and white eyebrows, his silver hair queued by 
 a simple ribbon, his quaint old-fashioned costume of 
 the first Peter’s time, rose vividly before her ; and 
 with a gush of memory came all his peculiarities of 
 disposition, his warmth of heart and temper, his 
 kindness and irritability, his pride of race and fam- 
 ily. Where were all these now ? 
 
 Her lover, too — his voice, and eyes, and gentle 
 manner came next, to add to her pangs— for him, too, 
 must she relinquish for ever ; no shelter was there 
 now for her save the cold grave, which was perhaps 
 to receive them all ! Basil, Usakoif, and Mariolizza 
 — alas ! terrible though her own sufferings, she little 
 knew those to which the fairer beauty and more 
 
tJKDERGROtTND. 
 
 217 
 
 unwary tongue of Mariolizza had subjected that un- 
 happy girl. 
 
 The excellent taste, the polished education, and 
 high accomplishments of Natalie, which were so far 
 superior to those of most ladies of her own rank and 
 country then, gave a greater poignancy to the hor- 
 rors of reality and imagination ; yet imagination 
 could supply no horror but what was real, and stern- 
 ly so. 
 
 Their princely old dwelling amid the pine forests 
 — never more would she see its dome of polished 
 copper shining in the sun, or the wooded domain 
 that stretched for uncounted versts around it ; or her 
 father’s patrimonial village, nestling by the Louga, 
 which bore his rafts of timber to the sea, and by 
 night reflected the glare of those furnaces which 
 were another source of vast wealth, and the means 
 of procuring a thousand luxuries. 
 
 Better would it ha^e been, had she and they and 
 all succumbed to Catharine’s iron rule, than sought 
 the freedom of Ivan IV.; but it was too late — too 
 late, now ! 
 
 W as it all a dream from which she must awaken ? 
 Strange it was, that as weariness, sleep, or a stupor 
 stole over her, scraps of songs, frivolous ones es- 
 pecially, airs from operas, and so forth, occurred to 
 lier drowsy ear, as if her brain was turning ; and to 
 these the Altering plash and the sound of the rising 
 waves and wind without seemed to mark a cadence. 
 
218 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 Suddenly a scream escaped her ; she was in total 
 darkness. Amid her sleep or stupor, a fourth night 
 had come on — a night of storm, too, for she heard 
 the roar of the autumn rain, as it descended like a 
 vast sheet upon the lake without. 
 
 Cold and slimy things had often crossed her slen- 
 der ankles, making her shriek and shudder; but 
 now, she became sensible that her feet were com- 
 pletely immersed in water ; that the wind was bel- 
 lowing without and rolling the waves against the 
 rocks ; and that the current of the lake was flooding 
 the floor of her vault, and rising fast within it. 
 
 It rose with appalling rapidity : and now the ter- 
 ror of a dreadful death made Natalie utter a succes- 
 sion of piercing shrieks, mingled with prayers to 
 heaven. But her cries were unheard ; for the same 
 cold, icy tide that flooded her cell, tilled all the cor- 
 ridors by which it and others on the same floor were 
 approached. 
 
 Rapidly it rose, this dark, silent, and terrible tide 
 — rapidly and without a sound. 
 
 She sprang upon her stone couch, but already the 
 pallet was floated away. Up yet rose the invad- 
 ing water, and it was soon nearly to her waist ; and 
 gasping and shuddering cries were mingled with her 
 prayers. A little more, and the narrow slit through 
 which she could hear the bellowing wind and see 
 the black clouds careering past one red and flery 
 northern star — the last gleam of life and of the 
 
tNDERGROtJJfD. 
 
 219 
 
 outer world — w'ould vanish from her eyes, as she 
 perished in that miserable tomb ; even as the Prin- 
 cess Orloff and many others have done, helpless and 
 unheeded in their djdng agony — drowned miserably, 
 like the prison rats that swam around them. 
 
 In the last energies of her despair, she made her 
 way to the enormously thick door which closed this 
 trap of stone, and, applying her lips to the joints? 
 shrieked loudly again and again for succor, and beat 
 wildly and fruitlessly with her tender hands upon its 
 massive planks and iron bolts. 
 
 Her bram seemed bursting, for she was suffocat- 
 ing as the air lessened. She thought she saw a red 
 light shining through the crannies of the doorway ; 
 but whether this were fancy or reality, it Avas im- 
 possible to say — as a faintness came over her, and 
 she sank down choking and drowning in the flood 
 that rose within the walls and agains the door of 
 the prison. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIL 
 
 OVER THEIR WINE. 
 
 T[?EAVY and sad was the heart of Charlie Bal* 
 •*•/ gonie when, on the evening of the 16 th Sep- 
 tember, that which was subsequent to the episode at 
 Schlusselburg, he saw the domes and towers of St. 
 Petersburg glittering in gold and bronze, in green 
 and fiery or fantastic colours, amid the rich glow of 
 a ruddy sunset ; and where rising from the haze 
 of the vast city, the polished cupola of St. Isaac’s 
 Cathedral, and the slender spire of the Admiralty, 
 like a needle of fiame, seemed to float in mid air. 
 
 As he entered the first guarded barrier, he met a 
 party of Lancers riding at a trot, their tall fur caps 
 having scarlet kalpecs and large plumes, their 
 lances, each with a long bannerole of the same color 
 waving in the wind. They escorted a covered 
 kabitka, or wagon, and were led by the Count de 
 Balmain, a Scottish officer, who, in after years, 
 stormed Kaffa, in the Crimea. 
 
 Whither go you. Count he asked. 
 
 For Schlusselburg — the place of sorrow.” 
 
 With a prisoner, of course ?” 
 
 Yes, I regret to say, with the niece of Count 
 220 
 
OYER THEIR WINE. 
 
 221 
 
 Mierowitz, with Mademoiselle Mariolizza. She is 
 to be confined under a warrant from the Grand 
 Chancellor — poor girl !” 
 
 Sadder and heavier grew the honest heart of 
 Balgonie, as the escort and its hearse-like carriage 
 passed on ; and, as he looked after it, the fair merry 
 face, the full and voluptuous figure, the gay manner 
 and remarkable d' esprit of the betrothed of 
 
 poor Basil, as he had last seen her at Louga, came 
 back vividly to memory now. 
 
 Balgonie was at St. Petersburg when Mierowitz 
 was executed, and when other horrors followed. 
 Moreover, he was closely and repeatedly interrogated 
 by the Grand Chancellor, the Privy Councellor, the 
 Count Panim, by Count Orloff (the present lover of 
 the Empress), and by General Weymarn, as to all he 
 knew and had seen of the conspirators: — so closely, 
 that nothing surprised him so much as to find that 
 no suspicion was attached to himself. But being a 
 soldier of fortune, who possessed nothing in the 
 world but his sword and his epaulettes, he was not 
 worth suspecting by the Imperial Government. 
 
 Ere long, the name of Natalie came before the 
 Secret Chancery, as a prisoner in Schlusselburg; 
 and, like the rest, she was tried and condemned in 
 her absence, undefended and unheard ; and sent- 
 enced, too, amid the solitude of her prison. 
 
 To Balgonie the charm of life seemed to have 
 passed away; and, during the week or two that 
 
222 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 followed his return to St. Petersburg, dreary, wea- 
 ry, and unmeaning, indeed, seemed the routine of 
 his duties as aide-de-camp at the vast parades, the 
 brilliant receptions, the courts-martial, and other 
 public affairs to which he followed his cJief^ Gen- 
 eral Weymarn, at the palaces of Tsarsky Selo, or 
 Oranienbaum, and elsewhere, while ignorant of the 
 fate of Natalie — while the very life of her he loved 
 hung in the balance. 
 
 When compared with their fate, how happy 
 seemed those lovers, who, though separated for a 
 period, could look confidently forward through the 
 long succession of hours, of days and nights, of 
 weeks, and months, or even years, and reckon with 
 certainty on the time of reunion ! With him and 
 Natalie, time stretched into a length that seemed 
 interminable : their future had no background ; 
 their separation was one without hope. 
 
 Charlie, in his desperation, applied to the Mar- 
 quis de Bausset and to Sir. George Macartney, 
 then the Ambassadors from France and Britain; 
 and both received his verbal prayers — he dared not 
 write on such a subject — for mercy to the Count’s 
 family; but they were unheeded and the Ministers 
 replied only by bows, grimaces, and shrugs of their 
 diplomatic shoulders. Their interference was im- 
 possible — quite ; and, unfortunately, his old patron. 
 Admiral Thomas Mackenzie, was with the fieet in 
 the Black Sea. 
 
OYER THEIR WINE. 
 
 228 
 
 The suspicions excited against his Regiment and 
 the Glenadiers of Valikolutz, might procure the 
 banishment of both; he feared it in the form of 
 service in Siberia, or at the Crimean lines of 
 Perecop. In either case, unless Weymarn stood 
 his friend, how could he hope to succour Natalie ! 
 
 At every tea-house, hotel, and cafe, his uniform 
 of the Smolensko Infantry, and the knowledge that 
 he was the staff officer who had been in Schlussel- 
 burg, and who brought the first tidings of the late 
 affair, made him an object of special interest ; but 
 the subject was alike a perilous and painful one. 
 Walls have many ears in Russia; so he was com- 
 pelled to be silent, or discreet, even to rudeness, 
 though the following declaration, which was issued 
 by the Empress, might have allayed his fears : — 
 
 “ We, Catharine the Second, by the Grace of 
 God, Empress and Sovereign of all the Russias, 
 &c., &c., make known to our Regiment of Smolen- 
 sko Infantry that, according to the equity which we 
 exert towards our faithful subjects, we cannot re- 
 present to ourselves, without profound grief, how 
 much that regiment must be afflicted, for having 
 among its officers a wretch in the person of Miero- 
 witz ; nevertheless, as the crime of one man cannot 
 affect those who had no part in it, and that, besides, 
 we know the bravery with which the regiment has 
 distinguished itself upon all occasions, its attach- 
 
224 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 ment to strict discipline, and its exactness in the 
 military duty of our empire ; therefore we grant it, 
 through our imperial good-will, the same assurances 
 of protection which it has in all times deserved. In 
 consequence, we forbid all and every one, to re- 
 proach or upbraid the said regiment concerning the 
 treason of Mierowitz, under pain of incurring our 
 indignation, and drawing on themselves the effects 
 of our just resentment. 
 
 {Signed) “ Catharine.” 
 
 Hope seemed to revive a little after the issue of 
 this conciliatory oukaz ; but it was speedily dashed, 
 when Balgonie, on returning from Cronstadt, 
 whither he had been sent by General Weymarn, 
 suddenly met Captain Ylasfief face to face, near the 
 palace of the favorite Lanskoi. 
 
 This personage he wmild have avoided like a toad 
 or a leper; but from him only might he learn some- 
 thing of her he loved in Schlusselburg, that hateful 
 place to which the Captain was returning ; so, over- 
 coming or rather concealing, his repugnance, he ad- 
 journed wdth him to a cafe, and ordered wine. 
 
 I dare say you have heard,” said Ylasfief, with 
 a strange leer in his eyes, as he tossed his hat and 
 sabre on the sofa and deposited his jack-booted 
 lim-;s on another, how the estates of the Count 
 and those of Usakoff have been sold or gifted 
 away; pillaged and ravaged by Lanskoi with a 
 
OVER THEIR WINE* 
 
 226 
 
 party of Tchernemoski Cossacks ; and that the 
 plunder has been stored up in Schlusselburg ? ” 
 
 “ Something of all this I have heard,” replied 
 Balgonie, when the waiter had filled their glasses 
 and withdrawn, and — and — but you have Ihere 
 
 two ladies of the Count’s family ? ” 
 
 True — Mademoiselle Mariolizza, who was en- 
 gaged to Mierowitz, and the Count’s draughter : one 
 beautifully fair, the other black-haired like a Pole. 
 Poor girls ! ” he continued, while leisurely filling 
 the large china bowl of a tasselled pipe, which sus- 
 piciously resembled one Charlie had often seen the 
 old Count smoking, I remember them both in 
 happier and brighter times : but those who play 
 with fire will, you know, be burned. The sentences 
 on all have been found, recorded, and, in two in- 
 stances, executed ; and they are truly terrible ! ” 
 Executed — the sentence ! ” replied Balgonie, in 
 a faint voice. 
 
 ^^Tes; you have been four day*s at Cronstadt : 
 well, in those four days many things have been 
 done — a light ; thank you. The Count is now 
 travelling towards Tobolsk under an escort of Bal- 
 main’s Lancers. There he will have to hunt the 
 ermine, cultivate asafcetida, or dig in the mines, 
 with a collar at his neck, for the remainder of his 
 days ; but for the ladies of his family, a more severe 
 punishment was reserved : ah ! he is a stern fellow, 
 old Panim ! ” 
 
226 
 
 THE SECRET DlSRATCH, 
 
 “ How — what ? Ylasfief, you jest ? ” 
 
 ’Tis no jest : we don’t jest on such matters in 
 Russia,” replied Ylasfief, who was too thorough a 
 Tou ^ — too used up,” in fact — to care for what any 
 woman might suffer or undergo ; for every human 
 emotion and sympathy were dead in this man now. 
 
 What new horrors am I to hear ? ” exclaimed 
 Balgonie, with passionate vehemence, as he dashed 
 his heavy Turkish sabre on the table. 
 
 Ylasfief smiled sourly, and his cunning eyes 
 twinkled. 
 
 You are a Scot, like Balmain,” said he disdain- 
 fully ; ^ ^and as the T urks — those accursed unbelievers 
 — say, but truly, ^ Those who have never seen the 
 world think it is all like their father’s house.’ Pass 
 the bottle — ’tis Cracow wine this, and not worth 
 four ducats the fiask. In short, the — the two ladies 
 of the Count’s family, in the wildness of their grief, 
 — Mariolizza especially, — on hearing of the death 
 of Mierowitz, permitted their tongues to run riot, 
 and to say such things of Her Imperial Majesty and 
 some of her favorites, such as Count Orloff, Lanskoi, 
 the Grenadier, and so forth, as no woman would 
 pardon, you understand ; so they are to be given in 
 succession to le maitre d^entre les ^qaules — the 
 master of the shoulders,” added Ylasfief, with a 
 species of laugh at the strange expression wliich he 
 saw gathering in Balgonie’s face. 
 
 Explain, I implore you, explain I ” asked the 
 
OVER THEIR WLISTE. 
 
 227 
 
 latter, with quivering lips, as he set down a crystal 
 goblet of Hungarian wine untasted on the table. 
 
 Mademoiselle Mariolizza — but you don’t drink 
 fairly, Ivanovitch — has received six blows of the 
 knout. The torturer is a new man, and mangled 
 her cruelly. She has had her tongue cut out, and 
 her forehead branded with the executioner’s mark,^ 
 and she goes to Siberia as soon as she.recovers ; but 
 she will never reach it alive, even if she escapes the 
 fever that has now seized her ; for as the whole 
 family has been degraded, — declared infamous and 
 without protection, — being tongueless, she will be- 
 come the prey of the Cossacks en route. Once be- 
 yond the Volga, we never know what happens. The 
 Count’s daughter will undergo exactly similar pun- 
 ishment; and, if she survives it, they will be merci- 
 fully permitted to travel together : and there ends 
 the House of Mierowitz, which boasts of its descent 
 from Ruric of Kiev — Riiric the Varagian of Old 
 Ladoga ! ” 
 
 With wonderful coolness of manner, over his wine 
 and pipe, almost with an occasional jest, the cruel 
 and snakelike Vlasfief — who, as a parvenu of the 
 foundling hospital (the son of a goat,) hated the 
 hereditary aristocracy — detailed these matters ; and 
 Balgonie felt as if a black cloud enveloped him. 
 He heard the Captain talking ; but his mind and 
 
 The latter punishment is abolished now. 
 
228 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 thoughts were far, far away; and after a time he 
 found himself alone.- 
 
 yiasfief had mounted and ridden off ; and me- 
 chanically, like an automaton, Balgonie had bidden 
 him adieu at the portico of the cafe, and returned to 
 finish his wine, as one in a waking dream : nor was 
 it until the bell of St. Isaac’s tolled midnight, when 
 the lights were burned low, the fire in the peitchka 
 had died away, the decanters were empty, and he 
 saw a drowsy waiter hovering near him, that he rose 
 to depart ; for to him, now, all places seemed alike. 
 
 In the street a shower of tears revived him ; and 
 he wept unseen, like a great boy, while grinding his 
 teetli and twisting his mustaches like a furious and 
 desperate man. Russia, her laws, her rulers, her 
 very air, he loathed and detested. But what was he 
 to do ? — which way was he to turn ? — ^was he to 
 permit these horrors, and live ? 
 
 He had been present when the Regiment of Smo- 
 lensko guarded the punishment of Madame Lapou- 
 chin, one of the most beautiful women of the Im- 
 perial Court, where she shone like a planet, was 
 loved, admired, and more than once fought for. An 
 alleged conspiracy brought her to the knout in all 
 her nude loveliness, in the light of open day ; and 
 Charlie remembered that sickening scene, before the 
 eyes of assembled thousands, and how, as the Abbe 
 d’Anterroche records, in a few moments all the 
 skin of her tender back was cut away in small slips, 
 
OYER THEIR WINE. 
 
 229 
 
 most of which remained hanging on her shift. Her 
 tongue was cut out, immediately after ; and she was 
 banished into Siberia.’’ 
 
 Oh Natalie, Natalie ! ” he could but repeat, 
 while he wrung his hands ; and thus the dawn of day 
 found him. 
 
 After mature consideration of his position, his 
 powerlessness, and the difficulties that beset him, 
 with the horrors impending over Natalie, poor Char- 
 lie Balgonie felt maddened, crushed, and heart- 
 broken. Could he see her perish without a struggle, 
 an effort, however reckless, fruitless, and futile, on 
 her behalf, even if he pistoled the executioner? 
 Could he know that she too, probably, would die, in 
 agony and mutilation, a horrible and ignominious 
 death,— she, so gentle, delicate, and pure, — and 
 would he survive it ? 
 
 Hearts will break in this life,” says a recent 
 writer ; it is the nature of them ; but if God wills 
 it, and it were possible, it is honester, braver, and 
 nobler to live than to die.” Most true ; but to live 
 is to hope. Balgonie vaguely, but sternly, resolved 
 that he would do something, or — like the hero of 
 a melodrama — die in the attempt ; ” but being a 
 poor, bewildered, loving young fellow, he could in 
 no way practically see what that something might be. 
 
 Let not the reader flatter himself or herself that 
 their own beloved country was entirely free from 
 legal barbarism at this time ; for in the very year 
 
230 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 of Ivan'S murder, — the fourth year of the reign of 
 His Majesty George III., — a woman was hurried at 
 the stake in Ilchester for poisoning her husband.' 
 During the reign of his son, more than one head 
 was chopped off for treason ; and women were 
 flogged by the tap of drum, for petty theft, at the 
 Market Cross of Edinburgh. Neither need the su- 
 perstitions of the poor Muscovites excite surprise, 
 when we And, in 1867, Highlanders in Scotland 
 putting clay figures into running streams to bring 
 comsumption and wasting upon their enemies ; 
 burying a living cock (as the Pagan sacrificed to 
 Hermes) to cure epilepsy ; and a woman in Somer- 
 setshire"*^ cooking toads in a pan, exactly as the 
 black and midnight hags ” did in. the days of 
 Macbeth, for the amiable purpose of bewitching her 
 neighbors. So truly does the world reproduce it- 
 self, in spite of its boasted civilization. 
 
 The next day was not far advanced when Bal- 
 gonie was summoned by General Weymarn, whose 
 staff he had been resolving to quit ; but for what 
 purpose, or whether to go, he knew not. With 
 something of a shudder, he beheld the Stepniak — 
 the comrade and confederate of the late Nicholas 
 Paulovitch — ^leaving the General’s quarters. 
 
 Save that he wore scarlet livery of his new 
 trade, — ^torture and death, — he was unchanged, and 
 
 ^ W^^tern Gazette ^ September^ 1867, 
 
OVER THIillt WINE. 
 
 231 
 
 was the same hideous and ill-visaged giant — with 
 square shoulders, enormous beard, mouse-like eyes, 
 hail' shorn off straight across the beetle brows, and 
 the pine-apple shaped head — whom Balgonie had 
 seen in the hut where the wretched Podatchkine 
 perished. He was now public executioner of St. 
 Petersburg ; under his felon hands had poor Miero- 
 witz and Mariolizza been, and ere long would Na- 
 talie be ! 
 
 Weymarn was a grave and stern, yet not unkind, 
 old soldier ; and on preceiving that his young aide- 
 de-camp looked pale, he spoke to him with unusual 
 kindness, and added : — 
 
 I am sorry to say, that I have . a new duty of 
 importance for you to perform.” 
 
 Thanks, General ; any excitement is better than 
 — than idleness.” 
 
 True. You will have to ride to Schlusselburg 
 with an escort, composed of six Cossacks of the 
 Imperial Guard, and bring hither in a kabitka the 
 sum of eighty thousand roubles, which are there in 
 canvass bags, sealed. They have been levied on 
 the ‘estates of the Count Mierowitz. You will re- 
 ceive them from the officer commanding there ; give 
 a signed receipt, and deliver them into the Imperial 
 Treasury.” 
 
 Balgonie bowed in silence. 
 
 The General, who, of course, knew well the cor- 
 rupt venality of the Russian service, added : — 
 
232 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 “ If the sum is brought entire to the Treasury, 
 Carl Ivanovitch, a reasonable gratuity will, of 
 course, be paid you. 
 
 “Excellency, I require none for doing my duty, 
 either in this or any other matter,’’ replied Balgonie 
 coldly, even haughtily. 
 
 “ As you please, sir, — as you please. Some 
 among us might be less particular,” said the old 
 General, tugging his grisly mustaches. “ And 
 stay ; by-the-bye, there is a prisoner in Schlussel- 
 burg, whose sentence is tp be executed to-morrow, 
 in presence of the assembled troops and people 
 here ” 
 
 Balgonie thought of but one prisoner there ; and 
 an icy chill came over him, as Weymarn said — 
 
 “ With the escort and the kabitka. Captain, you 
 will, at the same time, bring the culprit here.” 
 
 “ And — and this pris — on — oner. Excellency ?” 
 faltered the poor fellow. 
 
 “Is Jagouski, the Cossack, who so severely 
 wounded Colonel Bernikoff when in the execution 
 of his duty.” 
 
 Charlie breathed more freely. 
 
 “ An order will be necessary for you — a special 
 order : since the affair of that wretched young fel 
 low Micro witz, we cannot be too particular ; so take 
 this : — 
 
 “ ^ To the officer commanding in Schlusselburg. 
 
 “^Tou are hereby directed to deliver to 
 
OVER THEIR WINE. 
 
 233 
 
 Captain Carl Ivanovitch Balgonie, of the Smolensko 
 Regiment, the prisoner who is to be executed to 
 
 moriow. ^ Weymarn, Lieutenant General.'^ 
 
 “ For the delivery of the money, here is a sep- 
 arate order from the Treasurer. — Adieu.’^ 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 WILL HE SUCCEED ? 
 
 Balgonie left the presence of General Wey- 
 marn, a sudden light broke through the 
 darkness of his mind — an unlooked-for thought ; and 
 hope suddenly inspired him, and a prayer of thanks 
 to Heaven rose to his lips* therefore. No prisoner 
 was actually designated by name in the written 
 order of the General ! 
 
 Thus, in lieu of the Cossack Jagouski, he would 
 demand that Natalie Mierowna be given into his 
 custody ; and with her he would escape, quit Russia 
 and the service of the Empress at all risks. 
 
 He had no papers — ^no leave of absence, or pass- 
 port ; but, as the epaulette is an all-powerful badge 
 in Russia, his uniform and his sabre would be pass- 
 ports enough. For the rest, he must trust to his 
 own love and courage, and to his knowledge of the 
 country. But then there was the Cossack escort — 
 how was he to rid himself of it ? The same kind 
 Heaven which favored and inspired him now, would 
 not fail to do so, he hoped, when the crisis came. 
 
 While his best horse was being saddled and ac- 
 
 countred, and even when the escort was at th^ door^ 
 234 
 
WILL HE SUCCEED? 
 
 235 
 
 lie consulted, till the last moment, the map of 
 Russia, and also that of Finland, which was not 
 ceded to the latter till forty-four years after ; and 
 he made notes of his proposed route. Escape 
 by sea, by the Lake of Ladoga, or by tlie shore of 
 the Gulf, were alike impossible. 
 
 ' There was no way for it but to ride, at all 
 hazards, toward the frontier of Finland, or the 
 shores of the Lake of Saima ; they would there be 
 safe, beyond pursuit — safe among the hospitable 
 Swedes, who are always hostile to the grasping and 
 aggressive Russians. And so for nearly an hour he 
 sat, compass in hand, calculating the chances and 
 measuring the distances, while his brain grew giddy, 
 and his heart was sick, with mingled hope, anxiety, 
 and a love that was full of terror and compassion. 
 
 At last he saw his way clearly, as he thought, 
 through Viborg, from Schlusselburg, north-west- 
 ward, in safety. He put all the money he pos- 
 sessed — not much certainly — about his person in 
 gold; filled his cartridge-box with ammunition, and 
 buckled on his sabre. 
 
 ‘^By this time to-morroF^’ he muttered, as he 
 glanced at his watch the game will have been won 
 or — lost ! ” 
 
 He then mounted, with a resolute heart, and set 
 forth, having with him a light kabitka, or covered 
 wagpn, drawn by a single horse, and attended by 
 iuB escOTt — six Malo-Russian Cossacks, who wor^ 
 
236 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 the uniform of Hussars, and who were all stout, 
 athletic, and noble-looking fellows, whose clean- 
 limbed, active, and hardy little horses, unmatched 
 for strength and speed, made Balgonie speculate 
 painfully and anxiously on his slender chance of 
 outstripping them, if pursued. 
 
 It was considerably past the noomof an October 
 day — a dark, lowering, and ominous day — when 
 they set out for Schlusselburg, and erelong the rain 
 began to fall heavily, soaking the Hussar finery of 
 the Cossacks of the Guard; but Charlie Balgonie 
 rode silently on at their head, heedless of the blind- 
 torrents and the bellowing wind ; though he little 
 knew that as the darkness increased, and the early 
 night drew on, that the waters of the lake and 
 river were rising fast, and that a peril, of which ,he 
 had no conception, already menaced the existence 
 of i^atalie. 
 
 But her voice seemed to be ever whispering in 
 his ear — 
 
 Carl, Carl — my beloved Carl, come to my aid 
 — save me — help me, if you love me ! ” 
 
 When they were mid-way to Schlusselburg, the 
 kabitka driver, who was either sleepy or tipsy, fell 
 awkwardly from his seat, and broke his right arm. 
 What was to be done now ? 
 
 No Cossack of the Guard would condescend to 
 supply his place, and for more than an hour^ the 
 party remained halted in a desolate spot, near a 
 
WILL They StTCOLED? 
 
 237 
 
 pine wood, while looking about to capture the 
 first peasant, serf, or civilian of any kind, whom 
 they might meet, and press him into the service, as 
 a temporary whip, in the employ of tlie Empress. 
 
 A skulking and somewhat sulky boor, in a fur 
 cap and canvas caftan, leather leggings and bark 
 shoes, who had been smoking his pipe under a great 
 tree, was, ere long, discovered, dragged forward, 
 and, with sundry oaths and threats, commanded to 
 mount the shaft and act as driver, which he did, 
 with a reluctance he was at no pains to conceal. 
 
 Knowing how necessary it was to control or to 
 conciliate this new acquisition, Balgonie asked him 
 a few questions, with sternness, but yet with polite- 
 ness. 
 
 The serf was a singularly handsome young man, 
 with eagle-like eyes, and an aquiline nose, that was 
 almost hooked ; he was without his mustasche, which 
 seemed to have been recently shaved off ; but he 
 had a curly red beard, with a complexion of well- 
 nigh Asiatic darkness. 
 
 “ Trust me, dear Carl Ivanovitch,’’ said he, in a 
 low and impressive voice, that was strangely familiar 
 to Balgonie. My disguise, I find is complete indeed, 
 when it deceives even you; but speak in French.” 
 
 “ Your disguise — yours? ” 
 
 Yes, — I am Apollo Usakoff,” he added through 
 his teeth. . 
 
 ‘‘ Heaven be blessed for this new omen of sue- 
 
238 
 
 THE SECRET EISEATCH. 
 
 cess ? ” exclaimed Balgonie, in French. ^‘And you 
 were not drowned ? ” 
 
 No ; I swam down the Neva, under water, escap- 
 ing many a bullet — -got ashore, and reached the old 
 place in the wood, where Olga, the Gipsy, stained 
 my face, trimmed and dyed my beard, as you see. 
 She is quite an artist, that girl ! Even Mariolizza 
 w^ould not know me now.” 
 
 Balgonie sighed as tlie poor fellow spoke. Muti- 
 lated and disfigured as she was now, would he have 
 known her ? He evidently knew nothing of the 
 barbarities to whic^h she had been subjected, so Bal- 
 gonie resolved, mercifully, to j^eep him in ignor- 
 ance ; and they proceeded at an easy pace together, 
 he keeping his horse close by the shaft of the kab- 
 itka, on which the pretended peasant rode ; and, as 
 they spoke in French, a language unknown to their 
 ignorant and half -savage escort, Usakoff, in referring 
 to the late event and its failure, poured out all the 
 bitterness, the hate, and fury of his soul, against the 
 Government, the Councillors, and the rule of the 
 Empress ; and, of course, entered with fervor into 
 the scheme of an escape with Natalie. But still 
 their ultimate plans were undecided, when they saw 
 the red fiash of the evening gun, as it pealed from 
 Schlusselburg, amid the murky haze of a w^et and 
 storm}^ sunset ; and erelong they saw the lights that 
 glittered at times from amid tlie massive towers and 
 black outline of that old castle (the scene of so many 
 
WILL THEY SUCCEED? 
 
 S39 
 
 terrors, sufferings, and atrocities) streaming and 
 wavering on the turbulent waters of the lake, and 
 the wet slime of the sluices and ditches. 
 
 When, all dripping and jaded, the escort halted 
 and dismounted under the castle arch, Balgonie found 
 that some changes were taking place in the execu- 
 tive of the fortress. 
 
 Bernikoff, whose wounds had been inflamed to 
 gangrene, by passion, rage, and vodka, was at that 
 moment actually on his death-bed, with Father Chry- 
 sostom kneeling by his side. The old sinner was in 
 all the agonies and terrors of reviewing his past life 
 on one hand, and anticipating the coming change on 
 the other. Many pounds of perfumed wax candles 
 were flaming now round the effigy of St. Sergius, 
 whom, in weak and querulous accents, he implored 
 for intercession, alternately with the Chaplain, to 
 whose cassock he clung tenaciously, and to whom he 
 was mingling threats of punishment, if he permitted 
 him to fare ill in the other world, or omitted masses 
 for his soul’s repose. And that superstition and 
 absurdity might not be wanting amid this solemn 
 but repulsive scene, from which Balgonie hurried 
 away with more disgust than pity, Bernikoff was 
 dying in the habit of friar ^ with cowl, cord, beads, 
 and sandals, hoping even on his death-bed, as Ivan 
 the Terrible hoped, when similarly arrayed and dis- 
 guised, to cheat the devil, if that dread personage 
 came for his sinful soul. 
 
240 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 The cowl and other paraphernalia he had obtained 
 from the Chamberlain, or wardrobe-keeper, of the 
 Troitza monastery near the Longa — a cowl that had 
 laid on the mummy of the nncorrupted saint in the 
 silver-shrine ; — and almost with his last breath, he 
 threatened Father Chrysostom with a drum-head 
 court-martial for venturing to hint that this attempt 
 to mask his past life was vain without true repent- 
 ance. 
 
 Leaving this scene, Balgonie presented the order 
 of General Weymarn and that of the Treasurer, to 
 Captain Vlasfief, who was now in command, and to 
 whom he stated that “ the prisoner referred to was 
 Mademoiselle Natalie Mierowna.” 
 
 “ Carl Ivanovitcli,” said the Captain, you can- 
 not think of leaving to-night in such a storm of 
 wind and rain ? ” 
 
 “ I’ve seen worse in Silesia,” said Balgonie, look- 
 ing to the locks of his pistols. 
 
 What of that ? ” 
 
 But the verbal order of the General was most 
 peremptory.” 
 
 “ Ah ! — and you have brought a kabitka for the 
 money ? ” 
 
 ‘‘ A kabitka for the prisoner, also — so be quick, 
 Captain.” 
 
 ‘‘ ’Tis a large sum in roubles,” mused the other. 
 
 I am in haste to be gone ! — the prisoner — you 
 hear me sir ? ” said Balgonie, impatiently. 
 
WILL THEY SUCCEED 
 
 241 
 
 By all the devils, you seem more anxious about 
 the prisoner than the treasure !” responded Vlasfief 
 sulkily, as he knocked the ashes from his pipe, but 
 still delayed to move. 
 
 You have my orders — I come in the name of 
 the Empress — let there be no delay. Captain 
 Vlasfief,” was the curt reply. 
 
 Bring in two Cossacks of the escort ; the 
 money is here in seventy bags, each containing a 
 thousand roubles.” 
 
 ‘‘ Excuse me, but the order of the Imperial 
 Treasimer says expressly eighty sealed bags of a 
 thousand each,” said Balgonie, trembling with 
 anxiety, yet compelled to appear to take an interest 
 when he really felt none. 
 
 Ten thousand are missing,” said Vlasfief, 
 leisurely, refilling his pipe. 
 
 Missing!” 
 
 Yes. Suppose,” he added in a whisper, ^‘sup- 
 pose we divide the lost sum betw^een us, and offer a 
 thousand to the Treasurer.” 
 
 Impossible, sir ! ” said Balgonie, with a fiery 
 and impatient manner. 
 
 W ell, well — there are the other ten sealed 
 bags,” added Captain Vlasfief, with a dark and 
 stealthy frown of greed and hate, as the Cossacks 
 tossed the whole among the straw of the kabitka : 
 it matters little ; but I hope you may not find the 
 road heset^ and so lose the whole.” 
 
242 
 
 THE 8ECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 “To be forewarned, sir, is to be forearmed,” said 
 Balgonie, touching his pistols ; for he quite under- 
 stood the treachery implied, and only trembled lest 
 it might mar his dearest plans. “ And now, sir, 
 for my prisoner.” 
 
 “ If she be not drowned ; for the lower vaults 
 are apt to be flooded on such a night as this, said 
 Vlasflef spitefully. 
 
 Writhing under the keen glances of this low born 
 Muscovite, Belgonie felt that all now depended up- 
 on his outward and assumed bearing of coolness and 
 carelessness. Night favored him in this, and his 
 face was almost concealed. Could any one then 
 have read his heart, as he, Usakoff, two Cossacks, 
 and two soldiers of the mainguard made their way 
 down, down through dark and slimy passages and 
 stairs, till they were foot deep and then knee deep 
 in the water that flooded the low and humid corridors, 
 off which were the arched doors of numerous cells 
 — corridors where spiders spun their webs, rats were 
 swimming, and terrifled bats flew wildly to and fro ! 
 
 Erelong they reached the door, through the cran- 
 nies of which despairing cries and painful gaspings 
 had been heard ; and after unlocking, forced it open 
 by main strength. 
 
 “ A great flood of water poured from the aper- 
 ture amid the darkness,” says the Utrecht Gazette^ 
 “ and with it came the body of the poor lady, who 
 was well nigh drowned.” 
 
WILL THEY SUCCEED? 
 
 248 
 
 So the red light seen by Natalie was no fancy, 
 but that of the lamp which was borne by one of 
 those who came just in time to save her from the 
 same terrible death by which the Princess Orloff 
 perished. 
 
 Lest all might be perilled by a recognition, Bal- 
 gonie was compelled to retire and leave her in the 
 Chaplain’s hands till she was restored to conscious- 
 ness, to warmth, and till she was habited anew ; 
 and he passed three dreadful hours of doubt and 
 anxiety, while pacing to and fro in the cold and 
 gloomy archways of the fortress, and having to con- 
 ceal his face when she was brought forth and sup- 
 ported into the kabitka, to which two fresh horses 
 were now traced. Usakoff sprang on the shaft and 
 flourished his whip ; then the cossacks and Balgonie 
 put spurs to their chargers, and clattered over the 
 wet drawbridge, just as the passing bell for the de- 
 parture of Bernikoff’s tortured spirit rang ominously 
 and solemnly on the stormy gusts of that black and 
 gloomy night. 
 
 Balgonie, instead of proceeding by the way he 
 had come, avoided the towm of Schlusselburg, and 
 wheeled off to the right, committing himself partly 
 to the guidance of Usakoff, and quite in ignorance 
 that, about an hour before, Vlasfief, who could by 
 no means let so many roubles escape without paying 
 toll, had beset two of the roads by chosen followers 
 of his own — men whom he hoped might pass foi* 
 
244 
 
 THE SECRET 1)ISPATCH. 
 
 some of the adherents of the late Prince Ivan, res- 
 cuing the daughter of the exiled Count Mierowitz. 
 
 A strange incident occurred before the interment 
 of old Bernikoff, who had a pompous military 
 funeral. The bottom of his grave was found to be 
 on fire ! 
 
 A Scottish doctor (named Rogersoji, we believe) 
 at Catharine’s Court attempted to explain this phe- 
 nomenon, as resulting from a species of ironstone 
 which was saturated with the phosphorus supplied 
 by the bones of old interments, and which had been 
 ignited by the friction of the sexton’s shovel ; but 
 the superstitious Russians took a very different and 
 much more diabolical view of the matter, and laughed 
 to scorn the learned opinion of the Scottish pundit. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIT/ 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 HEIE horses were tolerably refreshed by the 
 ^2/ halt at Schlusselburg, and the nags which 
 drew the light kabitka had been quite unused, so the 
 whole party pushed on at a brisk pace by the road 
 towards the frontiers of Finland — the Cossacks of 
 the escort, w^hatever they thought, making neither 
 remark nor inquiry, as they trusted obediently and 
 implicitly to the officer who led them ; but the dark- 
 ness of the October morning, the deep and muddy, 
 stony and rough, nature of the roads, and the vio- 
 lence of the storm, erelong began to have a severe 
 effect upon their cattle, and, to the great satisfaction 
 of Balgonie, two of the troopers gradually dropped 
 to the rear, and were seen no more. 
 
 Now the Corporal of the Cossacks ventured to 
 hint, that perhaps they were not pursuing the way 
 they had come, as the lights in St. Isaac’s Cathedral 
 must have been visible long ago ; ” but Balgonie re- 
 plied, haughtily and briefly, that he had special 
 orders.” 
 
 Then the Corporal urged a short halt, as the 
 horses were sinking ; but again Balgonie replied, 
 246 
 
246 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 that he had peculiar orders, and must push on.’^ 
 
 After passing a little village with a windmill, 
 several miles from the shore of the Lake of Ladoga, 
 the road dipped down into a dark hollow, between 
 impending crags of granite, the grey faces of which 
 were already beginning to brighten in the first light 
 of the lagging October sun. The rain and wind 
 were over ; the hollow way was full of rolling and 
 perplexing mist; but Usakoff aflirmed with confi- 
 dence that he knew the country well. 
 
 Out of the grey vapor, from both sides of the 
 path, there fiashed, redly and luridly, five or six 
 muskets ! One bullet struck white splinters from 
 the kabitka, eliciting a shriek from its occupant ; 
 another whistled through the mane of Charlie’s 
 horse ; and a third killed one of the Cossacks, who 
 died without a groan, for it passed fairly through 
 his temples. 
 
 The way was beset by armed men, whose numbers 
 and disposition, the dim light, or, rather, the dark- 
 ness and the mist, alike served to conceal. 
 
 “ Make way, in the name of the Empress ! ” cried 
 Balgonie, dashing forward, with his sabre drawn ; 
 ‘‘Nay, I command you, on your peril and allegi- 
 ance ! ” he added, as the threatening words of Vlas- 
 fief occurred to him ; and, to his astonishment and 
 dismay, he saw that personage actually appear, 
 mounted and armed, w’earing a regimental hat and 
 plume, with a kind of dark green tunic, or patrol 
 
OONOLUSION. 
 
 247 
 
 jacket; richly braided with gold, and trimmed heavily 
 wdth black ftir. His party, who seemed all on foot, 
 were clad like peasants, but were armed with mus- 
 kets, which they were rapidly casting about and re- 
 loading. 
 
 Halt, in the name of the Empress — halt, I 
 command you ! for this is not the way to St. 
 Petersburg, whether the prisoner and treasure 
 were to be conveyed. Treason ! treason ! ” shouted 
 the Staff-Captain Vlasfief. 
 
 Balgonie fired a pistol at his head ; but the 
 Captain’s horse reared, or was compelled to do so 
 by bit and spur, for the bullet pierced its throat ; 
 and with an oath, Ylasfief fell on the pathway, en- 
 tangled in the stirrups as the animal sunk under 
 him. 
 
 The three remaining Cossacks, who were some- 
 what bewildered by the attack, by the appearance 
 of Ylasfief, whom they knew, and whose confident 
 bearing confirmed certain gathering suspicions that 
 , something was wrong as to their route, now drew 
 their sabres, aimed several blows at Usakoff’s head, 
 and endeavored to cut the reins of his horse, or 
 stab it between the shafts, as he lashed the animal 
 almost to racing speed, and the light kabitka, jolted, 
 rolled, and bounded along the rough road behind it. 
 
 By another pistol-shot Balgonie rid himselP of 
 the Cossack Corporal, whose bridle arm he broke, 
 while facing about and galloping in rear of the 
 
248 
 
 THE SECRET DISPATCH. 
 
 kabitka ; and now with wild hallooes, the entire 
 party of armed men followed it on foot, with all 
 speed, up a steep slope, over which the path wound. 
 
 Usakoif ground his teeth, for he was without 
 weapons, and passive in the flying combat; but, 
 being fertile in expedients, he tore open a bag of 
 roubles, and scattered them on the upland road with 
 a ready and reckless hand. 
 
 The bright silver coins proved too exciting for 
 the cupidity of the pursuers, who loitered to pick 
 them up, tumbling, scrambling, rising and falling 
 over each other, with shouts, curses, and maledic- 
 tions, their flre-arms sometimes exploding the while; 
 and so the whole were speedily left behind, as the 
 kabitka, guarded now by Balgonie alone, was driven 
 along a lonely and unfrequented road, that led to 
 the little towm of Pomphela. 
 
 Thanks, dear Usakoff — thanks for your presence 
 of mind,’’ said Balgonie ; I had forgot all about 
 those roubles.” 
 
 ‘‘ Silver has achieved for us what neither our 
 lead or steel would have done !” 
 
 But, to lighten the kabitka, let us throw out 
 those remaining bags — this perilous lumber, the 
 intended recapture of which has nearly cost us our 
 lives — honour — all, at the hands of Ylasflef.” 
 
 Nay, nay, nevor ! Lumber, say you ? The 
 roubles are Natalie’s — hers and mine — hers and 
 yours, when you wed her ; they have saved us once. 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 24:9 
 
 and may do so again,” replied Usakoff cheerfully, 
 as the sun burst forth in his clear October splen- 
 dor, and they saw the dome-shaped cupola of the 
 •Churcli of Pomphela rising with a golden gleam 
 from amid the white morning haze. 
 
 There Balgonie’s uniform and a display of gold 
 and roubles operated powerfully on the Postmaster 
 who, without asking for passports or other papers, 
 at once, and in the name of the Empress, supplied 
 them with fresh horses for the frontier, towards 
 which, after procuring some proper nourishment and 
 restoratives for Natalie, they pushed on without a 
 moment of unnecessary delay. 
 
 Ah,” thought Balgonie, with a shudder and a 
 prayer ; had Jagouski’s name not been omitted in 
 that order of Weymarn, where would she have been 
 now ? ” 
 
 Pale with sorrow and long suffering, her face 
 was still beautiful, though sorely wasted ; the deep 
 thoughtful eyes had yet a wealth — a world of 
 tenderness in their liquid depths ; and the long 
 dark hair was thick, soft, and wavy as ever, as it 
 fell in masses behind the small, compact, and finely- 
 formed head. 
 
 Yet, withal, her wi^etchedness had been extreme, 
 having been so suddenly and rudely rent from all 
 those habits of luxury and tender nurture, which 
 had become, as it were, a second nature ; and often, 
 very often, had it occurred to her in her later 
 
250 
 
 The secret dispatch. 
 
 misery of soul that the repose of the grave is 
 sweet, and that there cometh after death a levelling 
 and making even of things which would at last 
 cure all her evils.” 
 
 But all was changed now ; and, as she laid her 
 head on Charlie’s breast, she felt content — almost 
 happy ; and the horrors that hung over her family 
 alone prevented her, as yet, from being completely 
 so. 
 
 No trace of pursuers were behind them now', 
 though their flight must by this time have been 
 known both in the capital and at Schlusselburg. 
 But in those days there w^ere neither railroads nor 
 electric telegraphs ; so, riding on more leisurely, 
 Balgonie changed horses again near Viborg, and 
 erelong the great Lake of Saima appeared before 
 them, with the distant hills of Swedish Finland be- 
 yond its friendly w^aters. 
 
 A boat was procured there ; the kabitka was 
 abandoned; and with a shout of joy, Usakoff as- 
 sisted the Finnish boatman to* hoist the great lug- 
 sail to catch the breeze of a balmy and beautiful 
 evening, as they bade a long farewell to Russia and 
 all its terrors. 
 
 In a quaint old Church of Finland, by the eastern 
 shore of the Lake of Saima, and in view of its lit- 
 tle archipelago of granite isles, — a lonely little fane, 
 buried amid groves of plum and cherry trees, built 
 of wood and painted red, wdth a little bell jang- 
 
OONCLUSIOK. 
 
 251 
 
 ling in its humble belfry, — Charlie Balgonie and 
 his fugitive bride were united by the old Curate, 
 with the consent of the Lutheran Bishop of Heinola; 
 and there a thousand roubles spent among the poor 
 spread in the primitive district a happiness, the 
 tradition of which is still remembered with many a 
 grateful exaggeration. 
 
 After this, poor Usakoif, finding himself perhaps, 
 as a third person, rather in the way, left them to 
 become a soldier of fortune ; and he is supposed to 
 have perished in one of the Polish struggles for 
 freedom ; at least, they heard of him no more, after 
 their final journey to Scotland. 
 
 Two years before these events, it would appear 
 that Charlie’s uncle, the godly and upright ” 
 Gamaliel Balgonie, merchant, magistrate, and elder, 
 had departed in peace to sin no more, leaving the 
 lands and possessions of Balgonie unimpaired ; and 
 a long tombstone in that famous city of the dead, 
 the Howff of Dundee, records at length all the 
 virtues which his contemporaries in general and the 
 Presbytery in particular believed him to possess. 
 
 So Carl Ivanovitch became once more Balgonie 
 of that Ilk ; andthe roubles of Natalie added many 
 a turret and many an acre to his patrimonial dwell- 
 ing in beautiful Strathearn. 
 
L’ENVOI.— ILLUSTEATIYE NOTE. 
 
 [O convince the reader how nearly History has 
 been followed in the previous pages, we shall 
 take the liberty of inserting the subsequent mani- 
 festo, published with reference to the death of Ivan 
 lY. 
 
 By the Grace of God, we, Catharine the Second, 
 Empress and Autocratrice of all the Russias, 
 &c., &c., to all whom these presents may con- 
 cern : 
 
 When by the divine will, and in compliance with 
 the unanimous desires of our faithful subjects, we 
 ascended the throne of Russia, we were not ignorant 
 that Ivan, son of Anthony, Prince of Brunswick- 
 Wolfenbuttel, and of the Princess Anne of Meck- 
 lenburgh was still alive. This Prince, as is well 
 known, was immediately after his birth unlawfully 
 declared heir to the imperial crown ; hut^ by the 
 decrees of Providence, he was soon after irrevoca- 
 bly excluded from that high dignity, and the sceptre 
 was placed in the hands of the lawful heiress, Eliza- 
 beth (daughter of Peter the Great), our beloved 
 aunt of glorious memory. 
 
 252 
 
l’envoi. 
 
 253 
 
 “ After we had ascended the throne, and offered 
 up to Heaven our just thanksgiving, the first object 
 tliat employed our thoughts, in consequence of that 
 humanity which is so natural to us, was the unhappy 
 situation of that Prince, who was dethroned by di- 
 vine Providence^ and had been unfortunate since his 
 birth .... 
 
 ‘‘ To prevent, therefore, ill-intentioned persons 
 from giving him any trouble, or from making use 
 of his name to disturb the public tranquility, we 
 gave him a guard, and placed about his person two 
 officers, in whose fidelity and integrity we could con- 
 fide. These were Captain Ylasfief and Lieutenant 
 Tschekin, who, by their long military services, de- 
 served a suitable recompense, and a station in which 
 they might pass quietly the remainder of their days. 
 They were accordingly charged with the care of the 
 Prince, and were strictly enjoined to let none ap- 
 proach him. Yet, all these precautions were not 
 sufficient 
 
 “ A Pat-par ooschick (a sub-lieutenant) of the 
 Regiment of Smolensko, a native of the Ukraine, 
 Basil Mierowitz, (gi’andson of the first rebel that fol- 
 lowed Mazzeppa), took it into his head to make use 
 of this Prince, to advance his fortune at all events, 
 without being restrained by a consideration of the 
 bloody scene that such an attempt might occasion. 
 In order to execute this detestable, dangerous, and 
 desperate project, he contrived, dmdng our absence 
 
254 
 
 L^ENYOI. 
 
 in Livonia, to be upon guard in the fortress of 
 Schlusselburg, where the guard is relieved every 
 eight days; and the 15th of last month, about two 
 in the morning, he called out the main guard, formed 
 it in line, and ordered the soldiers to load with ball. 
 Bernikoff, Governor of the fortress, came out of his 
 apartment, and asked Mierowitz the reason of the 
 disturbance, but received no other answer from 
 this rebel than a blow with the butt-end of his 
 musket 
 
 Captain Ylasiief and Lieutenant Tschekin seeing 
 that it was impossible to resist such a superior force, 
 and considering the unhappy consequences that must 
 ensue from the deliverance of the person who was 
 committed to their care, after deliberating together, 
 took the only step that they thought proper, to 
 maintain public tranquillity, which was to cut short 
 the days of the unfortunate Ivan, Mierowitz, on 
 seeing the dead body of the Prince, was so con- 
 founded by a sight he so little expected, that he 
 acknowledged his temerity and guilt, and discovered 
 his repentance to the troops, whom, about an hour 
 before, he had seduced from their duty, and rendered 
 the accomplices of his crime. 
 
 Then it was that the two officers who had nipped 
 this rebellion in the bud, joined the Governor of the 
 fortress in securing this rebel, and bringing back the 
 soldiers to their duty. They also sent to our Privy 
 Councillor Count Panin, under whose orders they 
 
l’envoi. 
 
 255 
 
 acted^ a relation of this event, which, though un- 
 happy, has nevertheless, under the protection of 
 Heaven^ prevented still greater calamities. This 
 Senator despatched immediately (Colonel) 
 
 Caschkin, with sufficient instructions to maintain 
 tranquillity on the spot (or where the assassination 
 was committed), and sent us, at the same time, a 
 circumstantial account of the whole affair. In con- 
 sequence of this, we ordered Lieutenant-General 
 Weymarn, of the division of St. Petersburg, to take 
 the necessary information on the spot ; and the con- 
 fession of the villain himself, who has acknowledged 
 his crime. 
 
 “ Sensible of its enormity and consequences with 
 regard to the peace of our country, we have re- 
 ferred the whole affair to the consideration of our 
 Senate, which we have ordered, jointly with the 
 Synod, to invite the three first classes and the Presi- 
 dents of all the Colleges to hear the verbal relation 
 of General Weymarn, who has takentheproperin- 
 formations, to pronounce sentence in consequence 
 thereof, and to present it to us, for confirmation of 
 the same. Catharine.’’ 
 
 By a singular species of sophistry, the guilt of 
 Ivan’s death is thus, by a subsequent document, 
 transferred to Basil Mierowitz : — 
 
 As the violent death of the unfortunate Prince 
 Ivan was the immediate consequence of the des- 
 
256 
 
 L^EJSrVOI. 
 
 perate attempt of Mierowitz, so must this officer be 
 considered as the principle cause of this assassina- 
 tion^-'iiay, even regarded as the murderet^ of that 
 unhappy PrmceP 
 
 To this, five Russian Bishops appended their 
 signatures. * 
 
 Ylasfief was made a General, and his Lieutenant 
 a Colonel, in the following year with a pension of 
 ten thousand roubles each. 
 
THE GREAT LONDON SUCCESS! 
 
 VICE VERSA; 
 
 Or, A Lesson to Fathers. 
 
 By F. ANSTEY. 
 
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 volume, - - - - * $1.25 i 
 
 These are, without doubt, the finest editions of the Poets ever issued in this , 
 country at a low price. The plates are all new, beautiful clear type, the j 
 paper very good, and the binding the best and handsomest that could be • 
 designed. The list is already a large one, affording a wide assortment. In I 
 most cases the works will be found more complete than the foreign editions, 
 as, on account of the copyright on many of the poems not having yet expired, 
 the English publishers are prevented from printing all the poeps of many ; 
 of the best authors. In the case of still living authors, care will be taken ‘ 
 to add any new poems that they may publish to each new edition issued. 
 
 Aytoun. 
 
 Goldsmith. 
 
 Ingelow. i 
 
 Burns. 
 
 Hemans. 
 
 Keats. | 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Hood. 
 
 Kirk White. 
 
 Browning. 
 
 Meredith. 
 
 Lucile. 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 OSSIAN. 
 
 Milton. i 
 
 (Lvmpbell. 
 
 Odyssey. 
 
 Moore. | 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 Poe. 
 
 Macaulay. i 
 
 Crabbe. 
 
 Poetry of Flow- 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 ers. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Dante. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 Proctor. 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 Eliza Cook. 
 
 Religious Poems. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Favorite Poems. 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 Herbert. 
 
 T upper. 
 
 Goethe’s Faust. 
 
 Iliad. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 1001 Gems of Poetry. Household Poems. 
 
 Songs for the Home. Songs Sacred and Devotional. 
 
 New Yorl: JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 14 & 16 Vesey St. 
 

 
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