Part 70 (1/2)

Or had there been something in Jakuskin's face which betrayed his plans, and was that why the adjutant's utterances had been framed so sarcastically?

The conspirator advanced into the room. At that moment no one else was there. The Czar was alone. Jakuskin saw him whom he had been seeking lying before him--silent, motionless, with eyes closed, his arms folded on his breast.

A mighty man--invulnerable--dead. Jakuskin dared not draw nearer. Before the dead Czar he trembled.

He rushed staggering back into the adjacent room, holding the despatch still in his hand.

”The Czar--” he stammered.

”Is dead!”

”When?”

”In this very hour.”

”Why did I not arrive one day sooner, in order to deliver up this despatch to him!”

The adjutant thought this exclamation somewhat odd.

”I give you a piece of advice,” said he to Jakuskin. ”Make this letter into a bullet, and shoot yourself through the head, and you will overtake him yet.”

In truth, no bad piece of advice! Jakuskin would have done better had he followed it; instead, he dashed the despatch on the table, and flung from the room, uttering curses on his fate.

At the gate of the palace he again came across the man of the green eyes in the act of mounting his horse. Looking at him with his cat-like eyes, he laughed.

”You came too late, eh?” cried he, and, driving his spurs into his horse's sides, dashed away.

Jakuskin s.h.i.+vered and trembled in every limb.

Elisabeth, as soon as she had recovered from her swoon, went back to her dead, and wrote the following letter to the Czarina-mother from the chamber of death:

”BELOVED MOTHER,--Our angel is already in heaven, and I still am left on earth. Who would have thought that I, the invalid, should have outlived him? Mother, do not forsake me, who now stand alone in this world of care and suffering. Our beloved has recovered all his sweetness of expression in death; the smile upon his face shows that he is looking upon more lovely things in the next world than here on earth. My one consolation is that I shall not long survive him, and shall soon be reunited to him.”

Her presentiment was a true one. Next spring brought her to that land where Czar and serf alike are happy and there is no difference between them.

CHAPTER XLV

THE HERALD

The science was not then discovered by which man can compel lightning to convey his messages, and by means of which any linen-draper nowadays can flash to the other half of the world the news that a son is born to him, or extend an invitation to his partner at the other end of the kingdom to attend the christening next day.

At that period it took eight days before so important a matter as the death of Czar Alexander could be transmitted, by means of the fleetest Ukraine pony and its rider, from the remote end of the Russian dominions where it had occurred to the capital. The first messenger bringing the news of the Czar's recovery, in fact, arrived before the second. He was spurred by the good tidings; sorrow went a more leaden pace.

Upon the arrival of the good news, ten members of the imperial house of Romanoff--the eleventh, Grand Duke Michael, being then at Warsaw with the Grand Duke Constantine--a.s.sembled to early ma.s.s in the chapel of the Winter Palace, the highest ecclesiastical dignitary being the celebrant.

The chapel was crowded with high officials, magnates, and officers of rank. The choir intoned the collect, ”G.o.d preserve the Czar!”