The effect was terrific. The nobles leaped on their chairs and yelled like madmen for Dmitri, till the old hall might verily have shaken on its foundations. Again and again the cheers were renewed with fresh outbursts, and nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed before the commotion subsided.

But among all that tumultuous assembly only one man kept his head. Only one man knew and felt, as he gazed coolly, but with a beating heart, at the wild enthusiasm he had raised, the distance that lies between the warm creative thought and the cold and tardy execution. That man was Dmitri himself.

XV

Well, Prince, how do you feel this morning?' said Iwanicki gaily, as he entered Dmitri's room on the following day.

'Oh, I'm all right!' said Dmitri with a smile; ' and you?'

'Excellent, though we certainly kept it up after you left. Sorry you couldn't stay last

night, though I daresay you were wise, too. Doesn't look well for the great man to exceed. Besides, you left just at the right time. Prince, you are an orator. Never heard anything like that speech. You've made every man in Poland your slave.'

'I hope not, Count.'

'Look here, Prince. May I give you a bit of advice?

'Why, of course!'

'Well, then, strike while the iron is hot. We Poles, you know, are fiery devils, but it soon passes off. Be warned by me, and get away to the frontier as soon as you can. If you wait a month, something will turn up, and we shall be cold again.'

'That's exactly my own view, Count. I'm longing to begin. But there are one or two things I must do first.'

'What?'

'Well, I must sign the marriage contract with Mniszek. Look, here's the rough draft. It's odd, isn't it; here am I, without an acre, giving away whole provinces by the handful. Marina's to have Novgorod and Pskof. That

F

won't matter, as she comes to me as soon as I'm there myself. But here's more-Smolensk and Severia for King Sigismund and the Palatine of Sandomir-between them.'

Iwanicki drummed on the window with his

fingers.

'H'm, Prince, you don't mind my

speaking plainly?'

'Not a bit.'

'Well, then, George Mniszek's a grasping old bankrupt. He's only using you to recoup his own desperate affairs.'

'Let him, by all means. It does me no harm at present.'

'Well, what else is there?'

'Well, then, I must abjure and become a Catholic.'

'You had better do that quietly.'

'Right; but they will have it. Sigismund makes a point of it. It will be very secret, just to satisfy the legate.'

'These Jesuits, devil take them!' exclaimed Iwanicki; they are sapping Poland. Sigismund will find out that before long.'

'Well, then, King Sigismund gives me public audience next week. And after that

I say good-bye to Marina and to you, and off

I go.'

'Not to me—I'm coming.'

'You don't mean it?'

'Mean it! What do you take me for? Do you think I'm going to stay cooped up here at home? No; I'm going to be one of your subs, General,'

'Iwanicki, there will be danger. Boris is strong yet.'

'Don't insult me, General.'

Dmitri grasped his hand.

'Come, Count,

that's like a friend. I didn't like to ask you, but I'm as glad as if you were a whole army. You shall live to see I'm not ungrateful, if I ever,' he added, turning away, 'get back to my father's throne.'

Iwanicki looked at him with a comical expression, which would have startled Dmitri not a little if he had noticed it.

XVI

Now over the wide flat plains of Russia, from Dnieper to Volga, from Novgorod to Kazan, flies Rumour with her hundred tongues, crying aloud, Dmitri is found! Woe to the evil Tsar! Prince Dmitri is coming to free his people from the hated Tartar! Everywhere in town and village excited knots collect and discuss the wondrous news. Expectation is on tiptoe; the liberator is at hand. Where is he? Who has seen him?

Who shall venture to describe the creation of a popular legend?

From the hill at Nijni-Novgorod, from which the old city, with its fortified Kremlin, looks down on the two rivers and the marshy plain beneath, a motley crowd of every nationality and dress might be seen thronging the booths, whose long straight rows cover the triangular space between the rivers, the Volga and the Oka. There, jostling one another, were Finn and Russian, Pole and Tartar; there Armenian and Persian