Boris the Bear-Hunter

Boris fought a good fight that day. Turk after Turk fell before his big swinging sword, and whenever one fell another took his place. Bravely he cut and thrust and guarded, and the very Turks themselves stayed their crowding upon the walls to see out this fine exhibition of skill and endurance and Muscovitish pluck. But cutting and thrusting and guarding one's body from two or three assailants at once is tiring work, and poor Boris felt his strength failing him, and his eye grew dim, so that he could scarcely see accurately where he struck, and some of his blows began to fall at random. His breath came and went in gasps, and his arms ached with weariness. In another moment one of those flashing blades would find a billet somewhere in the region of his stout heart, and the career of the brave bear-hunter would be over and done with.

But fate had decided that the readers of these records of Boris should have many more pages of his history to peruse, and just when the hunter was making up his mind that he had fought his last fight and lost it, this same fate, in the person of a Turkish pasha who had watched the fray admiringly from the beginning, strode up and knocked aside the swords of the assailants of Boris just in time to prevent them from dyeing themselves red in his blood. The pasha felt that here was a splendid slave being wasted, or perhaps a prisoner for whom a good ransom might be eventually forthcoming. So he struck away the swords, and skipping aside to avoid a savage thrust from poor dim-eyed Boris, who could not see and knew not the signification of this new assailant's interference, he rushed in and pinned the half-fainting Russian to the wall. The sword dropped from Boris's hand as the fingers of the pasha closed around his throat, a thick film came over his eyes, black fog enveloped his brain, and the shouts and cries of the battle around him receded further and further into space; his consciousness faded and failed, his senses vanished one by one like the extinguishing of candles, and Boris knew no more.

When Boris came to himself he was in a small room, whose only window was at a height of some five feet from the floor and iron-barred. He could hear a sentinel pass and repass beneath it, and from a distance came the sounds of musketry and artillery fire, which quickly recalled to his mind the events of the morning—or of yesterday, for he was without means of ascertaining how long he had remained unconscious. Food—some coarse bread and a dish of water—stood upon the floor beside the straw upon which he found himself outstretched. Boris was very hungry, and at once ravenously consumed the food, finishing the bread to the last crumb, and wishing there were more of it, coarse though it was. He felt very weary still, and though unwounded, save for a prick or two in the hand and fore-arm, quite incapable of and disinclined for thought or exertion. So Boris lay still, and presently fell asleep.

He was awakened at night by voices as of people conversing within the room, and opened his eyes to find the pasha, his captor, with another Turk and a third figure whose presence first filled him with joy, and then, as he remembered, with bitter loathing. It was Jansen, the treacherous gunner, to whose perfidy and desire for vengeance was due the repulse of Peter and his army, and, indeed, indirectly, his own present situation.

Boris was for upraising his voice in angry denunciation of the traitor, but the pasha dealt him a blow in the mouth and bade him roughly be silent. Boris felt for his sword, but found it was no longer at his side, neither was his dagger nor his big clumsy pistol; he was entirely unarmed.

Jansen and the Turks were conversing in a language unknown to Boris, the pasha asking questions and putting down Jansen's replies in a note-book. Then Jansen, addressing Boris, informed him that the pasha had spared his life in order to employ him in his own service, either to teach his soldiers the art of swordsmanship, in which, the pasha had observed, he excelled, or perhaps to help him, Jansen, in managing the big guns mounted upon the walls.

But at this point the tongue of Boris would be silent no longer, and burst into furious invective. That this man should desert his master the Tsar in his need was bad enough, but that the traitor should expect him, Boris, to employ his skill in gunnery against his own beloved sovereign and his own people passed the patience of man, and Boris was with difficulty prevented from casting himself upon the deserter and throttling him as he stood. Three swords flashing out of their scabbards at the same moment, however, reminded the captive of his helplessness, and Boris relinquished, reluctantly, the pleasure of suffocating the traitor.

Whether Jansen persuaded the pasha of the impracticability of compelling Boris to do any useful work with the guns, or whether it struck the pasha that Boris might easily do more harm than good at the walls, I know not, but the prisoner was never requested to take part in artillery practice at the Russian lines. His duties, he found, consisted chiefly in helping to carry the pasha's palanquin about the streets of the city—an occupation rendered exceedingly disagreeable by the rudeness of the population, who pushed, and jostled, and cursed, and spat upon the "Christian dog" whenever he appeared. Occasionally he was directed to practise sword exercise with chosen Mussulman swordsmen; and this he was glad enough to do, for it gave him amusement in plenty to teach these Easterns all manner of Western malpractices, tricks of swordsmanship of an obsolete and exploded nature such as would undoubtedly expose them, should they come to blows with an experienced fencer, to speedy defeat. Besides these occupations Boris was ever busy in another way—a field of activity in which his energies were employed without the sanction or the knowledge of his master, for he was labouring every day to loosen the iron bars of his prison room. By means of peeping out of his window at moments when the sentry was at a distance Boris had discovered that between him and the outer wall of the city there was but a space of thirty yards of stone pavement, up and down which paced the sentinel. Beyond this was the wall; and over the wall, not indeed the plain whereon the Russian troops had till lately been encamped, but the shining waters of that arm of the Black Sea known as the Sea of Azof.

Day by day Boris worked at his bar, choosing those moments when the sentinel was farthest from him. Once, during the sword instruction in the courtyard, a sword broke, and the broken end of the weapon, a blunt piece of steel about eight inches in length, was left on the ground. Boris found an opportunity to seize this and secrete it before leaving the spot, and the fragment proved of the utmost service to him in scraping the mortar from beneath and around the iron bars. Two months after his capture Boris saw to his delight that he could now at any moment he chose remove these bars and attempt his escape.

The opportunity arrived at last: a warm, dark night, drizzling with rain; the sentry, muffled in his bashlik, could see little and hear less; no one else would be about the walls in such weather and so late. The bit of sword end, by constant working, had worn to itself by this time a sharp and formidable edge; it was no longer a weapon to be despised. In Boris's wallet were stored the economized savings of many meals—food enough to keep him alive for several days. The hunter removed carefully the iron bars which had made this little room a prison-house for two long months, and clambering upon the somewhat narrow ledge, sat in the darkness and waited. Would the sentinel never pass close enough for his purpose? To and fro the man went, but he did not guess what was required of him, and passed along rather further from the window than exactly suited the designs of Boris.

Seeing that the man was evidently a person of method, and stepped time after time in his old tracks, Boris determined that he must accept the inevitable and deal with matters as they were, without waiting longer for desirable contingencies which destiny refused to bring about. Standing crouched upon the ledge, Boris waited until the sentinel was opposite, as nearly as he could guess in the darkness; then setting every muscle in his body, he sprang out as far as he could towards the spot where he judged the man to be. So vigorous was his leap, that though the soldier was upwards of five yards from the window, Boris alighted with tremendous force upon his shoulders, bearing him to the ground and himself falling over him.

The wretched sentry, conscious only that something very heavy indeed had fallen down upon him, apparently from the skies, was about to howl to his Prophet for help; but in an instant Boris had one big hand over the fellow's mouth, and with the other felt for a spot where a dig of his little weapon might serve to silence for ever the man's appeals, whether to Mohammed or to any one else. A quick struggle as they rolled together on the ground, a sharp dig, and the sentinel lay still and harmless, and Boris had accomplished his task so far.

Taking the man's outer garment and bashlik, and leaving his own, taking also the fellow's musket and pistol, Boris clambered up the outer wall and looked for a moment into the darkness beneath. That the sea was there was certain, for he could hear the sound of the wavelets lapping the wall below him; but how far down was the water—in other words, how high was the wall?

However, this was no time for anxious reflection. If Boris ever wished to see his home again, and his beloved Tsar, and, lastly, his little friend Nancy Drury, he must jump now and at once. Murmuring a prayer, then giving one somewhat trembling look down into the grim darkness beneath him, Boris took a long breath and jumped.

It must have been a high wall, for as Boris fell through the air it seemed to him as though he would never reach the water. At last he felt the cold waves close over him, and then it seemed as though he would never rise to the surface again; but when his breath was nearly exhausted, and he was well-nigh choked for want of air, his head emerged once more, and he was able to float quietly for a while, in order to obtain a fresh supply of breath, and to listen for any sound which might either warn him of danger, or indicate the direction in which he ought to strike out in order to make the shore.

Presently Boris heard the sound of oars, and remained where he was until the boat should pass. It was a party of fishers putting out to sea, and Boris judged that by going in the opposite direction he would reach land; so he struck boldly out for the point whence the boat had come. Soon his intently listening ears caught the sound of the twittering of sand-pipers, and Boris guessed that he neared the shore. This was the case, and in some twenty minutes from the time of his plunge the hunter had the satisfaction of feeling the bottom, and of wading, drenched and somewhat cold, but exceedingly rejoiced, ashore. There was no one about. The city lay to the left; he could hear the crowing of cocks, and caught the occasional glimmer of a light. Boris took the opposite direction, and walked along what seemed to be the edge of an arm of the sea or of a large river. All night he toiled along, sometimes swimming or wading, in order to put possible pursuers off the track.

When morning came, Boris found himself on the skirt of a large forest, and here he concealed himself, and dried his clothes and his food in the sun. Then, deep in the shade of a birch thicket, he lay down and enjoyed a good rest until the evening, when he rose up and recommenced his flight, always keeping to the shore of the river, which, as he afterwards discovered, was the Don. Thus Boris travelled for three days, pushing on at night and resting during the day, until his food was well-nigh exhausted. Then, to his joy, he reached a rough-looking village where he found the Russian language was understood. Here he was received kindly and entertained hospitably by the rough but good-hearted inhabitants, a tribe of Don Cossacks; and here he rested for several days, and collected his exhausted energies amid his kind Cossack friends, in preparation for the long journey for Moscow and home!

CHAPTER XVI.

HOME AGAIN

One day, early in November 1695, when the palace of the Tsar in the Kremlin was thronged with officers and dignitaries awaiting audience in the ante-chambers, and crowding one another in the halls and passages, discussing the news and transacting various matters of state business, a tall but ragged-looking figure strode in at the principal entrance of the palace, pushing aside the doorkeepers, and elbowed his way through the crowded entrance-hall. Up the wide stairs he went, taking no notice of the protests and smothered curses of those whose toes he trod upon, or into whose sides he had insinuated his sharp elbows. Many of those who had turned round to see who this audaciously rough individual might be, stopped open-mouthed when they beheld him, the protest half-uttered, and gazed after him with wide eyes, muttering prayers, as men who believe they see a ghost. But the ragged courtier looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, but pursued his reckless march over the toes of the highest dignitaries in the realm, without noticing the fact or the persons, and making straight for the private cabinet of the Tsar as though, until he should reach that haven, there could be no thought for anything else.

Arrived at the ante-chamber, wherein were assembled Lefort and Menshikoff and a few others of the inner circle of favour, the new arrival paid no more heed to these august personages than he had done to the rest, but elbowed them out of his way and went straight to the door which led into the sanctum of the great Peter, altogether disregarding the exclamations of surprise and awe which were all that these found time to utter as he passed rapidly through the room and in at the Tsar's own door.

Peter was sitting alone at the writing-table, busily penning letters to foreign potentates—applications, in fact, for the loan of talented engineer and artillery officers for the new campaign against the Turk on the Black Sea; a project upon which his mind was so fixed that his whole time was spent in planning and organizing it in advance. The Tsar raised his eyes as the ragged figure entered the room and stood before his table. But though Peters eyes fixed themselves upon the strange, wild object before them, the speculation in them had nothing to do with the object of their regard. Peter lowered his head again and wrote; he finished his letter, and signed it. Then, once more he raised his eyes, and this time those orbs were looking outwards, not inwards. Peter started, and spat on the ground; then he crossed himself, and shaded his eyes, and stared at the figure that stood before him. For a moment the strong face looked scared and bewildered; then the Tsar rose with his big laugh, and walking round to the other side of the table caught the man by both shoulders and shook him till his teeth rattled.

"It is true flesh and blood," he cried, "and no ghost! Boris, my most miraculous of bear-hunters, whence come you, and why is this ragged body of yours not eaten by Turkish rats? This is the best and most wonderful thing that mortal man ever heard of." Peter drew the grimy traveller to his own broad breast and embraced him in the most approved Russian manner, kissing both cheeks and his forehead.—"Here! Lefort, Menshikoff, all you fellows in there!" continued the Tsar, shouting aloud, "here's Boris come back, our faithful, Streltsi-sticking, Turk-spitting Bear-eater!—Come, sit down, my Boris, quickly, and tell us all about it. Why are you alive—have you a plan of Azof—how did you get out of the place—has that Yakooshka had his sneaking German tongue cut out of him yet? Tell me that first of all, quick!"

Boris replied that as far as he knew the head of Jansen was still upon his shoulders with his tongue in it.

"Then," said Peter, "we shall have at least the satisfaction of removing it ourselves instead of relinquishing the privilege to the Turk, as I had feared." Peter took two or three turns about the room, looking his blackest; then he recovered his equanimity. "Come," he said, "let's talk of pleasanter subjects; tell us all about your adventures."

Boris told his plain tale amid frequent interjections from the four or five men present. Peter roared with laughter over the account of how Boris with his sword had kept at bay for ten minutes any number of Turks who chose to come on, and how he was ultimately scragged by a pasha while in the very act of fainting from sheer exhaustion. "Bravo, Bear-eater," he cried, "and bravo again! Ho, if I had but five thousand bear-hunters like you, my son, I should attack Sweden to-morrow! But there is some good in the Turk after all; for think how easily any one of a thousand of them might have blown your brains out with musket or pistol. Yet they preferred to see a good fight out to the end; but, ha! ha! that pasha. You shall scrag that same pasha with your own hands, my son, next summer, as sure as I am standing here. Go on!"

Peter's pleasant mood underwent a great change when Boris went on to tell of his interview with Jansen in prison. His face worked in terrible contortions, and he rose and paced the room once more without a word. "So you would have throttled him, would you?" he said at last. "I am thankful that you did not interfere with what is my privilege. Enough about Yakooshka. Go on."

But the Tsar fairly roared with laughter as Boris described how he had leaped upon the back of the sentinel, a distance of fifteen feet, and stuck the poor fellow with his little broken bit of sword-end. He must have that little weapon, he said, as a keepsake from his good bear-eater. But nothing would satisfy the Tsar with regard to the mighty spring upon the back of the sentry but a rehearsal of the feat then and there, in that very room.

Menshikoff said the thing was impossible; no man, he said, could leap five yards from a cramped position upon a window ledge. Boris must have miscalculated the distance. But Menshikoff regretted this remark a moment after he had made it; for Peter declared he believed the bear-eater could perform the feat if no one else could, and that he should try it at once, in order to put this sceptic to confusion. Menshikoff should act the part of sentry, and walk along while Boris jumped on him. Afterwards they would all try it. Then two tables were piled together, and Boris was instructed to bend himself into the original position as far as possible, and thence spring upon the unhappy Menshikoff, who paced the floor at a distance of fifteen feet. Menshikoff eyed the heavy figure of Boris, soon to be launched at him, with gloomy foreboding; but there was no help for it, Peter was in earnest. As Menshikoff reached the necessary point, out sprang Boris, and without difficulty covering the distance, alighted with terrific force upon Menshikoff's back. Over rolled the favourite, and over went Boris with him, amid the boisterous laughter of the Tsar and the rest, the crash making such a commotion that frightened courtiers from the room beneath presently rushed in to see what had happened to his Majesty.

Peter insisted upon attempting the feat himself, and insisted also that Lefort and Menshikoff should leap as well. The Tsar easily accomplished the leap; but so tremendous was the shock of his descent, that poor Lefort, who was detailed to receive the ponderous imperial body after its flight through space, was well-nigh wiped out of the land of the living. Both Menshikoff and Lefort failed to accomplish the feat, and Boris was obliged to repeat it, in order that the Tsar might try the sensations of the sentinel, as a "bolt from the blue," in the shape of some thirteen stone of humanity, came crashing down upon his shoulders. Peter was better built to stand the shock than the unfortunate Turkish soldier, and Boris's big body hardly caused him to stagger; though when the two changed places, and the huge Tsar sprang through the air and alighted upon the back of Boris, that hardy young hunter, for all his sturdiness, rolled over like a rabbit.

Then at length the Tsar, now in the highest good-humour, permitted Boris to finish his tale—how he had plunged into the dark waters of the Azof Sea, and found his way to land; how he had been befriended in a village of the Cossacks of the Don—Peter making a note of the name of the village; and of his long adventurous journey through moor and forest, where he supplied himself with food from day to day by means of his knowledge of woodcraft, until he reached Moscow that very morning. Then the Tsar informed Boris of his own designs for a renewed siege of Azof by land and sea, and of all that had happened in the regiment and out of it since his disappearance. The officers had all mourned him as certainly lost, the Tsar said, and had even included his name in their service for the repose of the souls of those slain beneath the walls of the city; they would be overjoyed to see his face again. Then Peter told of how little Nancy Drury had come to scold him for losing "her Boris," and of how he had promised faithfully to go and fetch her friend home again in the summer. When Peter mentioned Nancy, the face of Boris flushed, but his eyes glowed with great tenderness; and presently he asked leave to retire, in order to visit his fellow-officers, "and others." The Tsar permitted him to go, on condition that he went first to see "those others;" for, said Peter, those others might be even more rejoiced to see him home again than the officers of the regiment, who, at least, had not blushed whenever his name had been mentioned. Then Boris blushed again, and thanked the Tsar, and went out to do his kind bidding.

When Boris reached the house of the Drurys, and was ushered into the sitting-room by the frightened servant, who took him for a ghost, and did not announce him because his tongue refused to speak for very fear, Mrs. Drury was busy over her needlework, while Nancy sat at her lessons at the same table. Mother and daughter looked up together, but their first impressions were entirely different. Mrs. Drury had never felt the slightest doubt that her little daughter's faithful friend was long since dead and buried in the far-away Tartar city, and had mourned his death in secret, while concealing her convictions from Nancy, in the hope that when the truth must be known time would have softened the blow. When, therefore, the door opened noiselessly, and the scared servant, speechless and pale, admitted the ragged figure which so strongly resembled the dead friend of the family, Mrs. Drury was taken by surprise, and screamed and hid her face in her hands. But Nancy's instincts did not err. No sooner did she raise her eyes than she knew that this was no ghost, but her own beloved and familiar friend; and with a cry of great joy and surprise she sprang to her feet, and was in his arms in a moment, her head buried in his tanned neck, sobbing and laughing, and conscious of nothing excepting that here was her Boris alive and well and come home again.

When Mrs. Drury recovered her equanimity, which she did in a minute, her English ideas of propriety were a little shocked at Nancy's undisguised demonstration towards her friend, and, after warmly greeting Boris, she reminded her little daughter that her fifteenth birthday was at hand, and that she would shock Boris Ivanitch by her demonstrativeness. But Boris begged her to let Nancy be as affectionate as she pleased, for, he said, he had sadly needed the comfort of a little love for many a long and dreary month. So Mrs. Drury let matters be as they were, and Nancy clung to her friend's neck, and cried and laughed in turns, though saying but little, until Boris gently detached her arms from about his neck and placed her upon his knee to hear the stirring tale of his adventures and escape and return home.

Boris left the Drurys' house presently with a new conviction looming large and prominent in his inner consciousness, and that was that there was nothing in all the world quite so good as the love of an innocent girl; neither the delights of bear-hunting, nor the glory of successful fight, nor the favour of a great king, nor the applause of his fellows, nor rank in the army, nor wealth, nor the pride of great strength, nor anything else. All these things were good, especially the praise of a beloved master and Tsar; but the clinging arms of this child had revealed a new yet a very old thing to him, and Boris walked towards the barracks of the Preobrajensk Guards on feet that felt not the wooden pavement beneath them, and with his manly heart so full of tenderness towards that other confiding and loving little heart that he almost wished all the world would rise up and menace that one little child, that he might rise also and defend her.

Then Boris went and proved for a third time that he was no ghost, but a solid and able-bodied bear-hunter, and retold once again the story of his adventures for the benefit of an admiring mess. Here Boris learned also from the officers of his regiment that he had narrowly escaped a shot in the back as he stood alone upon the wall of Azof; for a former companion of the Streltsi, one Zaitzoff, had deliberately taken a shot at him, in order, as he had declared, to pay off old scores. Another member of the corps, one Platonof, being wounded to death, and horrified at the dastardliness of the proceeding, had communicated Zaitzoff's words to the surgeon who attended him. The surgeon in his turn reported to the officers of the Preobrajensk, and these took summary vengeance. They had gone in a body to the Streltsi quarters that very evening on hearing the surgeon's tale, had pulled Zaitzoff out of his tent, held an improvised court-martial on the spot, and shot the miscreant then and there, and in the presence of all his comrades, who did nothing to protect him, being themselves horrified with his action.

One more danger escaped, added to the many, was as nothing to this man returned, as it were, from the very gates of death; yet Boris did not fail to offer thanks for the erring flight of Zaitzoff's bullet when he counted up the mercies of God on this first evening of his return, and knelt long and fervently within the cathedral of the Kremlin. Neither did Nancy forget to be grateful when she knelt at her bedside and said her daily prayers, which were the old English ones, in spite of the fact that Colonel Drury and all his house were now within the fold of the Russo-Greek Church and naturalized Russians.

CHAPTER XVII.

OFF TO ENGLAND

Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch entered with all his impetuosity and marvellous energy into the preparations for the second attack upon Azof. During the whole of the winter and spring he was busy superintending the work of ship-building in the south of Russia. Every little river harbour on either side of the Don had its own improvised ship-building yards, and its hundreds of workmen from all parts of the country, engaged in the setting up as quickly as might be of galleys and rafts and every kind of floating vehicle. "We live, as old Adam did, in the sweat of our brow," wrote the Tsar to one of his intimates in Moscow, "and have hardly time to eat our bread for the pressure of work." Dockyards burned down, and destroying in their own destruction the work of many months; gangs of labourers deserting and disappearing when most required to complete their work—nothing could discourage the great Tsar, or turn him by the fraction of an inch from the path he had laid out for himself. Galleys and boats quickly took shape, and gradually approached completion. Peter was everywhere, swearing, scolding, encouraging, organizing, never weary, and never losing heart because of the misfortunes of the moment. The Don waters rose and carried away many half-completed vessels and much valuable timber; but the forests of Voronej were not so far away nor so poor but that inexhaustible supplies of birch and oak and pine and beech might be had to replace what was lost; and these same waters of the Don which had swept the timber away should be utilized to carry down on their broad bosom as much again and more than they had stolen and cast into the sea. Then Peter himself fell ill; but even sickness could not quell his ardour for the work he had set himself, and the building was not delayed for a moment. At last, when the long nights of midsummer were near at hand, the flotilla was ready and slipped down the broad river straight for the doomed city. There were twenty-two galleys, and one hundred large rafts for carrying ordnance, and some seventeen hundred smaller vessels, boats and lighters.

By this time the regiments from Moscow and the Streltsi, who had never left the neighbourhood, were once more assembled beneath the walls of Azof. The Preobrajensk were there, and among them our friend Boris, who had spent a delightful winter and spring in Moscow, and was now ready and anxious for adventure again. All the troops which had taken part in the former unsuccessful attack upon the fortress were now present again to retrieve their laurels, which had faded before the breath of Turk and Tartar.

But many new faces were to be seen among the old ones—veterans, chiefly, of tanned and foreign appearance; experienced engineers and gunners from France, and Hanover, and Brandenburg. Under the orders of these men a high wall of earth was built beneath the very ramparts of the city, so that the soil, when the wall was finished, trickled over the ramparts of Azof, which it overtopped, and fell into the streets of the city. At the same time the ships and rafts blockaded the town from the water side, so that there was no escape this time by way of the Black Sea. Then, when all was ready for the attack, preparations were made for a combined assault both by land and sea.

But the hearts of the Tartars failed them, and the city capitulated before the storming was commenced, greatly to the disappointment of many young heroes who had intended to perform deeds of valour, and especially of the valiant Boris, whose arms ached for another brush with the Turkish swordsmen, especially with those who had been so unfortunate as to be instructed in the art by himself, with whom he had promised himself much entertainment.

The Tsar spared no pains to discover Boris's friend the pasha, whom, when found, he placed at the service of Boris. The hunter, remembering the palanquin, but recollecting also that he owed to the pasha, in a fashion, his deliverance from death by the sword, was merciful, and did but take his fun out of him for a day or so, after which he released him altogether and let him go free. But for one day that poor pasha afforded much amusement to the officers of the Preobrajensk and to the Tsar also; for Boris harnessed the poor fat manikin to a light hand-cart, and, himself sitting as a coachman in front, drove him up and down the camp, whipping him up with a horse-lash when he tired, till the wretched Turk was ready to fall between the shafts and expire from pure exhaustion.

Jansen, who was captured also in the streets of the city, though disguised in the garb of a common Tartar tradesman, did not escape so easily. He was carried in chains to Moscow when the troops returned to the capital, and there his head was struck off his shoulders and exhibited on a pole as a warning to traitors.

The army entered Moscow in triumph, under festal arches made to represent Hercules trampling Turkish pashas under foot, while Mars, on the summit of a second triumphal archway, pitched Tartars over in large numbers. The principal generals were drawn into the city upon gilded sledges placed on wheels; while Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch, now raised, however, to the rank of captain, walked in the procession as befitted his humbler grade in the service. Boris was there, too, in all the glory of a major's epaulets; and if he had glanced up at a certain balcony in the Troitski Street as he passed beneath, there is no doubt that he might have seen two bright eyes for which he was the centre of the procession, if not the only figure in it, and which did not fail to notice with pride the new insignia of rank and promotion which he bore on either broad shoulder. There, too, in the midst of the happy marching host, was the wretched prisoner Yakooshka, hooted and spat upon by the crowd as he dragged his heavily-ironed feet over the stones of Moscow.

Thus the first triumph of Peter's new army and navy was achieved with scarcely a single blow struck; for, with the exception of a brilliant assault upon redoubts by the Don Cossacks and an easily-repulsed sortie by the inhabitants, during which but few lives were lost on the Russian side, there had been no fighting done. But the prestige of the foreign troops was won, Peter's policy was justified, the enemies of Christ and of the true faith had been overthrown, a seaport had been gained for Russia, and the beginning of her expansion had become an accomplished fact.

Peter was thoroughly and entirely happy, for he had made the first move in the great game he had come into this world to play, and it was a good move. The Mussulmans had been hustled out of Azof, and a garrison of Streltsi left in the city to take care that they did not return; and now three thousand Russian families were sent to the town, there to abide for ever, they and their descendants. Ship-building was commenced wherever docks could be conveniently erected, and all classes were heavily taxed in order to pay for the ships to be built in them.

Meanwhile, young Russians of talent were despatched to Venice, to the Netherlands, to London, and to Paris, in order to learn the newest things, whether in ship-building, or in gunnery, or in drill and uniform. Their orders were to keep their eyes open and to see and learn everything worth learning.

And now Peter felt that he might conscientiously undertake that trip to foreign lands which he had long promised himself, and to which he had so ardently looked forward. He was to travel incognito, in order to avoid the worry of publicity and the tedious attentions of courts. The journey was to be undertaken under the ægis of a great embassy, Peter following in the train of his ambassadors in the character of a humble attaché or secretary. Boris was to go, as the Tsar had long since promised him; for he would be extremely useful, in England at least, if they ever got so far, by reason of his knowledge of the language. Besides, Peter liked to have his faithful bear-eater, as he still loved to call him, constantly at his side, and would not have thought of leaving him behind under any circumstances.

There was one little heart that was sore indeed when Boris came to take his leave before the departure of the embassy. It was always good-bye, Nancy said wistfully, as the hunter tore himself regretfully from her side: would there never come a time when she would not continually be looking forward with dread to his departure somewhere?