or the failure with my head."

The project thus presented seemed feasible. Immediately all the millers
in the army, men used to the kind of work required, were put under his
orders, and the other soldiers were set to carrying sacks of earth to
the place chosen for the dam. As this rose in height, the water backed
up in the town. Soon many of the streets became canals, hundreds of
houses, undermined by the water, were destroyed, and the promise of
Kravkof seemed likely to be fulfilled.

Yet the garrison, confined in what had become a walled-in lake, fought
with desperate obstinacy. Water surrounded them, yet they waded to the
walls and fought. Famine decimated them, yet they starved and fought. A
terrible epidemic broke out in the water-soaked city, but the garrison
fought on. Dreadful as were their surroundings, they held out with
unflinching courage and intrepidity.

The dam was the centre of the struggle. The besiegers sought to raise it
still higher and deepen the water in the streets; the besieged did their
best to break it down and relieve the city. It had grown to a great
height with such rapidity that the superstitious people of Toula felt
sure that magic had aided in its building and fancied that it might be
destroyed by magic means. A monk declared that Shuiski had brought
devils to his aid, but professed to be a proficient in the black art,
and offered, for a hundred roubles, to fight the demons in their own
element.

Bolotnikof accepted his terms, and he stripped, plunged into the river,
and disappeared. For a full hour nothing was seen of him, and every one
gave him up for lost. But at the end of that time he rose to the surface
of the water, his body covered with scratches. The story he had to tell
was, to say the least, remarkable.

"I have had a frightful conflict," he said, "with the twelve thousand
devils Shuiski has at work upon his dam. I have settled six thousand of
them, but the other six thousand are the worst of all, and will not give
in."

Thus against men and devils alike, against water, famine, and
pestilence, fought the brave men of Toula, holding out with
extraordinary courage. Letters came to them in Dmitri's name, promising
help, but it never came. At length, after months of this brave defence
had elapsed, Shakhofskoi proposed that they should capitulate. The
Cossacks of the garrison, furious at the suggestion, seized and thrust
him into a dungeon. Not until every scrap of food had b