and pretending to
make peace with them, requested every householder to give her a pigeon.

WINGED FIREBRANDS.

When they gladly complied with her request she sent the tame birds back
home with flaming firebrands tied to their tails, and they entered their
lofts or rests and started fires which destroyed the city of Korosten.
The ascendancy of the Romanoff dynasty, which maintained in Russia
through the centuries, was established through the atrocities of Ivan
the Terrible, who is said to have absolutely destroyed the descendants
of the Rurik, the first Norse chieftain. Ivan the Terrible was the first
Czar of Russia. He conquered Servia and his domestic infamies and
intrigues are among the historical scandals of the country.

Through every reign in Russian history there ran stories of terrible
crime, cruelties, infamies, immoralities and degradation. Following the
death of Ivan the Terrible came Fedor, one of his sons, who was a
weakling in the hands of the Duma of five, one of whom was Boris
Godounoff. Fedor reigned but a few years, and Godounoff was elected
Czar. He was ambitious, and was founder of the system of serfdom, and
also of the Russian State Church, and like many of the other rulers of
Russia, met death through infamy, supposedly having been poisoned.

[Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF THE BALKAN STATES.

This drawing shows the boundary lines as they were at the beginning of
the war. It also shows the location of the principal city of each
country. This part of the world has always been of great importance
since the earliest history of man and nations--a continuous struggle
between nations to control this gateway into southwestern Asia.]

BASE IMPOSTER SLAIN.

Boris Godounoff was succeeded by his son Feodor, but he was seized by a
pretender, and with his mother, thrown into prison, where they were
murdered. The discovery of the plot, which was laid at the door of the
King of Poland, produced an uprising and Czar Dimitry the Impostor was
slain. Vasili Shouyskie, leader of the mob that slew Dimitry, was
proclaimed Czar, but pretenders sprang up, and one of these, who posed
as a false Dimitry, invaded Russia from Poland, and established a rival
imperial court at Toushin, and some of the Russian cities swore
allegiance to him.

Vasili Shouyskie held out at Moscow, and after a time Dimitry's cause
failed, whereupon Sigsmund, of Poland, invaded Russia, and put forward
his son Vladislav. Vasili, roused to a