up of churches. While I gazed in wonder at
the strange fabric, I could not but think again of Ivan the Terrible;
by whose order it was built; and how, when the architect (an Italian)
was brought before him, trembling with awe, the mighty Ivan expressed
his approval of the performance, and demanded if he, the architect,
could build another equally strange and beautiful; to which the poor
Italian, elated with joy, answered that he could build another even
stranger and more beautiful than this; and then how the ferocious and
unprincipled Czar had the poor fellow's eyes put out to prevent him
from building another.

But this is not the adventure. I have nothing to do at present with
the Church of St. Basil or Ivan the Terrible except in so far as they
affected my imagination. The business on hand is to tell you how the
dire catastrophe happened.

Bewildered at length with gazing at all these wonderful sights, I
turned to retrace my steps to the hotel. A few droskies were still
plying on the principal thoroughfares, and now and then I met gay
parties trudging homeward after their night's dissipation; but I soon
struck into the less frequented streets, where a dreary silence
reigned. There was something very sad and solitary in the
reverberation of my footsteps. For the first time it occurred to me
that there was not much security here for life, in case of a covert
attack from some of those footpads said to infest the city. I began to
reflect upon the experience of my young American friend, and regret
that it had not occurred to me before I left the hotel. You may think
this very weak and foolish, good friends, surrounded as you are by all
the safeguards of law and order, and living in a country where men are
never knocked on the head of nights--with occasional exceptions; but I
can assure you it is a very natural feeling in a strange,
half-barbarous city like Moscow, where one doesn't understand the
language. Had I been well versed in Russian, the probability is I
should not have felt the least alarmed; but a man experiences a
terrible sensation of loneliness when he expects every moment to be
knocked on the head without being able to say a word in his own
defense. Had my guide, Dominico, been with me, I should not have felt
quite so helpless--though I never had much confidence in his
courage--for he could at least have demanded an explanation, or, if
the worst came to the worst, helped me to run away. The fact is--and
th