m, all hearts loved him. He was declared to be a special gift which
Heaven, in its boundless mercy, had conferred. Unfortunately, this
virtuous prince reigned but one year, leaving, however, in that short
time, upon the Russian annals many memorials of his valor and of his
virtue. It was a barbaric age, rife with perfidy and crime, yet not
one act of treachery or cruelty has sullied his name. It was his
ambition to be the father of his people, and the glory he sought was
the happiness and the greatness of his country.

Southern Russia was still the theater of interminable civil war. The
provinces were impoverished, and Kief was fast sinking to decay.
Michel had a brother, Vsevelod, who had accompanied him to Moscow. The
nobles and the leading citizens, their eyes still dim with the tears
which they had shed over the tomb of their sovereign, urged him to
accept the crown. He was not reluctant to accede to their request, and
received their oaths of fidelity to him under the title of Vsevelod
III. His title, however, was disputed by distant princes, and an armed
band, approaching Moscow by surprise, seized the town and reduced it
to ashes, ravaged the surrounding region, and carried off the women
and children as captives. Vsevelod was, at the time, absent in the
extreme northern portion of his territory, but he turned upon his
enemies with the heart and with the strength of a lion. It was
midwinter. Regardless of storms, and snow and cold, he pursued the foe
like the north wind, and crushed them as with an iron hand. With a
large number of prisoners he returned to the ruins of Moscow.

Two of the most illustrious of the hostile princes were among the
prisoners. The people, enraged at the destruction of their city, fell
upon the captives, and, seizing the two princes, tore out their eyes.

Vsevelod was a young man who had not acquired renown. Many of the
warlike princes of the spacious provinces regarded his elevation with
envy. Sviatoslaf, prince of Tchernigof, was roused to intense
hostility, and gathering around him the nobles of his province,
resolved with a vigorous arm to seize for himself the throne.
Enlisting in his interests several other princes, he commenced his
march against his sovereign. Vsevelod prepared with vigor to repulse
his assailants. After long and weary marchings the two armies met in
the defiles of the mountains. A swift mountain-stream rushing along
its rocky bed, between deep and precipitous ban