ing the Polish ladies with the utmost
brutality. They inquired eagerly for the tzarina, but she was nowhere
to be found. She had concealed herself beneath the hoop of an elderly
lady whose gray hairs and withered cheek had preserved her from
violence. Zuski now went to the dowager tzarina, the widow of Ivan
IV., and demanded that she should take her oath upon the Gospels
whether Dmitri were her son. He reported that, thus pressed, she
confessed that he was an impostor, and that her true son had perished
many years before. The conspirators now fell upon Dmitri and his body
was pierced with a thousand dagger thrusts. His mangled remains were
then dragged through the streets and burned. Mariana was soon after
arrested and sent to prison. It is said that nearly two thousand Poles
perished in this massacre.

Even to the present day opinion is divided in Russia in regard to
Dmitri, whether he was an impostor or the son of Ivan IV. Respecting
his character there is no dispute. All that can be said in his favor
is that he would not commit an atrocious crime unless impelled to it
by very strong temptation. There was now no one who seemed to have any
legitimate title to the throne of Russia.

The nobles and the senators who were at Moscow then met to proceed to
the election of a new sovereign. It was an event almost without a
parallel in Russian history. The lords, though very friendly in their
deliberations, found it difficult to decide into whose hands to
intrust the scepter. It was at last unanimously concluded to make an
appeal to the people. Their voice was for Zuski. He was accordingly
declared tzar and was soon after crowned with a degree of unanimity
which, though well authenticated, seems inexplicable.

The Poles were exasperated beyond measure at the massacre of so many
of their nobles and at the insult offered to Mariana, the tzarina. But
Poland was at that time distracted by civil strife, and the king found
it expedient to postpone the hour of vengeance. Zuski commenced his
reign by adopting measures which gave him great popularity with the
adjoining kingdoms, while they did not diminish the favorable regards
of the people. But suddenly affairs assumed a new aspect, so strange
that a writer of fiction would hardly have ventured to imagine it. An
artful man, a schoolmaster in Poland, who could speak the Russian
language, declared that he was Dmitri; that he had escaped from the
massacre in his palace, and that it wa