owing it, was a troop of armed, grim-looking soldiers, like
unwholesome ravens following their certain booty.

At about the same hour, another armed troop passed through the streets
of St. Petersburg. With drawn swords they surrounded two closely-covered
sledges, the mysterious occupants of which no one was allowed to descry!
The train made a halt at the same gate through which the overthrown
imperial family had just passed. The soldiers surrounded the sledges
in close ranks; no one was allowed a glimpse at those who alighted from
them.

But these extra precautions of the soldiery were unnecessary, as nobody
wished to see the unfortunate objects. Every one timidly glanced aside,
that they might not, by looking at the poor creatures, bring themselves
into suspicion of favoring men suffering under the displeasure of the
government. But though they looked not at them, every one knew who they
were; though they dared not speak to each other, every one tremblingly
said to himself: "There go Munnich and Ostermann to their trials!"

Munnich and Ostermann, the faithful servants of Peter the
Great--Munnich, whom Prince Eugene called "his beloved pupil;"
Ostermann, of whom the dying Czar Peter said he had never caught him in
a fault; that he was the only honest statesman in Russia--Munnich and
Ostermann, those two great statesmen to whom Russia was chiefly indebted
for what civilization and cultivation she had acquired, were now accused
of high-treason, and sent for trial before a commission commanded to
find them guilty and to punish them. They were to be put out of the way
because they were feared, and to be feared was held as a crime deserving
death!

Firm and outrageous stood they before their judges. In this hour old
Ostermann had shaken off his illness and thrown away the shield of his
physical sufferings! He would not intrench himself behind his age and
his sickness; he would be a man, and boldly offer his unprotected breast
to the murderous weapons of his enemies!

For, that he was lost he knew! A single glance at his judges made
him certain of it, and from this moment his features wore a calm and
contemptuous smile, an unchangeable expression of scorn. With an ironic
curiosity he followed his judges through the labyrinth of artfully
contrived captious questions by which they hoped to entangle him;
occasionally he gave himself, as it were for his own amusement, the
appearance of voluntarily being caught in their nets,