t will be a command to her."

And the proud count was not mistaken. His request was a command for
her. He told her she must leave Rome because she was no longer in safety
there, and Princess Natalie believed him.

"We will go to Leghorn, and there await the arrival of the Russian
fleet," said he. "When that fleet shall have safely arrived, then our
ends will be attained, then we shall have conquered, for then it will
be evident that the empress has conceived no suspicion; and I am the
commander of that fleet, which is wholly manned with conspirators who
all await you as their empress. Will you follow me to Leghorn, Natalie?"

She clung with tender submissiveness to his bosom.

"I will follow you everywhere," murmured she, "and any place to which
you conduct me will be a paradise for me!"

THE RUSSIAN FLEET

Unsuspectingly had she followed Orloff to Leghorn; full of devoted
tenderness, full of glowing love, she was only anxious to fulfil all his
wishes and to constantly afford him new proofs of her affection.

And how? Did he not deserve that love? Was he not constantly paying her
the most delicate attentions? Was he not always as humbly submissive
as he was tender? Did it not seem as if the lion was subdued, that the
Hercules was tamed, by his tender Omphale, whom he adored, at whose feet
he lay for the purpose of looking into her eyes, to read in them her
most secret thoughts and wishes?

She was not only his wife, she was also his empress. Such he called her,
as such he respected her, and surrounded her with more than imperial
splendor.

The house of the English Consul Dyke was changed into an imperial palace
for Natalie, and the young and beautiful wife of the consul was her
first lady of honor. She established a court for the young imperial
princess, she surrounded her with numerous servants and a splendid train
of attendants whose duty it was to follow the illustrious young empress
everywhere, and never to leave her!

And Natalie suspected not that this English consul received from the
Empress of Russia a million of silver rubles, and that his wife was
rewarded with a costly set of brilliants for the hospitality shown to
this Russian princess, which was so well calculated to deceive not only
Natalie herself, but also the European courts whose attention had been
aroused. Natalie suspected not that her splendid train, her numerous
servants--that all these who apparently viewed her as their sublime
m