e vengeance which Boris had exacted. Of the luckless
inhabitants of the town two hundred were put to death by his orders,
and the rest sent into banishment beyond the Ural Mountains, whilst
the Tsarina Maria, Demetrius's mother, for having said that her boy was
murdered at the instigation of Boris, was packed off to a convent, and
had remained there ever since in close confinement.

That had been in 1591. The next to go was Feodor's infant son, and
lastly--in 1598--Feodor himself, succumbing to a mysterious illness, and
leaving Boris a clear path to the throne. But he ascended it under the
burden of his daughter's curse. Feodor's widow had boldly faced her
father, boldly accused him of poisoning her husband to gratify his
remorseless ambitions, and on a passionate appeal to God to let it be
done by him as he had done by others she had departed to a convent,
swearing never to set eyes upon him again.

The thought of her was with him now, as he stood there looking into
the heart of the fire; and perhaps it was the memory of her curse that
turned his stout heart to water, and made him afraid where there could
surely be no cause for fear. For five years now had he been Tsar of
Russia, and in these five years he had taken such a grip of power as was
not lightly to be loosened.

Long he stood there, and there he was found by the magnificent Prince
Shuiski, whom he had bidden Basmanov to summon.

"You went to Uglich when the Tsarevitch Demetrius was slain," said
Boris. His voice and mien were calm and normal. "Yourself you saw the
body. There is no possibility that you could have been mistaken in it?"

"Mistaken?" The boyar was taken aback by the question. He was a tall
man, considerably younger than Boris, who was in his fiftieth year. His
face was lean and saturnine, and there was something sinister in the
dark, close-set eyes under a single, heavy line of eyebrow.

Boris explained his question, telling him what he had learnt from
Basmanov. Basil Shuiski laughed. The story was an absurd one. Demetrius
was dead. Himself he had held the body in his arms, and no mistake was
possible.

Despite himself, a sigh of relief fluttered from the lips of Boris.
Shuiski was right. It was an absurd story, this. There was nothing to
fear. He had been a fool to have trembled for a moment.

Nevertheless, in the weeks that followed, he brooded more and more over
all that Basmanov had said. It was in the thought that the nobility of
Po