urpation numbered."

If for a moment it appalled him, yet in the end, forewarned, he was
forearmed. It was foolish of her to let him look upon the weapon with
which she could destroy him. The result of it was that she went back to
her convent under close guard, and was thereafter confined with greater
rigour than hitherto.

Desperately Boris heard how the belief in Demetrius was gaining ground
in Russia with the people. The nobles might still be sceptical, but
Boris knew that he could not trust them, since they had no cause to love
him. He began perhaps to realize that it is not good to rule by fear.

And then at last came Smirnoy Otrepiev back from Cracow, where he had
been sent by Basmanov to obtain with his own eyes confirmation of the
rumour which had reached the boyar on the score of the pretender's real
identity.

The rumour, he declared, was right. The false Demetrius was none other
than his own nephew, Grishka Otrepiev, who had once been a monk, but,
unfrocked, had embraced the Roman heresy, and had abandoned himself to
licentious ways. You realize now why Smirnoy had been chosen by Basmanov
for this particular mission.

The news heartened Boris. At last he could denounce the impostor in
proper terms, and denounce him he did. He sent an envoy to Sigismund
III. to proclaim the fellow's true identity, and to demand his expulsion
from the Kingdom of Poland; and his denunciation was supported by a
solemn excommunication pronounced by the Patriarch of Moscow against
the unfrocked monk, Grishka Otrepiev, who now falsely called himself
Demetrius Ivanovitch.

But the denunciation did not carry the conviction that Boris expected.
It was reported that the Tsarevitch was a courtly, accomplished man,
speaking Polish and Latin, as well as Russian, skilled in horsemanship
and in the use of arms, and it was asked how an unfrocked monk had come
by these accomplishments. Moreover, although Boris, fore-warned, had
prevented the Tsarina Maria from supporting the pretender out of motives
of revenge, he had forgotten her two brothers; he had not foreseen that,
actuated by the same motives, they might do that which he had prevented
her from doing. This was what occurred. The brothers Nagoy repaired
to Cracow publicly to acknowledge Demetrius their nephew, and to enrol
themselves under his banner.

Against this Boris realized that mere words were useless. The sword of
Nemesis was drawn indeed. His sins had found him out. Nothi