was shaken by the Tsar's manner, by the ferocity of his mien.
But he made answer: "Alas, Highness! I could not be mistaken. I am
sure."

Boris grunted, and moved his body irritably in his chair. His terrible
eyes watched Otrepiev mistrustfully. He had reached the mental stage in
which he mistrusted everything and everybody.

"You lie, you dog," he snarled savagely.

"Highness, I swear..."

"Lies!" Boris roared him down. "And here's the proof. Would Sigismund of
Poland have acknowledged him had he been what you say? When I denounced
him the unfrocked monk Grishka Otrepiev, would not Sigismund have
verified the statement had it been true?"

"The brothers Nagoy, the uncles of the dead Demetrius..." Otrepiev was
beginning, when again Boris interrupted him.

"Their acknowledgment of him came after Sigismund's, after--long
after--my denunciation." He broke into oaths. "I say you lie. Will you
stand there and pelter with me, man? Will you wait until the rack pulls
you joint from joint before you speak the truth?"

"Highness!" cried Otrepiev, "I have served you faithfully these years."

"The truth, man; as you hope for life," thundered the Tsar, "the whole
truth of this foul nephew of yours, if so be he is your nephew."

And Otrepiev spoke the whole truth at last in his great dread. "He is
not my nephew."

"Not?" It was a roar of rage. "You dared lie to me?"

Otrepiev's knees were loosened by terror, and he went down upon them
before the irate Tsar.

"I did not lie--not altogether. I told you a half-truth, Highness. His
name is Grishka Otrepiev; it is the name by which he always has been
known, and he is an unfrocked monk, all as I said, and the son of my
brother's wife."

"Then... then..." Boris was bewildered. Suddenly he understood. "And his
father?"

"Was Stephen Bathory, King of Poland. Grishka Otrepiev is King Stephen's
natural son."

Boris seemed to fight for breath for a moment.

"This is true?" he asked, and himself answered the question. "Of course
it is true. It is the light at last... at last. You may go."

Otrepiev stumbled out, thankful, surprised to escape so lightly. He
could not know of how little account to Boris was the deception he had
practiced in comparison with the truth he had now revealed, a truth
that shed a fearful, dazzling light upon the dark mystery of the false
Demetrius. The problem that so long had plagued the Tsar was solved at
last.

This pretended Demetrius, this unfro