peril in which they stood. Towards the close
of the banquet he rose to address his guests, announcing that he had
an important communication for them. In silence they waited for him to
speak. And then, abruptly, with no word yet spoken, he sank back into
his chair, fighting for breath, clawing the air, his face empurpling
until suddenly the blood gushed copiously from his mouth and nostrils.

He was vouchsafed time in which to strip off his splendid apparel and
wrap himself in a monk's robe, thus symbolizing the putting aside of
earthly vanities, and then he expired.

It has been now and then suggested that he was poisoned. His death
was certainly most opportune to Demetrius. But there is nothing in the
manner of it to justify the opinion that it resulted from anything other
than an apoplexy.

His death brought the sinister opportunist Shuiski back to Moscow to
place Boris's son Feodor on the throne. But the reign of this lad of
sixteen was very brief. Basmanov, who had gone back to the army, being
now inspired by jealousy and fear of the ambitious Shuiski, went over
at once to the pretender, and proclaimed him Tsar of Russia. Thereafter
events moved swiftly. Basmanov marched on Moscow, entered it in triumph,
and again proclaimed Demetrius, whereupon the people rose in revolt
against the son of the usurper Boris, stormed the Kremlin, and strangled
the boy and his mother.

Basil Shuiski would have shared their fate had he not bought his life at
the price of betrayal. Publicly he declared to the Muscovites that the
boy whose body he had seen at Uglich was not that of Demetrius, but of a
peasant's son, who had been murdered in his stead.

That statement cleared the last obstacle from the pretender's path, and
he advanced now to take possession of his throne. Yet before he occupied
it, he showed the real principles that actuated him, proved how true had
been Boris's conclusion. He ordered the arrest and degradation of the
Patriarch who had denounced and excommunicated him, and in his place
appointed Ignatius, Bishop of Riazan, a man suspected of belonging to
the Roman communion.

On the 30th of June of that year 1605, Demetrius made his triumphal
entry into Moscow. He went to prostrate himself before the tomb of Ivan
the Terrible, and then to visit the Tsarina Maria, who, after a brief
communion with him in private, came forth publicly to acknowledge him as
her son.

Just as Shuiski had purchased his life by a false