ms at last to have abandoned her; and it
requires all her courage to sustain her in this hour of darkness.

In her extremity she appeals to Sir William Hamilton for a loan, much as
a Queen might confer a favour on a subject, and Hamilton, pleased to be
of service to so fair and pious a lady, sends her letter to his Leghorn
banker, Mr John Dick, with instructions to arrange the matter.

* * * * *

While the Princess Aly was practising piety and cultivating Cardinals in
Rome, with an empty purse and a pain-racked body to make a mockery of
her claim to a crown, away in distant Russia Catherine II. was nursing a
terrible revenge on the woman who had dared to usurp her position and
threaten her throne. The succession of revolutions, at which she had at
first smiled scornfully, had now roused the tigress in her. She would
show the world that she was no woman to be trifled with, and the first
victim of her vengeance should be that brazen Princess who dared to
masquerade as "Elizabeth II."

She sent imperative orders to her trusted and beloved Orloff, fresh from
his crushing defeat of the Turkish fleet, to seize her at any cost, even
if he had to raze Ragusa to the ground; and these orders she knew would
be executed to the letter. For was not Orloff the man whose strong hands
had strangled her husband and placed the crown on her head; also her
most devoted slave? He was, it is true, the biggest scoundrel (as he was
also one of the handsomest men) in Europe, a man ready to stoop to any
infamy, and thus the best possible tool for such an infamous purpose;
but he was also her greatest admirer, eager to step into the place of
"chief favourite" from which his brother Gregory had just been
dismissed.

When, however, Orloff went to Ragusa, with his soldiers at his back, he
found that the Princess had already flown, leaving no trace behind her.
He ransacked Sicily in vain, and it was only when Sir William
Hamilton's letter to his Leghorn banker came to his hands that he
discovered that she was in Rome, a much safer asylum than Ragusa. It was
hopeless now to capture her by force; he must try diplomacy, and, by the
hands of an aide-de-camp, he sent her a letter in which he informed her
that he had received her ukase and was anxious to pay due homage to the
future Empress of Russia.

Such was the "Judas" message Kristenef, Orloff's emissary, carried to
the Princess, whom he found in a pitiful condition