proceedings. Kikin had
taken extreme precautions to guard against having his agency in the
affair found out; but Alexis, in the answers that he gave to the first
series of questions that were put to him, betrayed him. Kikin was
aware of the danger, and, in order to secure for himself some chance of
escape in case Alexis should make disclosures implicating him, had
bribed a page, who was always in close attendance upon the Czar, to let
him know immediately in case of any movement to arrest him.

The name of this page was Baklanoffsky. He was in the apartment at the
time that the Czar was writing the order for Kikin's arrest, standing,
as was his wont, behind the chair of the Czar, so as to be ready at
hand to convey messages or to wait upon his master. He looked over,
and saw the order which the Czar was writing. He immediately contrived
some excuse to leave the apartment, and hurrying away, he went to the
post-house and sent on an express by post to Kikin at Petersburg to
warn him of the danger.

But the Czar, noticing his absence, sent some one off after him, and
thus his errand at the post-house was discovered, but not until after
the express had gone. Another express was immediately sent off with
the order for Kikin's arrest, and both the couriers arrived in
Petersburg very nearly at the same time. The one, however, who brought
the warning was a little too late. When he arrived the house of the
commissioner was surrounded by a guard of fifty grenadiers, and
officers were then in Kikin's apartment taking him out of his bed.
They put him at once in irons and took him away, scarcely allowing him
time to bid his wife farewell.

The page was, of course, arrested and sent to prison too. A number of
other persons, many of whom were of very high rank, were arrested in a
similar manner.

The arrival of Alexis at Moscow took place early in February, and
nearly all of February and March were occupied with these arrests and
the proceedings of the court in trying the prisoners. At length,
toward the end of March, a considerable number, Kikin himself being
among them, were condemned to death, and executed in the most dreadful
manner in a great public square in the centre of Moscow. One was
impaled alive; that is, a great stake was driven through his body into
the ground, and he was left in that situation to die. Others were
broken on the wheel. One, a bishop, was burnt. The heads of the
principal offenders were