which to assist the beleaguered place. Ivan was so great a
coward that he dared not trust the affection and loyalty of even his own
favorite child, and in a fit of mingled fear and rage he beat the young
man to death with his iron staff, saying, "Rebel, you are leagued with
the boyards in a conspiracy to dethrone me."

Remorse seized upon him at once, and his sufferings and his fears of
retribution were terrible. Finally he determined to abandon the throne
and seek peace in a convent, but the infatuated Russians entreated him
not to desert them. He died at last, in 1580.

Did Scheherazade herself ever imagine a stranger story than this? And
yet it is plain history, and is only a fragment of the truth.

A PRINCE WHO WOULD NOT STAY DEAD.

His name was Dmitri, and he was hereditary Grand-Prince of all the
Russias, being the son of Ivan the Terrible, and only surviving brother
of Feodor, the childless successor of that blood-thirsty czar. He was
carefully killed in the presence of witnesses, during his boyhood, and
duly buried, with honors appropriate to his station in life; so that if
Dmitri had been an ordinary mortal, or even an ordinary prince, there
would have been no story of his life to tell, except the brief tragedy
of his taking off. He was no ordinary prince, however, and so the
trifling incident of his death during childhood had as little to do with
his career as had one or two other episodes of a like nature in the
history of his later life. He was born to rule Russia, and was not at
all disposed to excuse himself from the performance of the duty
Providence had thus imposed upon him, by pleading the two or three
thorough killings to which he was subjected. The story, as preserved in
authentic history, is a very interesting one, and may perhaps bear
repeating here. The reader may find all the facts in any reputable
history of Russia, or of the houses of Rurik and Romanoff.

In his jealousy of the absolute power he wielded, Ivan the Terrible had
made constant war upon his nobility--killing them, or driving them away,
and in every way possible destroying whatever share of influence they
possessed in the state. When he died, leaving as his successor Feodor, a
weak prince, of uncertain temper and infirm intellect, the
nobility--naturally enough--hoped to regain their ancient influence in
the state, and might have accomplished their purpose without difficulty
if their measures to that end had been taken c