ns--a brilliant band, splendidly clad in the glittering
uniforms of the Caucasus.

This personage, of lofty stature, affable demeanor, and physiognomy
calm, though bearing traces of anxiety, moved from group to group,
seldom speaking, and appearing to pay but little attention either to
the merriment of the younger guests or the graver remarks of the exalted
dignitaries or members of the diplomatic corps who represented at the
Russian court the principal governments of Europe. Two or three of these
astute politicians--physiognomists by virtue of their profession--failed
not to detect on the countenance of their host symptoms of disquietude,
the source of which eluded their penetration; but none ventured to
interrogate him on the subject.

It was evidently the intention of the officer of chasseurs that his own
anxieties should in no way cast a shade over the festivities; and, as he
was a personage whom almost the population of a world in itself was wont
to obey, the gayety of the ball was not for a moment checked.

Nevertheless, General Kissoff waited until the officer to whom he had
just communicated the dispatch forwarded from Tomsk should give him
permission to withdraw; but the latter still remained silent. He had
taken the telegram, he had read it carefully, and his visage became even
more clouded than before. Involuntarily he sought the hilt of his sword,
and then passed his hand for an instant before his eyes, as though,
dazzled by the brilliancy of the light, he wished to shade them, the
better to see into the recesses of his own mind.

"We are, then," he continued, after having drawn General Kissoff aside
towards a window, "since yesterday without intelligence from the Grand
Duke?"

"Without any, sire; and it is to be feared that in a short time
dispatches will no longer cross the Siberian frontier."

"But have not the troops of the provinces of Amoor and Irkutsk, as those
also of the Trans-Balkan territory, received orders to march immediately
upon Irkutsk?"

"The orders were transmitted by the last telegram we were able to send
beyond Lake Baikal."

"And the governments of Yeniseisk, Omsk, Semipolatinsk, and Tobolsk--are
we still in direct communication with them as before the insurrection?"

"Yes, sire; our dispatches have reached them, and we are assured at the
present moment that the Tartars have not advanced beyond the Irtish and
the Obi."

"And the traitor Ivan Ogareff, are there no tidings of