lly, "I will have
your only son hung, as he deserves to be. If you betray to any one
soever a word of my order, I will have your wife whipped to death. Now
think of it."

Ivan shook as if in an ague. His teeth chattered together. "I will
smoke, master," said he, at last, with an effort, "and I will drop my
pipe in the powder-mills. Have pity on my son, master, and spare my
wife!"

"I will do so, Ivan," said Tottleben. "I will give them both their
freedom, and a pension."

Ivan dropped his head, and a convulsive groan burst from his breast.

"Time passes; make haste!" cried the general, with assumed harshness.

"I go, master," sighed Ivan. "You will not, then, string up my poor
Feodor, nor have my wife whipped?"

"If you execute my order strictly and punctually, I will care for
them."

Two tears coursed slowly down Ivan's brown cheek. "I will carry out
your orders, master; I will smoke, and I will drop my pipe. Farewell,
master!"

He approached his master with slavish humility, and kissed the seam of
his garment. "Farewell, master. I thank you, for you have always been
a kind master to me," said he, and his tears moistened the general's
coat.

General Tottleben was as yet unable completely to convert his German
heart into a Russian one. He felt himself touched by this humble and
heroic submission of his slave. He felt as if he must give him some
comfort on his fatal road.

"Ivan," said he, softly, "your death will save, perhaps, not only the
property, but also the lives of many hundred other men."

Ivan kissed passionately his proffered hand. "I thank you, master.
Farewell, and think sometimes of your poor Ivan."

A quarter of an hour afterward was seen a troop of fifty Cossacks, on
their swift-footed little horses, racing down Frederick Street.
Each man had a powder-sack with him, and seeing them ride by, people
whispered to each other, "They are riding to the powder-mills. They
have shot away all their own powder, and now, in true Cossack style,
they are going to take our Prussian powder." At that time Frederick
Street did not reach beyond the river Spree. On the other bank began
the faubourgs and the gardens. Even Monbijou was then only a royal
country seat, situated in the Oranienburg suburb. The powder-mills,
which lay beyond the gardens, with a large sandy plain intervening,
were sufficiently remote from the town to prevent all danger from
their possible explosion.

Ivan, the serf of Count von To