of inestimable price, brought from London, and around this chef-d'œuvre of chased gold reflected under the light of the lusters a thousand pieces of most beautiful service from the manufactories of Sèvres.
The guests of the New Palace immediately began to stream towards the supper-rooms.
At that moment, General Kissoff, who had just re-entered, quickly approached the officer of chasseurs.
"Well?" asked the latter abruptly, as he had done the former time.
"Telegrams pass Tomsk no longer, sire."
"A courier this moment!"
The officer left the hall and entered a large antechamber adjoining. It was a cabinet with plain oak furniture, situated in an angle of the New Palace. Several pictures, amongst others some by Horace Vernet, hung on the wall.
The officer hastily opened a window, as if he felt the want of air, and stepped out on a balcony to breathe the pure atmosphere of a lovely July night. Beneath his eyes, bathed in moonlight, lay a fortified inclosure, from which rose two cathedrals, three palaces, and an arsenal. Around this inclosure could be seen three distinct towns: Kitai-Gorod, Beloi-Gorod, Zemlianai-Gorod—European, Tartar, and Chinese quarters of great extent, commanded by towers, belfries, minarets, and the cupolas of three hundred churches, with green domes, surmounted by the silver cross. A little winding river, here and there reflected the rays of the moon.
This river was the Moskowa; the town Moscow; the fortified inclosure the Kremlin; and the officer of chasseurs of the guard, who, with folded arms and thoughtful brow, was listening dreamily to the sounds floating from the New Palace over the old Muscovite city, was the Czar.
CHAPTER II
RUSSIANS AND TARTARS
The Czar had not so suddenly left the ball-room of the New Palace, when the fête he was giving to the civil and military authorities and principal people of Moscow was at the height of its brilliancy, without ample cause; for he
