Page:Ivan the Terrible - Kazimierz Waliszewski - tr. Mary Loyd (1904).djvu/224

 200 The Tartars, as was their wont, shrank from the assault on the Kremlin, and retired with 150,000 prisoners; this figure, again, seems improbable. but allowance must be made for the fact that on such occasions as these the whole of the neighbouring population would flow into the capital.

In any case, the disaster was tremendous and the humiliation extreme. On his homeward march the Khan wrote to the Tsar: 'I have ravaged your land and burnt your capital for Kazan and Astrakan, and you, who call yourself the Muscovite Sovereign, have not appeared in their defence! If you had possessed any valour or any decency, you would have shown yourself! I want no more of your riches now, I want Kazan and Astrakan, and I have seen and known every road in your Empire!' Ivan swallowed the insult. It was not only as a fugitive that he remembered his ancestors, and his madness, as I have already said, admitted of a great deal of method between his fits of extravagance. His reply was both humble and cunning: he begged a truce, and offered to give up Astrakan; but his instructions to Nagoï, who still remained in the Crimea, imparted a doubtful meaning to this concession. Astrakan was to be ruled by one of the Khan's sons, who was to receive a resident boïar chosen by the Tsar, just as in the case of Kassimov. Kassimov was one of the small Tartar khanates which had acknowledged the Moscow suzerainty in this manner, and was being slowly absorbed into Russia. These overtures were accompanied by an offer of money; Ivan went so far as to accept the shame of an annual tribute!

Both sides began to treat. The Khan would listen to nothing unless he was given Kazan and Astrakan, without any conditions whatever. As the negotiations dragged, he demanded an instalment of the tribute—2,000 roubles—which he needed, so he said, to buy plate and other merchandise for some family festival. But Ivan had already taken his measures, had swiftly mobilized all his forces, and, on pretext of the exhaustion of his finances resulting from the recent campaign, sent 'all he had in hand'—200 roubles. Mehemed-Ghireï realized at last that the Tsar was only trying to gain time, and in 1572, he recrossed the Oka. But on the Lopasna, 50 versts from Moscow, he came into collision with the troops commanded by Prince Michael Ivanovitch Vorotynski, and was forced to beat a retreat. Whereupon Ivan forthwith changed his tone, withdrew all previous concessions, and sent jeering messages instead of his former humble missives. 'The Khan still wanted money? What? Had he not professed his scorn for riches?' The Tsar's whole soul is revealed in this trait.

Yet the frightful turmoil had thrown him into a state of irritation which he was quite unable to control. He ascribed