Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/144

134 Ivan with sudden energy—"what were you about that you did not set the village on fire and burn it over their heads?"

Michael's remaining hand fell by his side with a gesture of mingled admiration and regret. "Great St. Nicholas!" he exclaimed.

"Well?" said Ivan.

"We never thought of it," cried Michael. "Would to God we had! What a sight it would have been!"

"You may yet see a greater, Michael Ivanovitch."

There was silence, and the tumult outside became audible once more to both.

At last Michael resumed. "I am forgetting what I came for. Since that night my head is confused. I live those last hours over and over again. I hear nothing, I see nothing except that bed of leaves in the forest, and the torches nickering upon those sad faces all around, and that one sweet white face—except when I sleep and dream of killing Frenchmen. Ay, killing Frenchmen, that is it! Ivan Barrinka, I come here to beg of you—if you like it, on my bended knees—to speak one word for me to our lord the Czar,—only one word."

"My good friend—for my friend you are, in the love we both have for the dead—I would speak a hundred if I could; but the Czar is in St. Petersburg, and I am here. I scarce hope ever to see again the face that is to us all as the sun in the heavens."

"Then give me a written word for him. You are a boyar, and can do it."

"Nay, I should not presume so far. He does not even know of my existence—yet." The last word was spoken proudly, with an evident under-current of meaning. "But what is it you want, Michael?"

"See, I have lost my left hand."

"Another French outrage?"

"Yes, and no. When I went to fetch that picture, they