Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/181

Rh with modest satisfaction. "And now he offers me three things, by way of recompense, as he is pleased to say. If I choose to return with him to the city, he will give me an appointment in the civil service, with the rank of titular counsellor, which, as you know, answers to that of senior captain in the army."

"Surely you will not do that! You could not sheathe your sword now," Adrian exclaimed.

"So much I said to the count; and he answered that, if I pleased, he would request the marshal to put me on his staff."

"Capital! What more could you desire?"

"He made another proposal—to send me to the Czar with the report of what I had seen and done."

"And which did you accept?"

"The last," said Ivan. At that moment a sound, dull, prolonged, and loud, like distant thunder, smote upon their ears. Again it came, and yet again, making the air tremble around them and the earth shake beneath their feet. "What is that?" cried Ivan.

"Not musketry or cannon," said Adrian, with a look of alarm and perplexity. "We are tolerably familiar with those sounds. This is different."

"More like an explosion—if so, a terrible one. Perhaps a great powder magazine. But where?" mused Ivan.

Adrian hurried out in search of information, and soon returned to tell his friend that the noise evidently came from the direction of Moscow. More than that no one knew.

Morning brought the explanation. Ivan was still enjoying the profound slumber of youth and weariness, when a brother officer of Adrian's rushed into the tent. "The Kremlin is destroyed!" he cried. "That demon Napoleon had it undermined before he left, and last night it was blown into fragments!"