Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/182

172 "The Kremlin?—Impossible!" cried Adrian, who was dressing for parade.

"Too possible, and too true," said his informant. "A messenger from the city has just arrived to bring the tidings to the marshal and the count."

Meanwhile Ivan, who had been suddenly awakened, started up in horror, exclaiming, "The Czar! oh, what will it be to him?"

"Blown into fragments, did you say?" returned Adrian. "Utterly impossible! The masonry is as solid as the rocks beneath our feet, and the walls of the arsenal are three yards in thickness."

"Those walls are now level with the ground," said the officer; "and the palace—the Czar's ancient palace—is in ruins."

Ivan uttered a bitter cry, and Adrian asked breathlessly, "What of the churches?"

"One of them, I have not heard which, is thrown down. The mines were fired by slow-consuming fusees; and our men, who arrived just before the messenger left, were beginning a perilous search for powder, to prevent further mischief, if they could."

"But," said Ivan, who had risen now,—"but there must be a mistake somewhere; for the French kept their own sick and wounded in the Kremlin, and I happen to know that those unfit to be moved were still there when I left the city. That Napoleon could have exposed them to a horrible death is simply inconceivable."

"Yet too true," the officer answered. "He has sacrificed his own helpless followers to his revenge and hatred. For this barbarous deed can have had no other motive. There was nothing to be gained by it."

Adrian laid his hand upon Ivan's shoulder. "Do not go to St. Petersburg," he said. "Stay with us, and fight. We will pay this Napoleon double for all his atrocities."