Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/376

366 We might spare at least the one chivalrous enemy who always spared us."

"It would be better for yourselves," said Ivan. "And for others too. Baron Muffling says he is longing to get the Czar out of Paris, as, if he is assassinated, or even insulted, no power on earth would be able to avert a general massacre of the inhabitants by the Allies."

"Which you would take part in, Prince Ivan."

Ivan was silent for a moment, then he said in a tone of deep feeling, "Do not ask me. I am a Christian, I hope, but I am a man also. I know not what I would do. God grant I may not be put to the test."

There was a pause, then Emile asked, "What does he say?"

"If I tell you, will you scoff?"

"At him? No; that I can promise you."

"Well, then, he has asked his friends to pray for him."

"Useless, but harmless," said Emile with an air of generous toleration. "Very clever persons have worn amulets; and even the great Napoleon was not free from a superstition or two."

"Not as an amulet against steel or poison does my Czar think of prayer. 'Do not pray,' he says, 'that I may be guarded from the evil that man can do to me; I have no fears on these grounds. I know that I am in the hands of God.'"

"That is like Napoleon's confidence in his star," thought Emile. He had almost uttered his thought aloud, but he checked himself in time. For he reflected that this was not blind confidence in a thing, in some unknown power—chance, fate, or destiny—but rather, what Ivan had spoken of to him before, trust in a Person.

Ivan resumed presently, "What he desires his friends to ask for him is protection from the evil influences of the world, and