Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/439

Rh At that moment little Alexander rushed in weeping. "Father, mother," he sobbed, "they are all saying the Czar is dead—the dear, good Czar, my godfather. Father, is it true?"

Ivan did not answer. No word passed his lips, no cry; he only tottered and sank as one struck by a fatal bullet. From Clémence just then his white death-like face shut out all sorrows, all losses far away.

But the strong man wrestled with his agony and overcame. After a few terrible moments, during which life changed its aspect to Ivan Pojarsky, he regained a measure of outward calmness.

"Tell me all you know, Henri," he said at last,—"all, from the beginning."

The sorrow-stricken group drew close together. Clémence had placed her hand in that of her husband, and was watching him with anxious eyes. The weeping child stood beside his father's knee; and the aged priest covered his face to hide the emotion he could not restrain.

"I have one fear, too dreadful to utter," said Ivan with pale lips. "Can you guess, and remove it, Henri?"

"I can. No hand touched him, except the hand of God. It will be written in history that the Emperor Alexander died of fever, at Taganrog in the Crimea."

"Will it not be true?" asked Clémence.

"Not all the truth. Before the fiery shaft of the fever smote him he was already stricken, I think to death."

"Ever fearless, he was wont to brave the danger of infection as readily as other dangers," Pope Yefim said.

"My life witnesses to that," returned Henri, almost losing his self-control. After a pause he resumed: "Before I left Tobolsk, I met an Englishman who had seen his physician, Dr. Wylie, and heard from his lips a full account of every particular. He told me all. And this, indeed, is what has brought me here."