Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/445

Rh "But that peaceful breathing space had an end too soon. During a toilsome journey through the Crimea, filled with the usual details of business, the deadly fever and ague smote his frame; while, just at the same time, tidings no less deadly reached his heart. The vaguely treasonable projects of the secret societies had ended in a desperate and deliberate plot, of which his own assassination was a leading feature."

"His assassination!" cried Ivan. "Impossible! They could never have done it."

"So it seemed," Henri answered. "For the deed was often purposed, never once attempted. Still the shaft struck home. Many of those who plotted to take his life owed all that made their own precious to his bounty; every one of them had received favours at his hands. 'But what could I expect? It is a just retribution,' he cried, unconscious in his deafness that he spoke aloud. 'Almighty God, let thy judgments fall on me alone, and not on my people!'"

"A just retribution?" Clémence repeated. "How was it possible to him, even for a moment, to imagine that?"

"It could only have been possible to shattered nerves and a mind unstrung by suffering. The remembrance of the dark tragedy that began his reign&mdash;the thought of his father's horrible fate, perhaps soon to be his own&mdash;came back upon him in the hours of pain and weakness. Moreover, a stern duty was laid upon him. Before treason such as had been now disclosed to him no monarch on earth could remain passive. The ruler 'beareth not the sword in vain.' But to Alexander it was easier to suffer than to strike.

"So he returned to Taganrog with fever in his veins and the bitterness of death in his heart. For some days he struggled on, refusing to yield to his ever increasing malady, and rejecting the severe remedies his physicians pressed upon him. They thought he wished to die; and so it may have been, still I am persuaded he would not have thrust the cup of life aside