Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/91

 CHAPTER VIII.

A NATION'S TRANSPORT.

BOUT three weeks later all Moscow was in a frenzy of excitement. The Czar was coming. Ten thousand bells, from those of the world-famous "Ivan Veliki," that looked down from its giddy height upon the domes of the Kremlin, to that of the most obscure of her fifteen hundred churches, were clamouring their sonorous welcome. Cannon were ready to thunder a greeting yet more deafening, though far less musical; and the nobles and clergy were preparing a grand procession to meet their sovereign at the Smolensko gate. Meanwhile the people poured forth in a dense, tumultuous crowd to watch for his approach. Long and patiently did they wait; and the shades had fallen deep over the city, in which that night there were but few sleepers, when at last continued shouts and "houras" announced his appearance. Happy was he who could catch, through the darkness, even a glimpse of the unpretending open carriage, drawn by four unbroken horses from the steppes of Tartary, in which the Czar was wont to travel.

It had been a bitter sacrifice to Alexander to forsake his