Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/94

84 is the brave general who punished my infantry so sorely?' This young gallant, as beautiful as a girl, and as daintily curled and perfumed, stepped forward and said quietly, 'Je, sire.' 'You may not speak very good French, but you are a very brave officer,' said Napoleon, taking his hand kindly."

"Have a care, Yakovlef. If the people hear us talking of Napoleon, ten to one they will tear us to pieces."

"Not they, while the Czar is here.—Ivan Ivanovitch, what ails you? You seem lost in a dream. Wake up, my friend."

Ivan started.

"True enough," he said; "I feel in a dream. I am perplexed, haunted, by the face of that man."

"Of Ouvarov?"

"No; of the other who rode beside him. That tall, gaunt, foreign-looking man. I have seen him before; I am sure of it. But where? when?"

"I should think," said Kanikoff, "that you would care very little to see him again. He must ride out with Ouvarov on purpose to illustrate Beauty and the Beast."

"Ivan would like well enough to see him if he were ill," Yakovlef interposed. "That is the Czar's physician—Dr. Wylie, a Scotchman, very clever, but very ready with his lancet, they say. He has been accused of cutting off a man's head to cure him of a headache."

"The head of the man who allowed him to do it could have been little loss to its owner," laughed Ivan. Then he repeated thoughtfully, "His lancet! I am sure I have seen him with a lancet. Of what can I be thinking?"

He was interrupted by Feodor, the grandson of Petrovitch, who pushed his way through the crowd to the group of young nobles. The handsome, dark-eyed lad, in his blue caftan and crimson sash, looked to no disadvantage amongst them. They all knew him, and greeted him with kindness, if also with a little condescension.