"You would gain time," replied Shusky; "but you will not succeed; the Czarina Mary's declaration is sufficient for us to decide upon your fate, and, so doing, we doom you to die." Thereupon four men seized the culprit and pushed him against a wall; two others, armed with muskets, went close up to him and shot him. He struggled an instant, and then expired. His corpse, dragged by the mob to the place of common execution, was there abandoned with outrage and mutilation. His death was the signal for the massacre of the Poles, whom Otrepief had always favoured, affecting their manners, and selecting them for his body-guard. Moscow just then contained a great number of those foreigners; for Marina, daughter of the voevóda of Sandomir, had arrived a few days before for her nuptials with the Czar, and had been closely followed by the King of Poland's ambassadors, with an armed and numerous suite. After an orgie at the palace, the Poles had committed various excesses, beating peaceable citizens and outraging women, which had greatly exasperated the people. Besides this, their religion rendered them odious; and scarcely had the false Demetrius fallen when the Russian priests and monks raised the cry of massacre. With shouts of "Down with the Pope!" and "Death to the heretics!" they spread through the city, pointing out to the people the dwellings of the Poles, whose doors were already marked by the conspirators. It was a St Bartholomew on a small scale. Blood flowed for six hours in the streets of Moscow: more than a thousand Poles were slaughtered; and, when the work was done, the murderers repaired to the churches to thank God for the success of their enterprise. Shusky was proclaimed Czar by the will of the people, which, at that moment, it would not have been safe to thwart.