“Nikon, son of Andreas.” “Well, Nikon son of Andreas, you seem a more sensible sort of fellow than those around you. Just tell us in a few words to what all this excitement is due?” “To the picture.” “What picture?” “The picture placed at dawn before the Orphan Asylum by command of the Empress Mary. Does that picture tell the truth?” he added with a threatening look. “How the devil should I know when I haven’t seen it.” “Come and see it then,” said the student. This was deemed a good idea by the crowd, who seemed to have taken fresh courage from the student’s bold attitude. “Yes, yes!” they cried. “Bring them face to face with it. Show them their wickedness.” The student gave the ministers no alternative. Forgetting or ignoring Benningsen’s threat to shoot, he took hold of the horses by the bridle, turned their heads in the direction of the asylum, and motioned the bystanders aside with his hand, crying, “Way there for Pahlen and Benningsen.” The voice and gesture of the student caused the crowd to open a path, and thus the ministers passed slowly through a lane of people, who received them with a running fire of threats. “Down with the regicides!” “Death to the murderers of the Czar!” “The liars who told us that Paul died of apoplexy!” “Pull Benningsen from the car!” “Stamp on his mouth, as he stamped on Paul’s!” And but for the dissuasive words of the student the crowd would have made good their threats. The student, having arrived at the railings that guarded the front of the Orphan Asylum, halted and cried— “Behold your work!” Pahlen gave a strange gasp. Benningsen looked on with an air of scornful indifference. If the Ministry had hoped their crime would never be revealed to the public, that hope was now gone. For there, exposed to view behind the railings, was an expanse of canvas, twenty feet by ten, painted with a tableau, vivid and grim in its realism. It represented the interior of a dimly-lit bed-chamber with furnishings of the simplest. Within this chamber were human figures, drawn to life-size, their faces limned with a fidelity that made them instantly recognisable. Benningsen, gazing, saw himself standing with the heel of his boot planted upon the mouth of a struggling figure held down by four grim-faced men, two of whom were drawing the fatal noose around the throat of their victim. The artist had dealt fairly with Prince Ouvaroff, who was making an attempt to stay the deed. Count Pahlen, more scrupulous, or more craven, than his agents, was represented as standing outside the chamber listening at the partly-opened door, at his feet the wounded body of the faithful Voronetz.