Yet Randolph, patient and experienced, kept his temper, and when he
left the Tsar he had a commercial charter in his trunk, and a special
agent of Ivan in his train. This agent, Andrew Gregorivitch, bore a
letter to the queen (in Russ), in which he prayed her to sign a treaty
of war and peace against all the world; and to grant him an asylum in
her realm in case he should be driven from his own. Andrew found that
the queen could make no treaty of the kind, though she was ready to
promise his master an asylum in her states, where he might practise
his own religion, and live at his own expense. He then gave ear to an
impostor named Eli Bomel, a native of Wesel, whom he found in an
English jail. This wretch, who professed to work by magic and the
stars, proposed to go with Andrew to Russia and serve the Tsar. The
agent asked for a pardon, and took him out to Moscow, where he soon
became master in the tyrant's house. For Bomel made the Tsar believe
that the queen, whom he described as a young and lovely virgin, was in
love with him, and could be brought by sorcery to accept an offer of
his hand and throne. The Tsar, who was past his prime, and feeble in
health and power, never tired of doing honor to the man who promised
him an alliance which would raise him above the proudest emperors and
kings.
Horsey, following Randolph to Russia, saw the end of this wizard. When
the Tsar found out that Bomel was deceiving him with lies, and that
the queen would not write to him except on questions of trade, he sent
for his favorite, laid him on the rack, drew his legs out of their
sockets, flayed him with wire whips, roasted him before a fire, drew
him on a sledge through the snow, and pitched him into a dungeon,
where he was left to die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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