The streets outside the Kremlin were packed with people; the crowd within had dispersed, and Biélui-gorod was filled with the overflow. I noticed more than once that curious and, I fancied, suspicious glances were cast at the physician, as we walked rapidly along; but he was apparently unconscious of them, although his keen eye was ever so observant. Here and there were knots of soldiers talking eagerly together; and at one corner we witnessed a curious example of the smoldering ire of the Streltsi against their own commanders. An officer of the Pyzhof regiment was riding towards the Kremlin, evidently on an errand of importance. As he came abreast of us, a woman hissed him, and a cry rose suddenly, as if at a preconcerted signal,-- “Down with the officers! Down with oppression and extortion! Give us our pay!” And the stones flew like hail. The officer, a young fellow, taken unawares, was evidently alarmed, and dashed off through the crowd without offering any remonstrance, his retreat bringing laughter and jeers from the mob. Von Gaden quickened his step, saying to me in a low tone:-- “It is an evil sign; the insubordination has reached serious proportions, and there is no master hand upon the rein. We have had two benevolent rulers,--his late majesty, and the Czar Alexis; we need now another, Ivan the Terrible. The rabble is breaking its bonds, and woe to Russia’s rulers when the reckoning day comes!” “You see it, then, as plainly as I do?” I said. “This election to-day seemed idle mockery; they have set up a boy to rule the Russias, and they can’t control the rabble of Moscow!” “No one can foresee the end,” Von Gaden replied gravely; “the feuds are so bitter that every man feels his life to be in peril. The Naryshkins and their adherents all wore armor under their robes to-day. The patriarch turned from the side of the dead czar to ask the boyars who should rule over them, and they referred him to the free voters of the Moscovite State!” “Le roi est mort, vive le roi!” I said dryly. “Ay, it is ever so!” replied Von Gaden. We had reached his home, and he ushered me in with that gentle courtesy which was one of his characteristics. “I will take you up to my den,” he said, smiling. “I would talk freely to you, and there we can be undisturbed.”