“He and Ivan Naryshkin were taken to-day,” Ramodanofsky replied. “The Streltsi came to the palace and demanded Ivan Naryshkin; the czarina resisted, until Sophia told her that his life must be sacrificed to save the others. He received the eucharist in the Church of the Savior beyond the Wicket, and Sophia gave him an image of the Virgin to hold. Poor Natalia Kirilovna went with him to the Golden Wicket, and there the Streltsi seized him and insulted him before her eyes. Meanwhile, Von Gaden had been arrested in disguise, begging for food; he has been three days in the woods without it. He and Naryshkin were both taken to the Constantine torture-room and subjected to excruciating agony. Ivan uttered not a word, but Von Gaden had already endured too much, and he made some sort of confession, the wild talk of a man in death agony. It availed nothing. They were dragged to the Red Place and lifted on the points of the rioters’ spears. Then their hands and feet were cut off, their bodies chopped in pieces and trampled in the dirt. Thus perished a benevolent physician.” “His poor wife!” cried Zénaïde; “who can tell her? She is here, father,” she added; “she came to hear some tidings of him.” “You will have to tell her, Zénaïde,” her father said, gravely. At that moment we heard a step upon the stair, and looking up, saw madame standing just above us. Her robe was black, and the mantle about her head, and out of its shrouding folds showed a face like that of a corpse. “She need not tell me,” she said in a strange wild voice; “I heard it all. Let me die too! Let me go out and tear these ruffians with my hands and die battling with them! May they be torn limb from limb, and their wives and children left desolate, as I am desolate!” She threw her hands over her head with a frantic gesture as she invoked the wrath of Heaven. Then she came down, her eyes staring out of her white face, yet seeming not to see us, or anything but the door. We thought her mad, and no doubt for the moment she was. Ramodanofsky, springing forward, caught her and held her back. She shrieked aloud and struck at him with her fists, but he held her in a grip of iron. Mademoiselle Eudoxie came running at the sound of the screams, and Pierrot and the man who had attended her from the Kremlin. But in a moment it was over, and she fell across the boyar’s arm in a deathlike swoon, the foam upon her lips. Very gently he lifted her and carried her up the stairs, followed by Zénaïde and mademoiselle, who were eager to minister to the poor, afflicted creature, so horribly bereaved. CHAPTER XXIX. A DESPERATE DEFENSE. I STOOD in the lower hall with the two men. Pierrot addressed me at once in French.