“The half has not been told you, or you would find no name to call him by,” returned Ivan fiercely. “He has defiled our holiest sanctuaries; he has torn open our imperial tombs; he has stabled his horses in the church where our Czar was crowned; he has carried everything away upon which he could lay his sacrilegious hands, even to the cross upon the tower of Ivan Veliki, and the Tartar banners which hung as trophies in the Arsenal. Well may Count Rostopchine curse him, as only he knows how to curse. But those wounded--we contrived somehow to keep them alive; and I think a goodly number may be saved yet. I asked the count not to lose an hour in sending them succour.” “I hope he has had the grace to do justice to your courage and your exertions.” “He has condescended to approve my conduct,” said Ivan with modest satisfaction. “And now he offers me three things, by way of recompense, as he is pleased to say. If I choose to return with him to the city, he will give me an appointment in the civil service, with the rank of titular counsellor, which, as you know, answers to that of senior captain in the army.”[34] “Surely you will not do that! You could not sheathe your sword _now_,” Adrian exclaimed. “So much I said to the count; and he answered that, if I pleased, he would request the marshal to put me on his staff.” “Capital! What more could you desire?” “He made another proposal--to send me to the Czar with the report of what I had seen and done.” “And which did you accept?” “_The last_,” said Ivan. At that moment a sound, dull, prolonged, and loud, like distant thunder, smote upon their ears. Again it came, and yet again, making the air tremble around them and the earth shake beneath their feet. “What is that?” cried Ivan. “Not musketry or cannon,” said Adrian, with a look of alarm and perplexity. “We are tolerably familiar with those sounds. _This_ is different.” “More like an explosion--if so, a terrible one. Perhaps a great powder magazine. But where?” mused Ivan. Adrian hurried out in search of information, and soon returned to tell his friend that the noise evidently came from the direction of Moscow. More than that no one knew. Morning brought the explanation. Ivan was still enjoying the profound slumber of youth and weariness, when a brother officer of Adrian’s rushed into the tent. “The Kremlin is destroyed!” he cried. “That demon Napoleon had it undermined before he left, and last night it was blown into fragments!” “The Kremlin?--Impossible!” cried Adrian, who was dressing for parade. “Too possible, and too true,” said his informant. “A messenger from the city has just arrived to bring the tidings to the marshal and the count.” Meanwhile Ivan, who had been suddenly awakened, started up in horror, exclaiming, “The Czar! oh, what will it be to _him_?”