“Blown into fragments, did you say?” returned Adrian. “Utterly impossible! The masonry is as solid as the rocks beneath our feet, and the walls of the arsenal are three yards in thickness.” “Those walls are now level with the ground,” said the officer; “and the palace--the Czar’s ancient palace--is in ruins.” Ivan uttered a bitter cry, and Adrian asked breathlessly, “What of the churches?” “One of them, I have not heard which, is thrown down. The mines were fired by slow-consuming fusees; and our men, who arrived just before the messenger left, were beginning a perilous search for powder, to prevent further mischief, if they could.” “But,” said Ivan, who had risen now,--“but there must be a mistake somewhere; for the French kept their own sick and wounded in the Kremlin, and I happen to know that those unfit to be moved were still there when I left the city. That Napoleon could have exposed _them_ to a horrible death is simply inconceivable.” “Yet too true,” the officer answered. “He has sacrificed his own helpless followers to his revenge and hatred. For this barbarous deed can have had no other motive. There was nothing to be gained by it.” Adrian laid his hand upon Ivan’s shoulder. “Do not go to St Petersburg,” he said. “Stay with us, and fight. We will pay this Napoleon double for all his atrocities.” “I wish his neck were _there_,” said Adrian’s comrade, grinding the earth with his strong heel. “But I would not kill him,” he added, after a pause. “No. I would drag him in chains to the feet of the Czar, and let _him_ kill him with his own hand.” “I think,” said Ivan slowly and with deliberation,--“I think every Russian, from the Czar himself down to the lowest mujik, should swear a solemn oath not to sheathe the sword until we have taken such vengeance upon Napoleon and his Frenchmen as the world has never yet seen.” “So be it,” said Michael, who came in while he was speaking. “I, a mujik, will be the first to swear.--Barrinka, what is the name of Napoleon’s great city, where he has his palace and all his treasures? Suppose the Czar were to make a blaze of _that_ some day! It may be. God is just!” CHAPTER XVIII. TWO IMPORTANT INTERVIEWS. “Nous verrons ce qui réussira le mieux, de se faire aimer ou de se faire craindre.” _Words of the Emperor Alexander._ When Ivan waited upon Count Rostopchine that morning, he found his excellency in a very bad humour. The destruction of the Kremlin was perhaps enough to account for this; but there may have been in addition an altercation with Marshal Kutusov--not a very rare occurrence, for between the general-in-chief of the army and the governor of Moscow there was no friendship. Ivan found the count surrounded by the members of his suite, to whom he was giving directions in preparation for an immediate return to the city.