They also demanded that Ivan Nariskin, whom they had been seeking for two days, should be delivered up to them. They were sure that he was concealed somewhere in the Kremlin, and they threatened to set fire to the palace and burn it to the ground unless he were immediately delivered to them. It was evident that these threats would be promptly put into execution. Firing the palace would certainly insure his death. There was the bare possibility of escape by surrendering him to the mob. The empress herself went to her brother in his concealment and informed him of the direful choice before him. The young prince sent for the patriarch, confessed his sins, partook of the Lord's Supper, received the sacrament of extreme unction in preparation for death, and was then led out, by the patriarch himself, dressed in his pontifical robes and bearing an image of the Virgin Mary, and was delivered by him to the soldiers. The queen and the princesses accompanied the victim, surrounding him, and, falling upon their knees before the soldiers, they united with the patriarch in pleading for his life. But the mob, intoxicated and maddened, dragged the young prince and the physician before a tribunal which they had constituted on the spot, and condemned them to what was expressively called the punishment of "ten thousand slices." Their bodies were speedily cut into the smallest fragments, while their heads were stuck upon the iron spikes of the balustrade. These outrages were terminated by a proclamation from the soldiery that Ivan and Peter should be joint sovereigns under the regency of Sophia. The regent rewarded her partisans liberally for their efficient and successful measures. Upon the leaders she conferred the confiscated estates of the proscribed. A monument of shame was reared, upon which the names of the assassinated were engraved as traitors to their country. The soldiers were rewarded with double pay.