The Czar's whole journey was conducted in as capricious a manner as if it had been dictated by some one knowing that he was being pursued, and as if this zig-zag progress from valley to valley by impassable paths were intended to deceive. And how many favorable opportunities had Jakuskin missed! The Czar had felt so free from care among the simple Mohammedan populace that he had wandered for hours on foot and on horseback among the exquisite gardens and woods. As he strolled along the lovely valley of Oriander, in full bloom, he had said, meditatively, "Here I would fain spend the rest of my days!" Torturing care, melancholy's dark phantom, found no place here; they were as effectually scared away as were the conspirators. At his physician's earnest entreaty, at length leaving the sea-coast, he turned to the interior of the peninsula, to the whilom capital of the Tartar Sultan, Bakcsi Seraj; and in the palace of the former Ghiraids passed the night. All through that night and the following day there sat at the gate of the palace, beneath the cypresses which have made Bakcsi Seraj so famous, a dervish. That dervish was Jakuskin. At length he had found the Czar. Wrapping himself in his burnous, he sat and waited until the Czar should come forth. He is certain of his object. In his girdle glistens a good sharp dagger. His hand does not tremble. And yet once more the Czar escapes him. He passed close to him; his dress brushed him by, and yet Jakuskin does not recognize him; for, dressed as a Tartar chief, the Czar had gone out of the palace quite alone, without attendant of any kind. Had he but been attended by a single person Jakuskin must have detected him; but one man alone escapes notice. The Czar had wished to visit the "Valley of Tears," about which the bridegroom of his favorite child had written. This romantic fancy had saved him from the assassin's knife. Thence he went, still in the same dress, to a Mohammedan mosque and stayed through a Moslem service. After which, not returning to the palace, he met his retinue at the Stadtholder's castle. There he found a despatch containing news of the death of King Maximilian of Bavaria, brother-in-law to the Czarina. Alexander was alarmed. Should this news have reached his wife it might, in her delicate state of health, have seriously affected her. So, giving command to start instantly, he did not return to the palace. The dervish sitting at the gate awaited his prey in vain. When at length he heard that the Czar had gone, the latter had already got a considerable way towards the other side of the isthmus. And now the pursuit began once more, and with it came to his mind the saying, "For him who has been chosen by the man with the green eyes it is in vain to whet the knife." He was growing superstitious--his imagination filled with green-eyed spectres.