"Well, Diabolka, this is a fine catch. For this you may claim to-morrow every penny Jevgen has robbed overnight." "And next day I should be as poor as ever," laughed the girl. "If you chose, this order might make you Jevgen's wife--a real countess," put in Pushkin. "What would be the good of that? In a week after I should be going back to the gypsies." "Do you mean to expose him--to have him hanged?" "I am not such a fool; they would hang me beside him. Leave it to me. I know what to do with my prize." Jakuskin said to Pushkin, in German, that Diabolka might not understand: "That man wrecked my whole life; and I had him at my pistol's mouth but now! But the ball is destined for another now. You see, I did not even break out into fury when I read his name. When we are on the watch for bears we can afford to let foxes go. The huntsman's spear is on his neck. He is in Diabolka's clutches. Come, let us go to the Bear's Paw, and hear Germain's new effusion, _The Song of the Knife_." CHAPTER XI THE HUNTED STAG Next morning the Office of the Great Fast was initiated in Isaac Cathedral by the court singers--a celebrated choir of men and boys, who possessed the finest voices in the whole empire, and who were maintained at great cost. Contemporary accounts extol these services beyond anything ever produced by human voices. In his riper years the Czar could endure no other music than the sound of harps and mystic sacred song. It was on that account that Zeneida Ilmarinen, the church singer, was so great a favorite of the Czar. He never went to a theatre. Did he desire music his favorite artiste was commanded to the Winter Palace or the Hermitage. During the fasts, however, he went daily to church to hear the boys sing. On such occasions it was considered the correct thing by the aristocracy also to go to church, and in order to appear still more devotional, great ladies made a point of wearing no rouge, only powder. In the row next the high altar sat Prince Ghedimin, Muravieff, Orloff, Trubetzkoi, all of whom had inscribed their names in "the green book"; after them, those officers of the guards who had deliberated the previous night whether the Czar should die, or be merely banished. There they stood in two rows, erect, with military bearing, holding their drawn swords in their hands. The heads of all were bowed so low that perhaps none remarked that the husband and wife, the rulers of all the Russias, only extended a finger to each other as they passed up the aisle, deigned no look at one another as the service proceeded, and exchanged no word together as they took the holy-water. Zeneida also was among the congregation. As she left church an officer bowed to her. It was Pushkin. "Madame, you have been weeping--your cheeks are wet. Was _some one_, then, in church?" "There is no _some one_," returned Zeneida; "but the music tells on one's nerves. We are but animals; even dogs howl when they hear music."