“Give heed to what I say,” he cried beseechingly. “You, too, are a Russian! Look upon me, who once was your Governor! Have compassion upon me who am now but a bit of dried mud cast upon the road by the wheel of Time! Have mercy——” “So you have learned what it is to ask for mercy, Michael Alexandrovitch! But you have yet to learn what it means to have mercy denied,” taunted Peter. “It is not mercy that I ask for myself, Gorekin,” went on Michael. “But you love my daughter—and I stand between you! Save her! Save her from the Mongol. And leave me, who am but some of the wreckage of Holy Russia, to suffer the wrath of this Zorogoff!” “We two shall die together, my father—your fate shall be mine,” said Katerin, “or I shall die by my own hand.” “You saw me in the old days, Gorekin,” went on Michael in disregard of Katerin. “Were those days worse than these? I obeyed my orders. I held my power by the word of the Czar, and I bore his sword. Now I have lived beyond my time. My day is done. I am not of these days. How does it matter the manner of my end? I shall soon be with your father—I, Kirsakoff the Governor, with Gorekin the bootmaker and the political—in the hills above us. Then let God judge my sins, as will yours be judged! Take my daughter—she is all I have to give for the debt that is due you, yes, overdue! I am old, but my eyes still see, and I see that you two love! Take my Katerin Stephanovna to America, Peter Petrovitch! Flee, both of you——” Katerin gave a warning cry and sprang toward the door leading into her room. She had caught the sound of running feet from the hall—feet in panic flight. “Hush!” she warned. “Some one comes!” Slipitsky, his black cap missing from the top of his head, and his eyes telling of his dread for something which pursued him, burst into the room. He clapped his hands to his temples in frantic despair in a gesture of hopelessness, too short of breath still from running to tell what he feared. “The Ataman!” he gasped. “God’s doom is upon us!” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ XXV THE FINAL RECKONING THE door leading to the hall was flung open. Shimilin, the Cossack captain, stood on the threshold, and behind him was a group of his wild-looking soldiers, their heads hooded with wrappings of furs, and the points of their shining bayonets bristling about their shoulders. Shimilin did not advance, but remained in the doorway, coldly surveying those inside the room. He gave each of them a casual glance—Michael, Katerin, Peter, and even the shivering Slipitsky who stood cowering against the wall and whispering to himself through trembling lips and fingering his beard in nervous terror. “The Ataman Zorogoff!” announced Shimilin, and the soldiers behind him opened a narrow lane, as Shimilin stepped aside and into the room.