His subtlety and oppression had been the means of reducing, at different times, some thirty officers to the ranks, with permission to serve and work their way up again; and many more were now cursing him and their fate, at Irkutsk and remoter Siberia, for their inability to purchase his mercy or good-will. When commanding at Cronstadt, he had been detected once in the act of transmitting whole sledge loads of government shot, shell, lead, and ropes, across the frozen gulf for sale in Sweden; and also in buying at a cheap rate base denuscas to pay the troops: but so trusted was the old rascal by the Empress, that he always escaped the degradation, the hanging or shooting, which, on those discoveries, were so freely meted out to his subalterns. On the estate of Bernikoff a serf once amassed ten thousand roubles, and offered them for the freedom of his daughter, who was about to be married. "Let me see the girl!" was the reply. As a serf can possess nothing, the father trembled in his soul at this demand, as his daughter, unfortunately for herself, was beautiful. "Holy Sergius!" exclaimed Bernikoff, "what business has a serf with ten thousand roubles; the girl and the money are alike mine!" And so he literally and lawfully seized them both. Though a savage soldier, like every old Muscovite, he was the slave of mechanical devotion. No statue or picture of the Holy Virgin, of St. Sergius, or St. Alexander Newski, was ever passed by him without a profound reverence and a sign of the cross. To such effigies he would address himself before he knelt even to the Empress: and before them he had been known to kneel and kiss the ground five minutes before or after he had knouted a miserable boor (whose pockets were empty), or nearly slain a soldier by making him run the gauntlet, for merely having the seams of his gloves sewn outward instead of in; for wearing his hat on the left side of his head instead of the right; or for some other offence equally heinous. And it was on the staff of this distinguished officer (temporarily, however) that Charlie now, to his great disgust, found himself. On three sides, far around this island prison, stretched the waters of Ladoga--the largest lake in Europe, being one hundred and thirty miles long, by nearly ninety broad; full of rocky isles and dangerous quicksands, over which, from its flat shores, sweep frequent and perilous storms. From the somewhat dreary view of this small inland sea, whose northern and eastern coast could not be discerned, he turned to survey the fortress, with all its strength of gloomy walls, grated windows, and frowning cannon, till suddenly his eye was arrested by a very remarkable face, which was observing him from the sombre depth of a strongly barred and arched window of the great tower.