The guards and sentinels at Schlusselburg were doubled; the patrols were incessant by land, while on the lake the gun-boats of Admiral Mackenzie cruised near the walls; the cannons were loaded; the watch-words changed sometimes twice within four-and-twenty hours; and the general state of preparation for a sudden attack was unremitting: but time passed on quietly until the night of the fifteenth of September, when the crowning catastrophe came. CHAPTER XIX. THE NIGHT OF THE 15TH SEPTEMBER. The past day had been unusually gloomy for the season. The sun had set in fiery clouds beyond the spires of St. Petersburg. The night was without a moon, and a strong east wind rolled the waters of Ladoga in billows of inky hue against the massive walls of the fortress in foam and fury on one side, while on the other, the waters of the Neva, swollen by recent rains, gurgled and chafed round the mouldy and moss-grown piers of the drawbridge. The wind moaned with a sullen sound past the mouths of the cannon, and whistled drearily through the deep embrasures and the loopholes for musketry in the casemates. Thunder had been heard at times, but afar; Elias, as the Russians poetically phrase it, was driving his chariot among the stars. Lightning had reddened all the lake, and cast the weird shadow of the castle athwart it for an instant; and, that a complete and melodramatic omen of impending evil might not be wanting, a huge sea-bird had perched upon the castle clock, and forcing round the hands, struck midnight four hours before the proper time. Since morning roll-call, Jagouski, the knouted, beaten, and ill-used Cossack, had been missing; he had quitted the fortress on some trivial pretence and had not since returned; patrols had seen nothing of him. Then Colonel Bernikoff was more than ever on the alert; but Balgonie, who now deemed anything better than the torture of suspense, had gone weary and feverishly to bed, to court for a time the happiness of oblivion, after having spent nearly the entire day upon the lake with an armed boat's crew, patrolling by water. From sleep, however, a sudden sound aroused him: he looked at his watch, and saw that the hands indicated twelve o'clock, midnight. What had he heard? In another moment the sound came again--the drums were beating to arms! He heard the clamour of hoarse Muscovite voices in court and corridor; the clanging of the castle bell; and he saw the gleam of torches reddening the old black walls and towers, and flaring on the grated windows as they were borne to and fro. His heart was beating with wild anxiety as he threw on his staff uniform, belted his sabre about him, placed his pistols in his girdle, and hurried forth to meet--it might be to cross blades--with the only friends he had in Russia!