"You have done a deed for which hell must blush and angels weep," was the forcible reply of Mierowitz, who seemed so overcome by grief and horror as to lose all self-possession; for he now ordered his men to disperse to the woods--to seek safety in flight; and then calmly taking off his sword-belt and sash, he threw them on the ground saying-- "Since my Imperial master is dead, further resistance would be vain in me." He was almost immediately afterwards struck to the earth, and made prisoner by Lieutenant Tschekin, who, with a party of dismounted Cossacks, had stolen through the casemates and galleries to a postern opening on the rear of the drawbridge, and these, after firing a confused volley with their pistols and musketoons, fell with their sharp crooked sabres upon the now thoroughly disheartened adherents of Mierowitz. Lieutenant Usakoff and Jagouski alone made any vigorous resistance, resolving not to be taken alive. Fighting desperately, almost back to back, the former armed with the sabre of Mazeppa, and the latter with a musket, and both bleeding from many wounds, they were driven through the outer barrier towards the town. On the pathway Jagouski stumbled over a comrade, and was taken; but Apollo Usakoff, with a shout in which triumph and despair were mingled, leaped into the Neva, the waters of which swept him away, and he was seen no more by his pursuers. When Tschekin's Cossacks joined in the _mêlée_ with the fugitives, Balgonie sprang through the klinket, sword in hand, resolved to succour his friend at all hazards, and fortunately arrived just in time to save him (when struck down and trod under foot) from the bulky giant Nicholas Paulovitch, who, with a clubbed musket, was about to give him a blow that must inevitably have proved fatal. Paulovitch he ran through the heart--or at least the place where his heart might be supposed to have been--and spurning him off the blade with his foot, hurled the snorting ruffian to the ground, and raised his friend, with the assistance of a soldier and Lieutenant Tschekin. "Made prisoner, and by you too, Carl!" said Basil, reproachfully and in a low voice, for he was faint with wounds and bruises. "By me, but to save you." "Seek rather to save Natalie, if you can," he whispered; "she is, she is--" "Where, _where_?" said Balgonie, impetuously and imploringly. But there was no reply. Basil had fainted, and was borne into the Castle of Schlusselburg, a prisoner of State. Balgonie never saw the face of his friend again! So ended, for a time, a scheme, the importance of which was only equalled by its bold recklessness--the scheme of two subaltern officers to revolutionise the vast empire of Russia, and to subvert the firm dominion of Catharine II., one of the most powerful and popular, though licentious, monarchs that ever sat on the barbarous throne of the Czars; and such was the terrible sequel to the _Secret Dispatch_ of Balgonie.