"Your Highness is great, but the Czar is greater. Who is like the mighty Nicholas?" "No one on earth, Miroslav; for which fact may the saints be praised!" remarked Zabern. "Your Highness, I was so awed by the emperor's majestic presence, by his authoritative manner, by the thought of his empire and power that I could not do otherwise than obey him. The marshal himself would have done the like, had he been in my place." Zabern repudiated the statement with a scornful laugh. "I brought the duke to the presence of the emperor, and the two withdrew, going I know not where. Fearing your Highness's displeasure, I myself quitted the Citadel, intending to fly from Czernova. I throw myself upon your Highness's mercy." "It was your duty, Miroslav," returned Barbara, "to retain your prisoner, even at the hazard of your life. In taking orders from a foreign sovereign you have committed an act of treason. Gabor, see that the governor be kept in the palace here till our return from the cathedral. We will then decide as to his punishment." Gabor saluted, and the troop retired with their prisoner. "The Czar secretly in our city!" murmured Radzivil, in a tone of dismay. "What is his object?" "No good to our rule, count," replied Barbara, quietly. The secret visit of the Czar to Slavowitz, and his act in releasing the Duke of Bora, had so sinister an aspect that the hopeful ones among the ministry returned at a bound to their previous state of doubt. Were they about to witness a coronation or a dethronement? Was the Czar preparing to intervene in the ceremony? Would the solemnity in the cathedral end amid the mockery and the triumph of the Muscovite faction? With a feeling of pity they glanced at their fair young ruler, who for her part showed no sign of fear in this great crisis. They recognized that if she should fall, she would fall with dignity. The breakfast ended, and Barbara retired to dress for the coming ceremony. Outside, in the wide extent of ground fronting the Vistula Palace, the long line of the procession was slowly forming under the direction of marshals and heralds. Part of the procession consisted of a sort of historic pageant; its members, attired in costumes that recalled every period of Polish history, carried trophies and emblems, calculated to stir the patriotic enthusiasm of the populace. In this pageant Katina Ludovska bore part, by far the most charming of the maidens present, clad as she was in a dainty corselet of silvered mail, above a dark-blue satin skirt flowered with gold. Mounted upon a beautiful bay, she bore proudly aloft a famous historic memorial, a standard captured by King Sigismund at the taking of Moscow, its white silken folds distinctly stamped with the impress of a bloody hand, a ghastly testimony to the struggle that had once raged around it. In riding along the line of the procession, Zabern stopped and addressed a few words to his affianced.