"Knew who you are! Why, who are you?"
"I am Dmitri, son of Ivan IV., and the rightful czar of Russia."
Surprised by this extraordinary statement, the prince questioned him, and was told a plausible story by the young man. He had escaped the murderer, he said, the boy who died being the son of a serf, who resembled and had been substituted for him by his physician Simon, who knew what Boris designed. The physician had fled with him from Uglitch and put him in the hands of a loyal gentleman, who for safety had consigned him to a monastery.
The physician and gentleman were both dead, but the young man showed the prince a Russian seal which bore Dmitri's arms and name, and a gold cross adorned with jewels of great value, given him, he said, by his princely godfather. He was about the age which Dmitri would have reached, and, as a Russian servant who had seen the child said, had warts and other marks like those of the true Dmitri. He possessed also a persuasiveness of manner which soon won over the Polish prince.
The pretender was accepted as an illustrious guest by Prince Wiszniowiecki, given clothes, horses, carriages, and suitable retinue, and presented to other Polish dignitaries. Dmitri, as he was thenceforth known, bore well the honors now showered upon him. He was at ease among the noblest; gracious, affable, but always dignified; and all said that he had the deportment of a prince.
He spoke Polish as well as Russian, was thoroughly versed in Russian history and genealogy, and was, moreover, an accomplished horseman, versed in field sports, and of striking vigor and agility, qualities highly esteemed by the Polish nobles.
The story of this event quickly reached Russia, and made its way with surprising rapidity through all the provinces. The czarevitch Dmitri had not been murdered, after all! He was alive in Poland, and was about to call the usurper to a terrible reckoning. The whole nation was astir with the story, and various accounts of his having been seen in Russia and of having played a brave part in the military expeditions of the Cossacks were set afloat.
Boris soon heard of this claimant of the throne. He also received the disturbing news that a monk was among the Cossacks of the Don urging them to take up arms for the czarevitch who would soon be among them. His first movement was the injudicious one of trying to bribe Wiszniowiecki to give up the impostor to him,—the result being to confirm the belief that he was in truth the prince he claimed to be.
The events that followed are too numerous to be given in detail, and it must suffice here to say that on October 31, 1604, Dmitri entered Russian territory at the head of a small Polish army, of less than five thousand in all. This was a trifling force with which to invade an empire, but it grew rapidly as he advanced. Town after town submitted on his appearance, bringing to him, bound and gagged, the governors set over them by Boris. Dmitri at once set them free and treated them with politic humanity.
The first town to offer resistance was Novgorod-Swerski, which Peter Basmanof, a general of Boris, had garrisoned with five hundred men. Basmanof was brave and obstinate, and for several weeks he held the force of Dmitri before this petty place, while Boris was making vigorous efforts to collect an army among his discontented people. On the last day of 1604 the two armies met, fifteen thousand against fifty thousand, and on a broad open plain that gave the weaker force no advantage of position.