“What do you mean, Barrinka?”
“This. We will do for holy Moscow—our beautiful, our beloved—what a father would do for an only daughter, a husband for a wife, a brother for a sister, if there were no other way to save them from those accursed Nyemtzi—our own hands will deal the death-blow.”
“How?”
“What should you have done with Nicolofsky while the French were in it?”
“Holy saints! Then you mean to burn the city?”
“These hands of mine will fling the brand into this house, which has been my home ever since I left your village. Nay, more, I am one of the directors of the secret band commissioned to spread the conflagration.”
Michael stared at him in amazement, but did not speak.
Ivan resumed: “Perhaps you will think me dreaming—at least you will wonder by what authority I tell you these strange and awful things. I was a boy when last we met, Michael; indeed, until six weeks ago I was little more. Then the war broke out, and the Czar came here. I saw him; not for the first time, Michael Ivanovitch, for it was he—he and no other—whom I saw in my childhood’s days ministering to poor unconscious Stefen on the bank of the Oka. My heart went forth to him at once, laid itself at his feet, vowed to serve him until death.”
“So? Then you fight for love, Ivan Barrinka. I fight for hate.”
“I too, after what you have told me to-night,” said Ivan, with flashing eyes. He continued more calmly: “Then I went to the governor, Count Rostopchine, and told him my story. I said that, though my name was of the noblest, I had not, like other boyars, lands, or serfs, or gold to give to the Czar; I had only a strong heart, full of devotion. He answered me, for he saw I was in earnest, ‘Such hearts are what we want now.’ Then he told me what to do. At first, Michael, I was horror-stricken. I had rather have been burned at the stake myself. But he assures me there is no other way of saving holy Russia and the Czar. Moreover, most of the nobles, and all the merchants except seven, have resolved upon the sacrifice of their property. Loss of life we will try to prevent.”