“When you are Tsar, will you then also threaten your faithful servants with the torture-chamber?”
“Have no fear, Afanássieff! If ever I am Tsar, I will do my best by you—— But I shall never be a Tsar.”
“You will, you will.” retorted the old man with such conviction that again Alexis was half-choking with joy.
Bells, the grating of sleighs on the snow, the snorting of horses, and voices were heard under the windows.
Alexis exchanged looks with Afanássieff. Who could it possibly be at so late an hour? Not from the palace, surely!
Afanássieff ran into the hall. It was the Archimandrite Theodosius. The Tsarevitch, on seeing him, thought his father had died; he grew so pale, that the monk, notwithstanding the darkness, noticed it while giving the blessing, and faintly smiled.
When they were alone, Theodosius sat near the fire opposite to the Tsarevitch, and silently looking at him with the same scarcely perceptible smile, began to warm his hands over the fire, opening and closing his fingers, which looked like bat-claws.
“How is my father?” at last Alexis asked, plucking up courage.
“Very bad,” the monk sighed heavily, “so bad that we don’t expect him to live.”
The Tsarevitch made a sign of the cross.