The “Worker” went through the steppes collecting an army, promising to discover a city which held the insignia of the Virgin Mary, the gospel, the cross, and the standards of Alexander of Macedonia; then he, the Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch, will reign, and when at the end of the world Antichrist appears, he will wage war against him and all his armies of evil spirits.
The “Worker” was arrested, put to the torture and had his head cut off as a pretender.
But the people went on believing that the Tsarevitch Alexis Petrovitch would come in his own good time, that he would take his place on the ancestral throne, have all the boyars executed and be gracious unto the poor common folk.
Thus, even after his death, Alexis remained for the people, “Russia’s Hope.”
CHAPTER X
After he had brought to an end the investigations connected with his son’s trial, Peter left Petersburg for Reval on August 8, at the head of a fleet, consisting of twenty-two men-of-war. The Tsar was on board the new ninety-gun frigate, The Old Oak, which had only quite recently been launched from the Admiralty dockyard. This was the first ship which had been built according to the Tsar’s own designs, by Russian workmen, from Russian wood, without the help of foreigners.
One evening, as they were passing out of the Finnish Gulf into the Baltic Sea, Peter stood at the helm and steered.
The weather was bad. Black, heavy iron clouds massed over the black, heavy, also as it were, iron waves. It was rough. The sea was fretted with hoary surge, suggesting the pale arm of menacing phantoms. At times the waves would wash over the ship and a shower of salt water would drench all those upon deck, the Tsar-helmsman most of all. His clothes were wet through; the cold icy wind cut his face. Yet nevertheless he felt, as he usually did when on the sea, vigorous, strong and joyous.