"So—so—this has been your work and decision?"
"Yes—how do you like it?" was the mocking reply.
"Thou art a cruel judge; but remember the law of Peter the Great——"
"Which makes the judge answerable for his decision?"
"Yes."
"Then shall I content me, traitor, and be answerable for my decision as well as for its execution. I have done my duty to the Czarina."
"You have done a deed for which hell must blush and angels weep," was the forcible reply of Mierowitz, who seemed so overcome by grief and horror as to lose all self-possession; for he now ordered his men to disperse to the woods—to seek safety in flight; and then calmly taking off his sword-belt and sash, he threw them on the ground saying—
"Since my Imperial master is dead, further resistance would be vain in me."
He was almost immediately afterwards struck to the earth, and made prisoner by Lieutenant Tschekin, who, with a party of dismounted Cossacks, had stolen through the casemates and galleries to a postern opening on the rear of the drawbridge, and these, after firing a confused volley with their pistols and musketoons, fell with their sharp crooked sabres upon the now thoroughly disheartened adherents of Mierowitz. Lieutenant Usakoff and Jagouski alone made any vigorous resistance, resolving not to be taken alive.
Fighting desperately, almost back to back, the former armed with the sabre of Mazeppa, and the latter with a musket, and both bleeding from many wounds, they were driven through the outer barrier towards the town. On the pathway Jagouski stumbled over a comrade, and was taken; but Apollo Usakoff, with a shout in which triumph and despair were mingled, leaped into the Neva, the waters of which swept him away, and he was seen no more by his pursuers.