"Holy Sergius!" exclaimed Bernikoff, "what business has a serf with ten thousand roubles; the girl and the money are alike mine!"
And so he literally and lawfully seized them both.
Though a savage soldier, like every old Muscovite, he was the slave of mechanical devotion. No statue or picture of the Holy Virgin, of St. Sergius, or St. Alexander Newski, was ever passed by him without a profound reverence and a sign of the cross. To such effigies he would address himself before he knelt even to the Empress: and before them he had been known to kneel and kiss the ground five minutes before or after he had knouted a miserable boor (whose pockets were empty), or nearly slain a soldier by making him run the gauntlet, for merely having the seams of his gloves sewn outward instead of in; for wearing his hat on the left side of his head instead of the right; or for some other offence equally heinous.
And it was on the staff of this distinguished officer (temporarily, however) that Charlie now, to his great disgust, found himself.
On three sides, far around this island prison, stretched the waters of Ladoga—the largest lake in Europe, being one hundred and thirty miles long, by nearly ninety broad; full of rocky isles and dangerous quicksands, over which, from its flat shores, sweep frequent and perilous storms.
From the somewhat dreary view of this small inland sea, whose northern and eastern coast could not be discerned, he turned to survey the fortress, with all its strength of gloomy walls, grated windows, and frowning cannon, till suddenly his eye was arrested by a very remarkable face, which was observing him from the sombre depth of a strongly barred and arched window of the great tower.
It was a pale face, but singularly handsome—grave, and even sad in expression—a young man's face with the slightest indication of a moustache, but for which, in its paleness and extreme delicacy of feature and tint, it might have passed for that of a twin brother of Natalie Mierowna!
Suddenly it was detected by a Cossack sentinel, who shouted shrilly, and slapped the butt-end of his loaded musketoon: on this, the face instantly disappeared.
This was he concerning whom Balgonie had brought that terrible dispatch—Ivan, the deposed Emperor—the prisoner of Schlusselburg!
"Twenty-three years!" thought Balgonie with a shudder; "twenty-three years in that tower—since his very babyhood—oh, it is terrible!"