The Shadow of the Czar

by John R. Carling

The morning of Barbara's coronation broke soft and sunny; it seemed almost impossible that anything disastrous could happen on a day so fair.

Prior to setting off for the cathedral the princess entertained her ministers at breakfast. She herself occupied the head of the table, with Radzivil at her right hand and Zabern at the left. Dorislas was absent in command of the ten thousand appointed to guard the frontier.

So far no hostilities had occurred. Successive couriers arriving at intervals of every half-hour continued to report that the Russian forces still preserved their position of the previous afternoon,—a position about a mile distant from the Czernovese border. There was no movement on their part suggestive of coming invasion. The more hopeful of the ministers, therefore, began to pluck up courage, and tried to believe that the Czar's army had really mustered for the customary autumn manœuvres, and not for the purpose of preventing the coronation.

Zabern did not share in these hopeful views; none knew better than he did the magnitude of the peril that overhung Czernova. In reporting the cardinal's death to the princess Zabern had suppressed some details, and hence Barbara was unaware that a dove had flown off to Zamoska bearing a letter, which, if it should reach the Czar's hands, would most assuredly result in her dethronement. From very pity he withheld the fact.

"She will learn it soon enough," he thought. "Why add to evil the anticipation of it?"

During the course of the breakfast many comments were made upon the murder of Cardinal Ravenna.

"A terrible and mysterious affair!" said Radzivil, greatly shocked by the tragedy, and completely ignorant as to its authors. "The physicians assert that there are no less than eighteen wounds upon the body."

"Five less than Julius Cæsar received," commented Zabern irrelevantly.

"You offer a reward, I presume, for any information that shall lead to the detection of the assassins?" said the premier to Zabern, who, as Minister for Justice, was head of the department that took cognizance of crime.