To their cries, however, the rider remained mute.
"By heaven, it's Nikita!" muttered the marshal.
As the quivering steed drew up at the foot of the cathedral-stairs, Zabern sprang to meet his orderly.
"Now, marshal," said the latter, "play the Roman, and fall on your sword's point, for the end has come."
"A good many men shall fall by this blade ere it reaches my heart," growled Zabern. "What new trouble do you bring?"
"The chanting of the monks hath ceased; or to be plainer, the Russian standard is floating over the Convent of the Transfiguration."
"Speak you from hearsay merely?"
"I speak of what I have seen."
"The cardinal laughs at us from hell; this is the first result of his letter. The Russian invasion has begun, then? Pretty generalship on the part of Dorislas to let the enemy steal thus upon his rear! And where are the monks, that they have not fired the powder-magazine, and sent themselves and their foes flying into the air? They have sworn an oath to do it rather than let the convent fall into the hands of the enemy. There would not now have been one stone upon another if old Faustus had been there."
"It was when on my way back from the camp of Dorislas that I caught sight of the Muscovite standard on the tower of the convent. I immediately rode near and perceived the bayonets of the Paulovski Guards moving to and fro along the battlements. And who should be in command there but Baron Ostrova, the duke's former secretary—he whom the princess banished from Czernova. I at once galloped back to our camp with the news. Dorislas instantly set off with a thousand men; he has invested the convent; his artillery are ready planted for shelling the place, and he now awaits orders from you."