CHAPTER XXX.
A SOLEMN BETROTHAL.
When I came to myself again, I was lying on a couch, and the first eyes that I met were the tearful ones of Zénaïde, for she was standing beside me. For the moment, my mind was too confused to recall anything that had happened, and I looked wonderingly from her face to Pierrot, who stood at the foot of my couch, his head tied up so that one eye was obscured. Then, as through a mist, I saw Mademoiselle Eudoxie holding a bandage, while a strange man finished binding my arm.
“Where am I?” I murmured faintly, and at the moment, mademoiselle standing back, I saw the short, ill-proportioned figure and large head of the great czarevna. Then my mind cleared, and I glanced about me, and beheld the deathlike face of Ramodanofsky. He was stretched upon another couch, and even in my first bewilderment, I knew that he was dying. Zénaïde was standing between us, her sweet face full of pain. Prince Galitsyn sat on the other side of the boyar, holding his hand and listening to him. The full recollection of the horrible scene swept over me, and I looked up into Zénaïde’s blue eyes.
“How were you saved?” I asked.
The czarevna answered me. “Tidings came to us, M. le Vicomte,” she said, “and Prince Galitsyn arrived here in time to beat back the rabble and save Zénaïde Feodorovna and the other women. It was a band of Streltsi infuriated because Ramodanofsky had deceived them into believing him to be one of themselves; they fancied that he had been playing the part of a spy.”
“And your Highness came also?” I said, wondering.
“I came to protect you, M. le Vicomte, as the envoy of the King of France,” she replied.
At the sound of my voice, Ramodanofsky turned his eyes in our direction, and I heard him ask the physician if I would recover, receiving an affirmative answer.
Sophia turned to him now, with an unusual kindness in her manner.
“You must recover also, Feodor Sergheievitch,” she said cheerfully; “we cannot afford to lose a newly-found subject.”