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CONTENTS.

—⬧—

CHAPTER PAGE
I.The Rabble elect a Czar[9]
II.Mademoiselle’s Glove[22]
III.The Story of Cain[33]
IV.The Shadows on the Wall[47]
V.Zénaïde[56]
VI.A Kitchen Feud[67]
VII.A Czar’s Funeral[79]
VIII.The Assassin[91]
IX.Sophia Alexeievna[103]
X.The Packet[115]
XI.The Rescue[127]
XII.Pravezh[140]
XIII.Prince Basil Galitsyn[151]
XIV.Mademoiselle Eudoxie’s Window[161]
XV.The Flight[174]
XVI.The Audience-Chamber[187]
XVII.The Secret Staircase[199]
XVIII.Feodor Sergheievitch Ramodanofsky[212]
XIX.Polotsky[223]
XX.A Friendly Cup[235]
XXI.The Prisoner[246]
XXII.Baffled[258]
XXIII.Homyak[269]
XXIV.The Red Staircase[285]
XXV.In the Face of Death[294]
XXVI.Love and Fire[308]
XXVII.Michael’s Revenge[318]
XXVIII.Madame von Gaden[330]
XXIX.A Desperate Defense[340]
XXX.A Solemn Betrothal[346]

ON THE RED STAIRCASE.

CHAPTER I.
THE RABBLE ELECT A CZAR.

The Patriarch Joachim was standing on the balcony, in front of the Church of the Savior, looking down upon the dense mass of people below in the Grand Square of the Kremlin at Moscow. A purpose was pulsing in the keen face, and he was measuring his audience, weighing too, perhaps, the peril and the cost. They were still; every eye was fixed on the tall figure in the magnificent pontificals of the Greek Church; every ear strained to catch his first word. It was the climax of the day, the chief act in the great drama. He raised his hand, with a majestic gesture, over the people.

“Hear ye, voters of the Moscovite State,” he cried, in a loud voice, “to which of the two princes do you give the rule?”

I could not restrain a smile. I had been long enough about the Russian court to know how fierce was the undercurrent, how intense the resentment felt against the family of the dowager czarina.

An old Russian, who had stepped back with me out of the path of the crowd, suddenly addressed me.