“Ay, no doubt,” the physician said; “and yet, when this trouble is let loose, who can stem the current? It may be more mighty than they suppose. He who sows the wind must reap the whirlwind!”
“It is a desperate game, and both parties are playing desperately. I hear that the Chancellor Matveief is coming home.”
“That we have all expected,” replied Von Gaden. “Your friend Ivan Michaelovitch Miloslavsky is reported ill to-night.”
“Strange,” I remarked; “he seemed in good health to-day.”
“It is but acting,” said the physician, bitterly; “they are all acting now. Miloslavsky has some end in view which can be best served by isolation, therefore he is ill.”
“A few days ago the cause of the Czarevitch Ivan was desperate,” I remarked musingly, “but now the Czar Peter’s hold on the imperial sceptre seems precarious. There has been shrewd work done in the interval.”
“And the czarevna’s charge that the Czar Feodor was poisoned will rouse the very devil among this ignorant rabble, and I was the late czar’s physician!” Von Gaden shrugged his shoulders. “I must even throw myself on the mercy of the Czarina Natalia, since the Miloslavskys would sacrifice my head right cheerfully, if it would promote their cause.”
“I have imagined that Matveief could control these warring factions,” I said; “it needs a master’s hand and a cool head. Why does he not hasten to the scene of action?”
Von Gaden smiled. “The ex-chancellor has an affection for his head, and likes to feel it on his shoulders,” he replied dryly. “His son sends him information, and I believe he is waiting for this storm to blow over before he launches his bark upon the sea of popular favor.”
“This tempest will never blow over until it has spent its fury,” I rejoined.