As the Czar left the church, in which he had heard the mass for the dead to the end, the sun was just rising, its reddish rays gilding the towers of the Church of SS. Peter and Paul, and the cupolas and cross of the Isaac Cathedral, through the sea of mist, the hollow tones of the early bells vibrating long in the stillness.
All sounds were hushed as Czar Alexander looked upon the capital of his vast empire for the last time. And as the troika, drawn by its fiery team, rolled rapidly away, the Czar turned to gaze, the better to impress the scene upon his memory, a scene which the rising mist was slowly, slowly shutting out from his view.
CHAPTER XLIV
THE MAN WITH THE GREEN EYES
There was alarm, almost panic, in the capital when the news became known that the Czar had started by the Sea of Azof and the Crimea to the Caucasus! Now people understood the meaning of the comet! It was the agent which had upset the calculations of wise men and fools alike.
Fearful curses echoed through the catacombs of the Church of the Holy Virgin of Kasan when it became known that the Czar had changed his plans and gone to Alexander Nevski Chapel! The plots, the fulfilment of which was to shake the world, had been a failure! The Czar had left St. Petersburg and betaken himself to a remote spot nineteen hundred versts away, nearer by thirteen degrees to the equator. He had betaken himself to a land where conspiracies do not flourish; he had escaped the giant trap laid for him. The plot of the "Free Slavs" had come to naught, which was to have begun the work of freedom with the immediate murder of the Czar. Now the plot formed by the "Northern Union" came to the fore, which was to carry out the constitution planned by "the green book," either by forcing the Czar to initiate it or by his exile. In either case, without violence to the crown.
The Czar started on September 13th, seven days before the date fixed for the grand review. By this means the net of the military conspiracy was also rudely torn asunder.
The members of the Szojusz Blagadenztoiga hastened to confer at Zeneida's palace, not waiting invitation. What was to be done now?
Twenty-three among the twenty-four said the whole thing must be begun afresh. The four-and-twentieth was Jakuskin, who said:
"If all of you fall away, I remain firm. Discuss as you choose; I act." And with these words he left the meeting.
Hence the chase had begun. As the hungry wolf pursues the hare through steppes, forests, marshes, so Jakuskin pursued his prey.