"Madame,—I ask you ten thousand pardons; but this time it was not your heart but your husband's head I was after. I hasten to meet him beside the lovely woman whose name is 'Scaffold.'
"Galban."
"Drive back!" growled Pushkin to his jemsik. "Drive as hard as your horses will go to St. Petersburg!"
It was too late. A day had been lost. Pushkin could not possibly arrive at the scene of action on December 26th. A woman's intrigue had succeeded admirably. If all else were lost, the poet's head was saved.
CHAPTER L
"DEREVASKI DALOI"
Things had never gone so quietly in St. Petersburg as during those three months preceding the 26th of December. Night noises, public-house gatherings, had ceased entirely. In the kabas, instead of the daily three thousand pots of drink, not more than two hundred were given out. It is a serious outlook when the Russian people do not drink.
For five-and-twenty days Russia had been without a Regent. What had occurred during those five-and-twenty days?
The vast empire had had two heads and two hearts: one at Warsaw, the other at St. Petersburg. In St. Petersburg, the Viceroy of Warsaw had been proclaimed Czar; in Warsaw, the Grand Duke Nicholas.
Their youngest brother, Michael, was on a visit to Constantine when the news of Alexander's death at Taganrog reached him—two days earlier than it was received at St. Petersburg. A grand gala was going on at the time, which was stopped at once on receipt of the melancholy intelligence. Constantine begged his brother to return instantly to St. Petersburg and repeat his declaration of renunciation of the succession. The Grand Duke Michael crossed the deputation sent from St. Petersburg. At the same time that he reached the capital with his brother's fresh repudiation, Labanoff arrived at Warsaw with documents stating that Constantine had been chosen, and containing the oaths of fealty of the army, and the people's address to him bearing a hundred thousand signatures. Every one had been required to affix his signature, on the previous Sunday, on leaving the churches; such as could not write had their hands guided. But Johanna Grudzinska's power was still victorious. The sealed document bore the inscription, "To His Imperial Majesty."
"I know the contents," said Constantine. "I am to separate from my wife and espouse the imperial throne. Much obliged! This document is not addressed to me; I am no 'Imperial Majesty.' Take it back to those who sent it."