"To Czar Alexander," she breathed, "for pardon!"
"He has already gone to heaven," said the Chevalier, brutally.
"Then I will go after him," sighed the venerable lady, and fell where she stood. She had said truly.
She had gone after him—thither where even the Czars of All the Russias do not grant, but must entreat, pardon.
The last locks of hair were severed from the head of Ghedimin, no longer a prince. This is the tonsure of those condemned to death. He stood alone. He had no one to mourn his fate. The old servant, concealed behind the stove, sobbed uninterruptedly over the shameful operation.
Ivan was not even permitted to raise his dead grandmother from the ground. A condemned rebel has henceforth no family either among the living or the dead.
They fettered him hand and foot with the heavy iron fetters, of which the Counsellor of Enlightenment was wont to say, "Never you fear, you won't have to pay for them!" And, being an officer of high rank, he had received as distinction a heavy ball fastened to the end of his chain, which he was compelled to drag along at every step.
"Now, shoulder arms! The prisoner in the middle! Forward—march!"
But in the doorway their advance was hindered by some one with the words: