The Daughter of an Empress | Page 4

bloodthirsty czarina permits the slaughter of the noble Ivan and his brothers!"
"Ah," said Ivan, "how beautiful you are now--how flash your eyes, and how radiantly glow your cheeks! Would that my executioner were now come, that he might see in you the heroine, Natalie, and not the sorrow-stricken woman!"
"Ah, your prayer is granted; hear you not the rattling of the bolts, the roll of the drum? They are coming, Ivan, they are coming!"
"Farewell, Natalie--farewell, forever!"
And, mutually embracing, they took one last, long kiss, but wept not.
"Hear me, Natalie! when they bind me upon the wheel, weep not. Be resolute, my wife, and pray that their torments may not render me weak, and that no cry may escape my lips!"
"I will pray, Ivan."
In half an hour all was over. The noble and virtuous Count Ivan Dolgorucki had been broken upon the wheel, and three of his brothers beheaded, and for what?--Because Count Munnich, fearing that the noble and respected brothers Dolgorucki might dispossess him of his usurped power, had persuaded the Czarina Anna that they were plotting her overthrow for the purpose of raising Katharina Ivanovna to the imperial throne. No proof or conviction was required; Munnich had said it, and that sufficed; the Dolgoruckis were annihilated!
But Natalie Dolgorucki still lived, and from the bloody scene of her husband's execution she repaired to Kiew. There would she live in the cloister of the Penitents, preserving the memory of the being she loved, and imploring the vengeance of Heaven upon his murderers!
It was in the twilight of a clear summer night when Natalie reached the cloister in which she was on the next day to take the vows and exchange her ordinary dress for the robe of hair-cloth and the nun's veil.
Foaming rushed the Dnieper within its steep banks, hissing broke the waves upon the gigantic boulders, and in the air was heard the sound as of howling thunder and a roaring storm.
"I will take my leave of nature and of the world," murmured Natalie, motioning her attendants to remain at a distance, and with firm feet climbing the steep rocky bank of the rushing Dnieper. Upon their knees her servants prayed below, glancing up to the rock upon which they saw the tall form of their mistress in the moonlight, which surrounded it with a halo; the stars laid a radiant crown upon her pure brow, and her locks, floating in the wind, resembled wings; to her servants she seemed an angel borne upon air and light and love upward to her heavenly home! Natalie stood there tranquil and tearless. The thoughtful glances of her large eyes swept over the whole surrounding region. She took leave of the world, of the trees and flowers, of the heavens and the earth. Below, at her feet, lay the cloister, and Natalie, stretching forth her arms toward it, exclaimed: "That is my grave! Happy, blessed Ivan, thou diedst ere being coffined; but I shall be coffined while yet alive! I stand here by thy tomb, mine Ivan. They have bedded thy noble form in the cold waves of the Dnieper, whose rushing and roaring was thy funeral knell, mine Ivan! I shall dwell by thy grave, and in the deathlike stillness of my cell shall hear the tones of the solemn hymn with which the impetuous stream will rock thee to thine eternal rest! Receive, then, ye sacred waves of the Dnieper, receive thou, mine Ivan, in thy cold grave, thy wife's vow of fidelity to thee. Again will I espouse thee--in life as in death, am I thine!"
And drawing from her finger the wedding-ring which her beloved husband had once placed upon it, she threw it into the foaming waves.
Bending down, she saw the ring sinking in the waters and murmured: "I greet thee, Ivan, I greet thee! Take my ring--forever am I thine!"
Then, rising proudly up, and stretching forth her arms toward heaven, she exclaimed aloud: "I now go to pray that God may send thee vengeance. Woe to Russia, woe!" and the stream with its boisterous waves howled and thundered after her the words: "Woe to Russia, woe!"

COUNT MUNNICH
The Empress Anna was dead, and--an unheard-of case in Russian imperial history--she had even died a natural death. Again was the Russian imperial throne vacated! Who is there to mount it? whom has the empress named as her successor? No one dared to speak of it; the question was read in all eyes, but no lips ventured to open for the utterance of an answer, as every conjecture, every expression, if unfounded and unfulfilled, would be construed into the crime of high- treason as soon as another than the one thus indicated should be called to the throne!
Who will obtain that throne? So asked each man in his heart. The courtiers and great