show one or the other, as they like.'

"'Pardon, my Lord Great Prince; lo, what we will add to the
soudebnik--the royal murderer and plotter shall not live.'

"'Be it so. Let not him live, who reached at another's life.' (Here
he turned to Kouritzin, but remembering that he was always disinclined
to severe punishments, he continued, waving his hand,) 'I forgot that
a craven[2] croweth not like a cock.' (At these words the deacon's
eyes sparkled with satisfaction.) 'Mamon, be this thy care. Tell my
judge of Moscow--the court judge--to have the Lithuanian and the
interpreter burned alive on the Moskva--burn them, dost thou hear?
that others may not think of such deeds.'

[2] A _jeu de mots_ impossible to be rendered in English; _Kouritza_,
in Russian, is a 'hen.'"--T.B.S.

"The dvoretzkoi bowed, and said, stroking his ragged beard--'In a few
days will arrive the strangers to build the palace, and the Almayne
leech: the Holy Virgin only knoweth whether there be not evil men
among them also. Dost thou vouchsafe me to speak what hath come into
my mind?'

"'Speak.'

"'Were it not good to show them an example at once, by punishing the
criminals before them?'

"The Great Prince, after a moment's thought, replied--'Aristotle
answereth for the leech Antony; he is a disciple of his brother's.
The artists of the palace--foreigners--are good men, quiet men ...
but ... who can tell!... Mamon, put off the execution till after the
coming of the Almayne leech; but see that the fetters sleep not on
the evil doers!'

"Here he signed to Mamon to go and fulfill his order."

Here is another scene with the Great Prince.

"He stopped, and turned with an air of stern command to Kouritzin.

"The latter had addressed himself to speak--'The ambassadors from
Tver ... from the'....

"'From the prince, thou wouldst say,' burst in Ivan Vassilievitch: 'I
no longer recognize a Prince of Tver. What--I ask thee, what did he
promise in the treaty of conditions which his bishop was to
negotiate?--the bishop who is with us now.'

"'To dissolve his alliance with the Polish king, Kazimir, and never
without thy knowledge to renew his intercourse with him; nor with
thine ill-wishers, nor with Russian deserters: to swear, in his own
and his children's name, never to yield to Lithuania.'

"'Hast thou still the letter to King Kazimir from our good
brother-in-law an