assured him that such bravado would inevitably
cost him his life.

"The tzar," Lapotinsky replied, "can easily take my life, and he may
do so if he please, but nothing shall prevent me from performing the
duty with which I am intrusted, with the utmost exactitude."

The audience day arrived. Lapotinsky was conducted to the Kremlin. The
tzar, in his imperial robes glittering with diamonds and pearls,
received him in a magnificent hall. The haughty embassador, with great
dignity and in respectful terms, yet bold and decisive, demanded
reparation for the injuries which Russia had inflicted upon Poland.
His gleaming saber was carelessly held in one hand and the letter to
the tzar, from the King of Poland, in the other. Having finished his
brief speech, he received a cimeter from one of his suite, and,
advancing firmly, yet very respectfully, to the monarch, presented
them both, saying,

"Here is peace and here is war. It is for your majesty to choose
between them."

Ivan IV. was capable of appreciating the nobility of such a character.
The intrepidity of the embassador, which was defiled with no
comminglings of insolence, excited his admiration. The emperor, with a
smile, took the letter, which was written on parchment in the Russian
language and sealed with a seal of gold. Slowly and carefully he read
it, and then addressing the embassador, said,

"Such menaces will not induce Russia to surrender her dominions to
Poland. We, who have vanquished the Poles on so many fields of battle,
who have conquered the Tartars of Kezan and Astrachan, and who have
triumphed over the forces of the Ottoman empire, will soon cause the
King of Poland to repent his rashness."

He then dismissed the embassador, ordering him to be treated with the
respect due his high station. War being thus formally declared, both
parties prepared to prosecute it with the utmost vigor. The tzar
immediately commenced raising a large army, reinforced his garrisons,
and sent a secret envoy to Tauride, to excite the Crimean Tartars to
invade Poland on the south-east while Russia should make an assault
from the north.

The Poles opened the campaign by crossing the frontiers with a large
army, seizing several minor cities and laying siege to the important
fortress of Polotzk. After a long siege, which constituted one of
those terrific tragedies of blood and woe with which the pages of
history are filled, but which no pen can describe and no imagination
ca