were deserted and silent. But there, upon the place where
Elizabeth once caused the beautiful Lapuschkin to be tortured, there
torches glanced, there dark forms were moving to and fro, there a
mysterious life was stirring. What was being done there?

No spectators are to-night assembled around these barriers. Catharine
had commanded all St. Petersburg to sleep at this hour, and accordingly
it slept. Nobody is upon the place--nobody but the cold, unfeeling
executioners and their assistants--nobody but that pale, feeble, and
shrunken woman, who, in her slight white dress, kneels at the feet of
her executioners. She yet lives, it is true, but her soul has long since
fled, her heart has long been broken. The chains and tortures of her
imprisonment have done that for her. It was Alexis Orloff who murdered
Natalie's heart and soul. For him had she wept until her tears had been
exhausted--for him had she lamented until her voice had become
extinct. She now no longer weeps, no longer complains; glancing at her
executioners, she smiles, and, raising her hands to God, she thanks him
that at last she is about to die.

She is yet praying when her executioners approach and roughly raise her
up, when they tear off her light robe, and devour with their brutal eyes
her noble naked form. Her soul is with God, to whom she yet prays. But
when they would rend from her bosom the chain to which Paulo's papers
are attached, she shudders, her eyes flash, and she holds the papers in
her convulsively clinched hands.

"I have sworn to defend them with my life!" she exclaims aloud. "Paulo,
Paulo, I will keep my word!"

And with the boldness of a lioness she defends herself against her
executioners.

"Leave her those papers!" commanded Joseph Ribas who was present by
order of the empress. "She may keep them now--they will directly be
ours!"

"Oh, Paulo, I have kept the promise I made thee!" murmured Natalie. She
then implores to be allowed to read them, and Joseph Ribas grants her
the desired permission.

With trembling hands she breaks the seal and reads by the light of a
torch held up for her. A melancholy smile flits over her features, and
her arms fall powerless.

"Ah, they are the proofs of my imperial descent, nothing further. How
little is that, Paulo!"

And now lifting her up, they raise her high upon the backs of the
executioners.

The knout whistles as it whirls through the air, the noble blood flows
in streams. She makes n