"When do you go?"

"To-morrow morning. We should have gone
to-night, but it is late to begin a journey,
and the horses want rest. Why do you ask,
starost?"

"Listen, daughter of the English, and let
my words go into your heart and remain there.
Tell the generalshe from her old starost, who
loves her and hers, though he has often deceived
her, that she must—do you hear me say must?—
leave that house in less than an hour. God
dooms it, and all in it, to destruction. Now tell
her soon and secretly, but as you value her life
and your own, tell it to none other but her. Go,
and remember my words. Good-by, English
child, and may God give you happiness!"

So the starost passed on with the Russian
fiery cross.

In about an hour after this, groups of men in
noiseless felt boots went their way to the
church front. Each of these men was armed
with only one weapon, but it was a deadly one
opposed to anything but fire-arms: the tapore,
or Russian short-axe. With this the Russian
peasant can hew down trees, cut them into
pieces and slabs, build houses, make windows
or picture-frames, sharpen and mend pens or
pencils, kill a wolf or a bear, make tables and
chairs, cleave his enemy's head from the crown
to the neck. These men met at the church,
each with his tapore stuck in his belt and resting
on his hip. As each group approached the
church every individual turned his body so as
to face the holy emblems, images, and saints,
the position of which he well knew, and with
more than ordinary devotion bowed and crossed
himself.

The starost lifted up his voice: "Brothers,
many words, little deeds. Are you all ready and
all willing?"

Each man drew from his back, the tapore,
flourished it over his head, and answered:
"Ready!"

"That is well. We cast lots whether it
should be to-night, and the answer was 'Yes;'
we cast again, and the answer was, 'All.'
Follow me, then."

The body of men moved on, and, but for the
slight crisping under their felt boots, they
moved like noiseless phantoms. They were in
number about five hundred. Half way between
the church and the steward's gate a carriage
drove up; they opened to let it pass, and looked
in. Madame Obrassoff, her daughter, and Lucy,
pale as spectres, and qnaking in every limb, sat
inside. Every man of the murderous band
uncovered his head and bowed. The old
starost said, "Go in peace, kind woman and
innocent girls. Thank God! They have heard
my words." He little knew that Herr Hausen's
two daughters and his wife were concealed in
the bottom of the lumbering vehicle. Lucy
had warned not only Madame Obrassoff, but the
steward and his family. His son, a young man
of eighteen, had stepped out on the instant
mounted a fleet horse, and galloped to the
nearest town for soldiers.

Thus was the steward left alone to meet the
storm he had raised. Most tyrants are cowards,
and Herr Hausen did not belie the statement.
When the hatchets began to beat at his doors
and windows, he became at last convinced (for
he had until then derided the idea) that he had
raised a demon he could never lay. He fled
for refuge to some wretched hiding-place, as if
any place in that great house could hide him
from those who were now seeking his blood.
His own domestics, all of them serfs to the
village, joining the assailants, soon hunted him
down and dragged him to the door, when he
was commanded to give up the money he had
robbed them of. With trembling limbs and
pallid cheeks, he obeyed, yielded his keys, and
begged on his knees for mercy. In the most
abject fear and cowardly despair he offered
them all he possessed, promised forgiveness,
and that he would reduce the obrok—anything,
everything, for his life. But mercy he had
never shown, and mercy they did not show him.
The axes of fifty men glittered in the cold
moonlight and descended on his head. Then, when
he was chopped to pieces, began the work of
destruction. The wines and spirits found in the
house added drunken madness to the madness
of ignorant despairing vengeance, and morning
found the revolted serfs dancing wildly about
the dying embers of what had lately been the
steward's house, offices, stables, and store-rooms.
No thought of consequences entered their
benighted heads. They had recovered the lost money
and a great deal more; they had feasted to satiety
on the rich stores of the steward; best of all,
they had killed their enemy as they would kill a
wolf. But consequences were not slow to come.
A cry of "Soldiers!" was raised. Surprised,
they ran this way to be met by a volley of
musketry, and they ran that way to meet another
volley. Dead and wounded fell like rotten
sheep. The tapores were thrown down, the
peasants fell on their knees screaming for mercy
and surrendered at discretion.

On Monday, the 15th of September, will be published,
price 5s. 6d., bound in cloth,

THE SEVENTH VOLUME

OF

ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

Containing from Numbers 151 to 176.
The preceding Volumes are always to be had. They
include the following Novels:—

A TALE OF TWO CITIES, AND GREAT EXPECTATIONS.
By CHARLES DICKENS.
THE WOMAN IN WHITE. By WILKIE COLLINS.
A DAY'S RIDE, A LIFE'S ROMANCE. By CHARLES
LEVER

A STRANGE STORY. By SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.