sprung up on all sides; it is an inundation of divine justice. No one escapes us; our enemies are taken in their own snares; God is with us. We suspected you, and watched you narrowly. Thelenef was followed to the hiding-place where you conducted him, and has been there seized; you shall die together; the castle is already on fire.'
Fedor, without uttering a word, cast down his head, and followed his executioners. He trusted that their rapid flight from the fatal cabin might yet be the means of saving Xenie.
Six .men carried before him the body of Basil, six others escorted them with torches; the rest followed
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without uttering a word. The funeral cortege traversed in silence the country, lit up with conflagrations in every direction. The horizon appeared each moment to lessen in circumference. A circle of fire bounded the plain. Vologda was burning; the town
ofwas on fire, together with all the castles and
farms of the prince, and several of the surrounding villages. The woods themselves did not escape. The carnage was universal. The conflagration illuminated the secret depths of the forest. Solitude existed no longer. 'Who can conceal himself on a plain when the forests are on fire ? There can be no safe asylum against a flood of light pouring on all sides equally. Terror was at its height; night had fled, and yet the sun had not risen.
The escort of Fedor was increased by the marauders who were everywhere scouring the country. The crowd had become great by the time they reached the castle.
What a spectacle there awaited the prisoners !
The castle of Vologda, built entirely of wood, appeared like an immense funeral pyre, the flames of which reached to the heavens! The peasants, who had plundered this ancient mansion before setting it on fire, imagined they had burned Xenie in the habitation of her father.
A line of boats on the water, placed closely together, completed the blockade that had been established. In the midst of the semicircle formed by the army of the insurgents before the castle, the unfortunate Thclenef, torn from his retreat, and brought by force to the place destined for his execution, stood chained to a post; while the crowd of conquerors, g 4
128THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.
eager to behold the spectacle, flocked from all parts to this place of rendezvous.
The troop who guarded him formed a circle around their prey, and displayed in the light of the conflagration their loathsome banners. Great God! what colours ! They were the mangled remains of the first victims, earned upon pikes and sabres. Heads of women with flowing hair, pieces of human bodies stuck upon pitch-forks, mutilated infants, gory bones. The scene seemed peopled with hideous phantoms, winch it might have been supposed had escaped from hell, to assist in the orgies of the last inhabitants of earth.
This pretended triumph of liberty was like the aspect of some great convulsion of nature. The flames and crash of the timbers of the castle resembled the eruption of a volcano. The revengeful passions of the people were like the lava, which, long boiling silently in the womb of the earth, had at length found vent, and spread in torrents on every side. Confused murmurs might be heard among the crowd, but no voice could be distinguished, unless it wras that of the victim whose curses and imprecations rejoiced the hearts of the executioners. These monsters were, for the most part, men of remarkable beauty; all had a manner and bearing that was naturally noble and gentle; they seemed more like evil angels, whose faces yet retained their pristine glory, than human beings. Fedor himself much resembled his persecutors. All the Russians of pure Slavonian race show by their faces that they are of the same family; even when engaged in exterminating each other it can be
THE HISTORY OP THELENEF.129
seen that they are brothers, — a circumstance which renders the carnage more horrible.
But then, these are no longer the children of nature; they are men perverted by a cruel and unfeeling social system. The natural man exists only in books ; where he forms a theme for philosophic declamation, an ideal type, from which moralists draw their deductions just as mathematicians, in certain calculations, proceed upon given cµiantities. Nature, for the primitive man, as for the degenerated man, is still a state of society; and, whatever may be said, the most civilised society is the best.
The fatal circle opened for a moment, to allow of the entrance of Fedor and his execrable escort. Thelenef was so placed as not, at first, to perceive his youthful liberator. His execution was about to begin, when a murmur of terror spread among the crowd.
' A spectre ! a spectre ! It is she !' was the cry heard on all sides. The ring broke and dispersed, — the executioners fled before a phantom! Cruelty readily unites with superstition.
The flight was, however, arrested by several of the more determined ruffians, who shouted that it was Xenie herself, living, and in their power.
' Stay ! stay !' cried a female voice, the agonizing accents of which went to all hearts, but above all to the heart of Fedor. ' Let me pass, I will see them ' They are my father and my brother ! You will not forbid me to die with them ? ' Ere she had concluded these words, Xenie had reached the spot where Fedor stood incapable of motion, and fell insensible at his feet.
We here feel the necessity of abridging the de-g 5
130THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.
scription of this horrible scene. It was long, but we will describe it in few words. We must, however, first ask pardon for what we do relate.
Xenie, in the cabin where we left her, had forced herself to maintain silence, for fear of increasing the danger of Fedor; but, as soon as the two women were alone, she escaped, and hastened to share the fate of her father.
The execution of Thclenef commenced. Just heavens! what a death! To render it the more terrible to this unhappy being, they placed Xenie and Fedor before his eyes, seated and bound on a rude species of platform raised in haste at a short distance from him; they then cut off one by one, his feet and hands ; and when at length the mutilated trunk was almost drained of blood, they stifled his death cry by stuffing into his mouth one of his own feet.
The women of the faubourg of Caen eating the heart of M. de Belzunce on the bridge of Vauxelles were models of humanity compared with the tranquil spectators of the death of Thelenef.
And this took place but a few months ago, and within a few days' journey of one of the most admired cities of Europe! After the father had ceased to suffer, one of the executioners advanced to seize the daughter; but he found her stiff and cold. During the torture of her father she had not made a single movement nor uttered a single word.
Fedor, at this sight, recovered, as though by some supernatural influence working within him, all his energy and presence of mind. By a miraculous exertion of strength he broke the cords that bound him, burst from the hands of his keepers, rushed towards
THE HISTORY OF THELENEF.131
his beloved sister, raised her from the earth, and pressed her for a long time to his heart; then replacing her gently and respectfully on the grass, he addressed his tormentors with that calm, composed air that appears natural to the Orientals, even in the most tragical moments of life.
