The Daughter of an Empress Part 16

With a happy smile she reclined upon her couch, and soon slumbered.

At this moment the clock in the next chamber struck the twelfth hour.

Slowly and solemnly resounded the tones of the striking clocks that announced the midnight.

At this same hour a lively movement commenced in the palace of the Princess Elizabeth. Lights were seen glancing from window to window, hurrying shadows were seen coming and going in the rooms, every thing there announced an activity unusual for the hour, and certainly it was a signal good fortune for Elizabeth that Anna had forbidden her husband's sending a patrol through the streets. One single patrol pa.s.sing the palace might have frustrated the whole conspiracy!

But the streets were perfectly quiet; nowhere was a sentinel or watchman to be seen.

The slight creaking and whizzing of a sledge upon the crackling snow was now heard; it came nearer and nearer, and then there was a knocking at the palace gate. The porter opened, and two sledges drove into the court.

The first, with a rich covering and magnificent ornaments, was empty.

But Lestocq was seen to spring out of the second, and hurriedly enter the palace.

Elizabeth, splendidly dressed, sparkling with brilliants, was waiting in her small reception-room. No one but Alexis Razumovsky was with her.

Neither of them spoke, and their visages plainly discovered that they were in a state of painfully uncomfortable suspense.

Elizabeth was pale and had a convulsive twitching about her mouth, her form trembled feverishly, and she was obliged to cling to Razumovsky, to prevent falling.

"Did you hear the opening of the court-yard gate?" she breathed low.

"Lestocq is not yet here, and it is past midnight. Certainly he is arrested, all is discovered, and we are lost! I am fearfully anxious, Alexis; I already seem to feel the sword at my throat. Ah, hear you not steps in the corridor? They come this way. They are my pursuers. They come to conduct me to the scaffold! Save me, Alexis, save me!"

And with a shrill cry of anguish the princess clung to the neck of her favorite.

The door was now hastily opened, and upon the threshold appeared Lestocq and Woronzow.

"Princess Elizabeth!" exclaimed Lestocq, with solemnity, "I have come for you. The throne awaits its empress!"

"Up, Princess Elizabeth," said Alexis, "take courage, my fair empress, give us an example of spirit and resolution!"

The princess slowly raised her pale face from Razumovsky's shoulder, and looking around with timid glances, faintly said: "I suffer fearfully!

This anguish will kill me! My destiny is so cruel, I am so tormented.

Why must I be an empress?"

"That you may be no nun," laconically responded Lestocq.

"And to become the greatest and loftiest woman in the world!" said Woronzow.

"To raise to your own elevation the man you love," whispered Alexis.

With a glance of tenderness, Elizabeth nodded to him.

"Yes," said she, "for your sake, my Alexis, I will become an empress!

Come, let us go. But where is Grunstein?"

"With his faithful followers he awaits us before the casern of his regiment. We go there first."

"Then let us go!" said Elizabeth, striding forward. But she stopped on seeing that Alexis followed with the other two.

"No," said she, "you must not go with us, Alexis. If I am to have courage to act and speak, I must know that you are not mingled in the strife--I must not have to tremble for your life! No, no, only when I know that you are concealed and in safety, can I have courage to struggle for an imperial crown. Promise me, therefore, Alexis, that you will quietly remain here until I send a messenger for you!"

Razumovsky begged and implored in vain--in vain he knelt before her, and covered her hands with tears and kisses.

Elizabeth remained inflexible, and, as Alexis yet persisted in his prayers, she earnestly and proudly said: "Alexis Razumovsky, I command you to remain here. You will obey the first command of your empress!"

"I will remain," sighed Alexis, "and the world will point the finger of scorn at me, calling me a coward!"

"And I will compel the world to honor you as a king!" said Elizabeth, with tenderness, beckoning to Lestocq and Woronzow to follow her from the room.

Silently they hastened down the stairs--silently was Elizabeth handed into her sledge, while Lestocq and Woronzow took their places in the second.

"Forward!" thundered Lestocq's powerful voice, and the train rushed through the dark and deserted streets.

St. Petersburg slept. No one appeared at the darkened windows of the silent palaces, no one boded that a new empress was pa.s.sing through the streets,--an empress, who at this time had but two subjects in her train!

They had now reached the casern of the Peobrajensky regiment. There they halted. In the open door stands Grunstein with his thirty recruits.

They silently approached the sledge of the princess and prostrated themselves before her.

"Hail to our empress!" whispered Grunstein low, and as low was it repeated by the soldiers.

"Let us enter the casern, call the soldiers, and awaken the officers; I myself will address them!" said Elizabeth, alighting from her sledge.

She was now full of courage and resolution. In the face of danger now no longer to be avoided, she had suddenly steeled her heart; her father's spirit was awakened in her.

With a firm step she entered the casern; the conspirators had already raised an alarm there, and the suddenly aroused soldiers rushed from all the corridors, with wonder and admiration staring at this n.o.ble and beautiful woman who, radiant in the splendor of her beauty, and sparkling with jewels, stood in their midst.

"Soldiers," cried Elizabeth, with a firm voice, "I come to implore your support in my attempt to obtain justice in the realm of my father! I am the daughter of the great Emperor Peter, the rightful heir to the throne of Russia, and I claim what is mine! I will no longer suffer a German princess to give laws to you, my beloved brethren and countrymen! Follow me, therefore, and let us drive away these foreign intruders who have usurped the throne of your lawful sovereign!"

"All hail, Elizabeth, our empress!" cried the conspirators, prostrating themselves.

Surprised, benumbed, and overpowered, the others made no opposition.

Miserable slaves, they were accustomed to obey whoever dared a.s.sume the command over them,--and they therefore submitted. Falling upon their knees, they took the oath of allegiance to the new empress!

Elizabeth was now the empress of three hundred soldiers.

"Up, now, my friends, to the palace of the czar, where these usurpers dwell and inflict upon you the shame of calling a cradled infant your emperor. Come, and let us punish them for this insult, by thrusting them from their usurped power!"

"We will follow our empress in life and death!" cried the soldiers.

They therefore started again, and once more hastened through the silent streets until, at length, they reached the imperial palace, where dwelt the Emperor Ivan with his parents.

Elizabeth, with her confidential partisans in four sledges, had hastened on in advance of the others. With renewed courage they approached the princ.i.p.al entrance of the palace.

The guard took to their arms, and the drummer was preparing to beat an alarm, when a single blow of Lestocq's fist broke through the skin of the drum.

The terrified drummer fell, and over his body pa.s.sed the band of conspirators, Elizabeth at their head.

No one ventured to oppose them; the slaves fell upon their knees in homage to her who announced herself as their mistress and empress!