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Ivan crossed himself and sprang. He cleared the rocks, but, instead of bursting through the ice with his head, fell at full length upon his back.

“O knave!” yelled the Prince,–“not to know where his head is! Thinks it’s his back! Give him fifteen stripes.”

Which was instantly done.

The second attempt was partially successful. One of the hunters broke through the ice, head foremost, going down, but he failed to come up again; so the feat was only half performed.

The Prince became more furiously excited.

“This is the way I’m treated!” he cried. “He forgets all about finishing the reisak, and goes to chasing sterlet! May the carps eat him up for an ungrateful vagabond! Here, you beggars!” (addressing the poor relations,) “take your turn, and let me see whether you are men.”

Only one of the frightened parasites had the courage to obey. On reaching the brink, he shut his eyes in mortal fear, and made a leap at random. The next moment he lay on the edge of the ice with one leg broken against a fragment of rock.

This capped the climax of the Prince’s wrath. He fell into a state bordering on despair, tore his hair, gnashed his teeth, and wept bitterly.

“They will be the death of me!” was his lament. “Not a man among them! It wasn’t so in the old times. Such beautiful reisaks as I have seen! But the people are becoming women,–hares,– chickens,–skunks! Villains, will you force me to kill you? You have dishonored and disgraced me; I am ashamed to look my neighbors in the face. Was ever a man so treated?”

The serfs hung down their heads, feeling somehow responsible for their master’s misery. Some of them wept, out of a stupid sympathy with his tears.

All at once he sprang down from the cask, crying in a gay, triumphant tone,–

“I have it! Bring me Crop-Ear. He’s the fellow for a reisak,– he can make three, one after another.”

One of the boldest ventured to suggest that Crop-Ear had been sent away in disgrace to another of the Prince’s estates.

“Bring him here, I say? Take horses, and don’t draw rein going or coming. I will not stir from this spot until Crop-Ear comes.”

With these words, he mounted the barrel, and recommenced ladling out the wine. Huge fires were made, for the night was falling, and the cold had become intense. Fresh game was skewered and set to broil, and the tragic interlude of the revel was soon forgotten.

Towards midnight the sound of hoofs was heard, and the messengers arrived with Crop-Ear. But, although the latter had lost his ears, he was not inclined to split his head. The ice, meanwhile, had become so strong that a cannon-ball would have made no impression upon it. Crop-Ear simply threw down a stone heavier than himself, and, as it bounced and slid along the solid floor, said to Prince Alexis,–

“Am I to go back, Highness, or stay here?”

“Here, my son. Thou’rt a man. Come hither to me.”

Taking the serf’s head in his hands, he kissed him on both cheeks. Then he rode homeward through the dark, iron woods, seated astride on the barrel, and steadying himself with his arms around Crop- Ear’s and Waska’s necks.

VIII.

The health of the Princess Martha, always delicate, now began to fail rapidly. She was less and less able to endure her husband’s savage humors, and lived almost exclusively in her own apartments. She never mentioned the name of Boris in his presence, for it was sure to throw him into a paroxysm of fury. Floating rumors in regard to the young Prince had reached him from the capital, and nothing would convince him that his wife was not cognizant of her son’s doings. The poor Princess clung to her boy as to all that was left her of life, and tried to prop her failing strength with the hope of his speedy return. She was now too helpless to thwart his wishes in any way; but she dreaded, more than death, the terrible SOMETHING which would surely take place between father and son if her conjectures should prove to be true.