In the fight, told them that a miracle had been performed. God had

averted the balls from them, they said. They were fighting for the honor

of his cause and for the defense of his holy religion, and they might

rely upon it that he would not suffer them to be harmed.

But these assurances of the priests proved, unfortunately for the poor

Guards, to be entirely unfounded. When General Gordon found that firing

over the heads of the rebels did no good, ho gave up at once all hope of

any adjustment of the difficulty, and he determined to restrain himself

no longer, but to put forth the whole of his strength, and kill and

destroy all before him in the most determined and merciless manner. A

furious battle followed, in which the Guards were entirely defeated. Two

or three thousand of them were killed, and all the rest were surrounded

and made prisoners.

The first step taken by General Gordon, with the advice of the Russian

nobles who had accompanied him, was to count off the prisoners and hang

every tenth man. The next was to put the officers to the torture, in

order to compel them to confess what their real object was in marching to

Moscow. After enduring their tortures as long as human nature could bear

them, they confessed that the movement was a concerted one, made in

connection with a conspiracy within the city, and that the object was to

subvert the present government, and to liberate the Princess Sophia and

place her upon the throne. They also gave the names of a number of

prominent persons in Moscow who, they said, were the leaders of the

conspiracy.

It was in this state of the affair that the tidings of what had occurred

reached Peter in Vienna, as is related in the last chapter. He

immediately set out on his return to Moscow in a state of rage and fury

against the rebels that it would be impossible to describe. As he

arrived at the capital, he commenced an inquisition into the affair by

putting every body to the torture whom he supposed to be implicated as a

leader in it. From the agony of these sufferers he extorted the names of

innumerable victims, who, as fast as they were named, were seized and put

to death. There were a great many of the ancient nobles thus condemned,

a great many ladies of high rank, and large numbers of priests. These

persons were all executed, or rather massacred, in the most reckless and

merciless manner. Some were beheaded; some were broken on the wheel, and

then left to die in horrible agonies. Many were buried alive, their

heads only being left above the ground. It is said that Peter took such

a savage delight in these punishments, that he executed many of the

victims with his own hands. At one time, when half intoxicated at a

banquet, he ordered twenty of his prisoners to be brought in, and then,

with his brandy before him, which was his favorite drink, and which he

often drank to excess, he caused them to be led, one after another, to

the block, that he might cut off their heads himself. He took a drink of

brandy after each execution while the officers were bringing forward the

next man. He was just an hour, it was said, in cutting off the twenty

heads, which allows of an average of three minutes to each man. This

story is almost too horrible to be believed, but, unfortunately, it

comports too well with the general character which Peter has always

sustained in the opinion of mankind in respect to the desperate and

reckless cruelty to which he could be aroused under the influence of