The next morning an Imperial pardon was sent to Petropavlovsk for Alexis Battenkoff, but it came too late. The weary spirit and sorely wounded heart were at rest in eternity; the old man's soul had passed beyond all earthly pardon, into the Almighty hands of justice and recompense.
For many days the Petersburg Imperial press rang the changes unceasingly on this last benignant and forgiving act of the Tsar's.
It called upon all malcontents and revolutionists to say, if in this pardon were not displayed the utmost leniency and mercy. For was it not well known that Alexis Battenkoff was taken almost red-handed at the assassination of the late Tsar? And, indeed, who but one familiar, through long habit and confidence, with the movements of the Emperor, could have supplied the knowledge which assured the grim success of the dastardly attack? Was not Alexis always to be found, under suspicious circumstances, consorting with the most pronounced of the Nihilist faction; and could he be there save for one purpose only? Could one touch pitch and not be defiled?
Where then, in modern history, could another such act of condonation be pointed out, as this by which the Tsar had pardoned a participator in his father's murder? Was not that answer sufficient to all the treacherous suggestions, the menacing innuendoes, that had been ripe and bursting for so long in Petersburg? Perhaps now the organs of the opposition would cease their importunate blating, since the Tsar's inspection of Petropavlovsk had resulted in such a redress of imaginary wrongs, as not even their wildest dreams could have supposed possible. And was not the hand of Almighty justice made plainly visible, in that Alexis of Battenkoff was not permitted to taste again of liberty, but was stricken by death before the news of the Tsar's generosity could reach him? Let those who would, read well the lesson thus openly delivered to them.
Paul Patouchki read the enthusiastic laudations and pious thanksgivings in the silence of his apartments in the Chancellerie, and, as he did so, a slow, inscrutable smile crept over his face and lingered there.
It was not often that the chief recognised any direct interposition of Divine Providence in the political turmoils of Russia; indeed, in his own heart, he scoffed at all such superstitions, and acknowledged frankly that the Imperial Government neither desired, nor would appreciate, any such interference with its autocratic despotism.