Hitherto Tscherkaski held his eyes downward, but now he lifted them and looked steadily at his monarch.
"Your look braves and menaces me," thundered the Czar, beside himself, and shaking his fist towards the boyard. "Reply if you dare, and it is not impossible that your rebellious head rolls from your body this very night, this hour, this minute."
"Certainly, I do not doubt your power. How could I doubt the power of one who, on the same day, without pity and without humanity, cut off the heads of thousands. Surely, the man who tramples under his feet those who were once the support of his crown and authority; who has not only stained his own hands in their blood, but that of his own son--surely he would not hesitate to destroy an old servant, the necessary but guilty instrument of his past vengeance. Come! the arm that was steeped in the massacre of the Kremlin, can hardly take a redder hue from the blood of an unimportant slave."
Peter looked with burning eyes upon his adversary. He arose, as by an impulse, and inclining his head forward, seemed to be engaged in discovering the meaning of those vehement words. But he was endeavoring to stay the tempest that was sweeping over his heart. Some minutes elapsed before he recovered himself from those bitter recollections; and looking with an affected air of calmness and dignity upon the astonished assembly, he said--
"Faithful Russians! you have heard the serious accusation brought by a subject against his monarch. Whatever may be the number of the Strelitz fallen in an unhappy day, I am not at all concerned about it; they died for the safety and well-being of sacred Russia. If innocent blood flowed at the Kremlin--if, among so many guilty, the sword severed the head of one innocent, I am ready to defend the act. It was from me that the whole transaction originated; it is mine only, and I take the responsibility of it. I had no other means of saving our country from the barbarism that encumbered it, and impeded its elevation to the rank which it should occupy among the nations of Europe. As the bold boyard has truly said, it is I who have brandished the sword, and I ask who is the Russian who dares cite me to his tribunal?"