Chapter I: Preface

I need scarcely inform the reader of history, that most of the events narrated in the subsequent pages actually occurred in the manner stated; and I have done much to soften, or subdue, the actual barbarity of the story, though such barbarity was consonant enough to the days of her, whose "lust of power and contempt of all moral restraint" won her the name of "the Semiramis of the North."

For the betrothal of the young Lieutenant of the Valikolutz Infantry to his cousin, it may be mentioned that a dispensation was necessary, as the Russian Church--like the Catholic--forbids all marriages within four degrees of relationship.

As stated in the text, the little song of the gipsy is one of many current enough in Russia, where the destruction of the Crescent is always fondly predicted; but never so confidently as during our late Crimean War: and even at this very time, an aged Muscovite, named Alexis Alexandrovitch, after a seclusion of many years in the district of Samara, has come forth as a prophet on the same subject, and is now proceeding from place to place, like another Peter the Hermit, foretelling and preaching the downfall of "the sick man" at Stamboul, and the speedy substitution of the Russian Cross for the Turkish Crescent on the dome of St. Sophia.

26, DANUBE STREET, EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
The Lost Traveller

CHAPTER II.
The Castle of Louga

CHAPTER III.
Natalie

CHAPTER IV.
Corporal Podatchkine

CHAPTER V.
The Dagger of Bernikoff

CHAPTER VI.
The Palatine

CHAPTER VII.
The Soldier of the Czarina

CHAPTER VIII.
In Love

CHAPTER IX.
Deluded

CHAPTER X.
The Corporal in his own Trap

CHAPTER XI.
Olga, the Gipsy

CHAPTER XII.
St. Petersburg

CHAPTER XIII.
What the Secret Dispatch contained

CHAPTER XIV.
Charlie's first day in Schlusselburg

CHAPTER XV.
The Imperial Prisoner

CHAPTER XVI.
The Tratkir

CHAPTER XVII.
The Wood of the Honey Tree

CHAPTER XVIII.
Doubt and Dread

CHAPTER XIX.
The Night of the 15th September

CHAPTER XX.
Morning of the 16th September

CHAPTER XXI.
Underground

CHAPTER XXII
Over their Wine

CHAPTER XXIII.
Will he Succeed?

CHAPTER XXIV.
Conclusion

L'Envoi

THE SECRET DISPATCH.