with all this?"

"Pardon, your excellency," continued Gregory, gratifying the aide-de-camp
with yet higher rank,--"pardon, but it is through her orders I am about
to suffer. Perhaps she might have pity upon a wretched servant!"

"Enough, enough; let us proceed," said the captain in an odd voice, as
though he regretted as well as the culprit that Vaninka had not shown
mercy.

"Immediately, immediately, noble sir," said Ivan; then turning to
Gregory, he continued, "Come, comrade; the time has come."

Gregory sighed heavily, threw a last look up at the window, and seeing
that everything remained the same there, he mustered up resolution enough
to lie down on the fatal plank. At the same time two other serfs, chosen
by Ivan for assistants, took him by the arms and attached his wrists to
two stakes, one at either side of him, so that it appeared as though he
were stretched on a cross. Then they clamped his neck into an iron
collar, and seeing that all was in readiness and that no sign favourable
to the culprit had been made from the still closely shut window, the
young aide-de-camp beckoned with his hand, saying, "Now, then, begin!"

"Patience, my lord, patience," said Ivan, still delaying the whipping, in
the hope that some sign might yet be made from the inexorable window. "I
have a knot in my knout, and if I leave it Gregory will have good right
to complain."

The instrument with which the executioner was busying himself, and which
is perhaps unknown to our readers, was a species of whip, with a handle