enlargement of my mother I afford you the means of satisfying
Rome. If you have learnt your lesson from what I here proposed,
your conscience should satisfy you of the rest."

"Be it so," the Cardinal answered hoarsely. "I will return with
you to Coimbra and do your will."

Thereupon, without any tinge of mockery, but in completest
sincerity in token that the feud between them was now completely
healed, Affonso Henriques went down upon his knees, like the true
and humble son of Holy Church he accounted himself, to ask a
blessing at the Cardinal's hands.





II. THE FALSE DEMETRIUS

Boris Godunov and the Pretended Son of Ivan the Terrible



The news of it first reached him whilst he sat at supper in the
great hall of his palace in the Kremlin. It came at a time when
already there was enough to distract his mind; for although the
table before him was spread and equipped as became an emperor's,
the gaunt spectre of famine stalked outside in the streets of
Moscow, and men and women were so reduced by it that cannibalism
was alleged to be breaking out amongst them.