"You went to Uglich when the Tsarevitch Demetrius was slain,"
said Boris. His voice and mien were calm and normal. "Yourself
you saw the body. There is no possibility that you could have
been mistaken in it?"

"Mistaken?" The boyar was taken aback by the question. He was a
tall man, considerably younger than Boris, who was in his
fiftieth year. His face was lean and saturnine, and there was
something sinister in the dark, close-set eyes under a single,
heavy line of eyebrow.

Boris explained his question, telling him what he had learnt from
Basmanov. Basil Shuiski laughed. The story was an absurd one.
Demetrius was dead. Himself he had held the body in his arms, and
no mistake was possible.

Despite himself, a sigh of relief fluttered from the lips of
Boris. Shuiski was right. It was an absurd story, this. There was
nothing to fear. He had been a fool to have trembled for a
moment.

Nevertheless, in the weeks that followed, he brooded more and
more over all that Basmanov had said. It was in the thought that
the nobility of Poland was flocking to the house of Wisniowiecki
to do honour to this false son of Ivan the Terrible, that Boris
found the chief cause of uneasiness. There was famine in Moscow,
and empty bellies do not make for loyalty. Then, too, the
Muscovite nobles did not love him. He had ruled too sternly, and
had curbed their power. There were men like Basil Shuiski who
knew too much--greedy, ambitious men, who might turn their