and that the martial spectacle was a pretence, the real object
being that from the fort the Poles were to cast firebrands into
the city, and then proceed to the slaughter of the inhabitants.

No more was necessary to infuriate an already exasperated
populace. They flew to arms, and on the night of the 29th of May
they stormed the Kremlin, led on by the arch-traitor Shuiski
himself, to the cry of "Death to the heretic! Death to the
impostor!"

They broke into the palace, and swarmed up the stairs into the
Tsar's bedchamber, slaying the faithful Basmanov, who stood sword
in hand to bar the way and give his master time to escape. The
Tsar leapt from a balcony thirty feet to the ground, broke his
leg, and lay there helpless, to be dispatched by his enemies, who
presently discovered him.

He died firmly and fearlessly protesting that he was Demetrius
Ivanovitch. nevertheless, he was Grishka Otrepiev, the unfrocked
monk.

It has been said that he was no more than an instrument in the
hands of priestcraft, and that because he played his part badly
he met his doom. But something more he was. He was an instrument
indeed, not of priestcraft, but of Fate, to bring home to Boris
Godunov the hideous sins that stained his soul, and to avenge his
victims by personating one of them. In that personation he had
haunted Boris as effectively as if he had been the very ghost of
the boy murdered at Uglich, haunted and tortured, and finally
broken him so that he died.