The Governor of Astrachan was the first
to hear the news. Stung by the mixed furies of jealousy, of triumphant
vengeance, and of anxious ambition, he sprang into his sledge, and, at
the rate of three hundred miles a day, pursued his route to St.
Petersburg, rushed into the Imperial presence,--announced the total
realization of his worst predictions,--and upon the confirmation of
this intelligence by subsequent despatches from many different posts on
the Wolga, he received an imperial commission to seize the person of
his deluded enemy, and to keep him in strict captivity. These orders
were eagerly fulfilled, and the unfortunate Kichinskoi soon afterwards
expired of grief and mortification in the gloomy solitude of a dungeon;
a victim to his own immeasurable vanity, and the blinding self-
delusions of a presumption that refused all warning.
The Governor of Astrachan had been but too faithful a prophet. Perhaps
even _he_ was surprised at the suddenness with which the
verification followed his reports. Precisely on the 5th of January, the
day so solemnly appointed under religious sanctions by the Lama, the
Kalmucks on the east bank of the Wolga were seen at the earliest dawn
of day assembling by troops and squadrons, and in the tumultuous
movement of some great morning of battle.
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