The result of it was
that she went back to her convent under close guard, and was
thereafter confined with greater rigour than hitherto.
Desperately Boris heard how the belief in Demetrius was gaining
ground in Russia with the people. The nobles might still be
sceptical, but Boris knew that he could not trust them, since
they had no cause to love him. He began perhaps to realize that
it is not good to rule by fear.
And then at last came Smirnoy Otrepiev back from Cracow, where he
had been sent by Basmanov to obtain with his own eyes confirmation
of the rumour which had reached the boyar on the score of the
pretender's real identity.
The rumour, he declared, was right. The false Demetrius was none
other than his own nephew, Grishka Otrepiev, who had once been a
monk, but, unfrocked, had embraced the Roman heresy, and had
abandoned himself to licentious ways. You realize now why Smirnoy
had been chosen by Basmanov for this particular mission.
The news heartened Boris. At last he could denounce the impostor
in proper terms, and denounce him he did. He sent an envoy to
Sigismund III. to proclaim the fellow's true identity, and to
demand his expulsion from the Kingdom of Poland; and his
denunciation was supported by a solemn excommunication pronounced
by the Patriarch of Moscow against the unfrocked monk, Grishka
Otrepiev, who now falsely called himself Demetrius Ivanovitch.
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