At the time that this impostor appeared, Sigismund declared war against Russia, and his marshal Tolkiewski succeeded in inflicting a terrible defeat on Schnisky.  Moscow yielded before the victorious Poles; and in despair Schnisky renounced the crown and retired into a monastery.  But no sooner was the diadem vacant than a host of false Dimitris appeared to claim it, and the chief power was tossed from one party to another during a weary interregnum.  At last, in 1609, Sigismund, who had remained at Smolensko while his marshal advanced upon Moscow, proclaimed his own son Vladislaf to the vacant sovereignty, and the pretended Dimitri sank into obscurity.  Others, however, arose; and although some of them perished on the scaffold, it was not until 1616 that Russia was freed from the last of the disturbing impostors who attempted to personate princes of the race of Ivan the Terrible.

PADRE OTTOMANO—­THE SUPPOSED HEIR OF SULTAN IBRAHIM.

In the year 1640, there lived in Constantinople one Giovanni Jacobo Cesii, a Persian merchant of high repute throughout the Levant.  This man, who was descended from a noble Roman family, was on most intimate terms with Jumbel Agha, the Sultan’s chief eunuch, who sometimes gave him strange commissions.  Among other instructions which the merchant received from the chief of the imperial harem, was an order to procure privately the prettiest girl he could find in the slave marts of Stamboul, where at this time pretty girls were by no means rare.  Jumbel Agha intended this damsel as an adornment for his own household, and a personal companion for himself, and particularly specified that to her beauty she should add modesty and virginity.  Cesii executed his orders to the best of his ability, and procured for the bloated and lascivious Agha a Russian girl called Sciabas, as fair as a houri, and apparently as timid as a fawn.  Unfortunately, notwithstanding her innocent demeanour, it only too soon became apparent that her virtue was not unimpeachable, and that ere long she would add yet another member to the household of her new master.  Jumbel Agha, who was at first wroth with his pretty plaything, after the heat of his passion had passed, consented to forgive her if she would divulge the name of the father of her expected offspring; but the fair one, although frail, was firm, and despising alike threats and cajoleries, declined to give any hint as to its paternity.  Thereupon her master handed her over to his major-domo to be re-sold for the best price she would fetch; but before she could be disposed of she was brought to bed of a goodly boy.