“You dare to deride our empress!” cried one of the judges.

“Aha!” said Ostermann, laughing, “I have there thrown you a bait, and you, good judicial fishes, bite directly!  That is very well, you are now in a good way!  Only go on, and I will help you to find me guilty, if it be only of simple high-treason.  It will then be left to the mercy of your empress to declare me convicted of threefold high-treason!  Go on, go on!”

But Munnich showed himself less unruffled and sarcastic in the face of his judges.  These never-ending questions, this ceaseless teasing about trifles, exhausted his patience at last.  He wearied of continually turning aside these laughably trivial accusations, of convincing his judges of his innocence, and making them ashamed of the nature of the proofs adduced.

“Let it suffice,” said he, at length to his judges; “after hours of vain labor, you see that in this way you will never attain your end.  I will propose to you a better and safer course.  Write down your questions, and append to each the answer you desire me to give; I will then sign the whole protocol and declare it correct.”

“Are you in earnest?” joyfully asked the judges.

“Quite in earnest!” proudly answered Munnich.

They were shameless enough to accept his offer; they troubled him with no more questions, but wrote in the protocol such answers as would best suit the purpose of his judges.  In these answers Munnich declared himself guilty of all the crimes laid to his charge, acknowledged himself to be a traitor, and deserving death.

When they had finished their artistic labor, they handed to Munnich the pen for his signature.

He calmly took the pen, and, while affixing his signature, said with a contemptuous smile:  “Was I not right?  In this way it is rendered much easier for you to make of me a very respectable criminal, and I have only the trouble of writing my name!  I thank you, gentlemen, for this indulgence.”

Quick and decisive as were the hearings, now followed the sentences.  Ostermann was condemned to be broken on the wheel, Munnich to be quartered, and the two ministers, Lowenwald and Golopkin, to the axe!

But Elizabeth had promised her people that no one should be punished with death; she must abide by that promise, and she did.  She commuted the punishment of the condemned, as also of Julia von Mengden, into banishment to Siberia for life.  What a grace! and even this grace was first communicated to Ostermann after his old limbs had been bound to the wheel and his executioners were on the point of crushing him!

But even in this extreme moment Count Ostermann’s calm heroism did not forsake him.

“I was convinced that such would be the result!” he calmly said, quietly stretching his released limbs; “this Empress Elizabeth has not the courage to break her oath by chopping off a few heads!  It is a pity.  On the wheel it might have become a little warm for me, but in Siberia it will be fearfully cold.”