Prince Vasiley returned again to Moscow, and as he entered he saw standing, at the very gate of the fortress, where a great number had assembled to receive the prince, Nicholas, the German, by whose shrewdness and forethought the fortress, as I have said, had been saved, and said to him in a loud voice: "Thy fidelity towards me, and the zeal which thou hast shown in preserving the fortress, are known to me, and I will abundantly repay the obligation under which this act of duty has laid me." Upon the approach of the other German, Johann, who had suddenly routed the Tartars from the fortress of Rezan by discharging his guns, he said: "Art thou well? God has granted us life, but thou, in preserving it, hast given it to us a second time: great shall be our favour towards thee." Each of them therefore confidently hoped that they should receive liberal rewards from the prince; but nothing was given them, although they often wearied the prince on the subject, and reminded him of his promises. Disgusted at length with the prince's ingratitude, they begged their discharge, that they might visit their country and kinsfolk, from whom they had been long absent; which was allowed them, with a grant from the prince of ten florins to each, in addition to their former stipend.
Meanwhile a contention arose at the court of the prince as to the originator of the flight of the Russians at the Occa. The elder courtiers threw all the blame upon the Knes Dimitry Bielski, the commander-in-chief in the army, a young man, who had slighted their counsels, and through whose want of prudence they said that the Tartars had crossed the Occa. He, in rebutting the charge, declared that Andreas, a younger brother of the prince, was the first to take to flight, and that the rest followed him. Vasiley, in order that he might not appear too severe against his brother, who was evidently the author of the flight, imprisoned one of the governors who had fled together with his brother,
