Kings-at-Arms

Baron D’Imhof was the spokesman.

“Yes, sire,” he said.

“And what does the Elector want?” asked Karl.

The Saxon was a little taken aback; he had not been prepared to meet the King with so little ceremony, to converse with him with this dry abruptness.

With a bow he handed Karl the letter of Augustus, in which that monarch entreated for peace on any terms.

Karl glanced at the seal.

“Why this secrecy, gentlemen?” he asked, with his sudden, unpleasant smile.

The two plenipotentiaries were silent; they found themselves in that position in which it is difficult to do anything with dignity or even with grace.

“The Czar of Russia knows nothing of these negotiations?” demanded Karl.

“Sire,” said Baron D’Imhof, “my master wished this to be between himself and you.”

“He is ready then to abandon his ally who is not yet prepared to submit?” asked the King, his face, still as smooth as a mask of stone, unmarked by care or emotion, and radiant with the look of perfect health turned full towards the two Germans, and his strange eyes, chill and blue as his Northern seas, swept them with a glance of cold contempt. Again the Germans were silent.

“The Czar does not know of this letter?” demanded Karl.

“No, sire.”

“If he had known it would never have been sent, I think,” said Karl. “Your master did well to keep this matter secret, seeing he is at the mercy of the Muscovites.”

“Sire, my master’s actions are dictated by necessity,” replied Baron D’Imhof. “He trusts a conqueror whom the world knows clement.”

“Clement,” returned the King. “I make no claim to be clement, sir. I am just.”

His glance flickered over both of them, then to the letter in his hand.

“You have shown some courage in undertaking so unpleasant a task,” he remarked.

“I was entrusted by King Augustus,” replied the Baron, “to obtain from your Majesty a peace on as Christian and reasonable terms as your magnanimity would be pleased to grant.”

“Why does your master,” asked Karl, “think I should be so merciful?”

The Saxon disliked this last word, but had to take it; he flushed slightly and bit his lip; this youthful conqueror was proving more difficult to deal with even than he had imagined. M. Pfingsten took the word.

“King Augustus——” he began.

“Call him the Elector,” said Karl. “It is the safer title—we give him that out of courtesy since Saxony is as lost to him as Poland.”

The envoy bowed, swallowed his humiliation, and began again.

“My master trusted something in the blood that unites him to your Majesty.”

“Did he remember that we are cousins when he allied himself with Russia to seize my provinces?” demanded Karl.

With that, he turned his shoulders towards the two plenipotentiaries, and broke the seal of the unfortunate Elector’s letter.

Count Piper eyed him as he read.

Half-leaning against the table with the lamp-light full over his figure, the young King, with his perfect physique, air of strength and hardihood, his noble face and soldier’s bearing, made a picture grateful to the eye.

“Generous and merciful!” thought the minister. “They think him that because he punishes a soldier who steals a chicken, and gives away a crown he might have worn—but we shall see if he knows even the meaning of generosity and mercy.”

Karl finished the letter, put it in his pocket, and glanced over his shoulder at the two waiting Saxons.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “you shall have your answer immediately.”

He took up the lamp and went into a little cabinet that opened off the chamber, closing the door behind him.

The Saxons could not but stare at seeing the simplicity of the man who had conquered Northern Europe.

The plain room without hangings or carpet, the entire lack of servants or guard, the King’s own appearance and the way in which he waited on himself, caused them astonishment, and would, under other circumstances, have roused their contempt and disgust.

Count Piper noted their expressions and the glance they exchanged.

“Ah, gentlemen,” he said, “you do not know with whom you have to deal!”

“In what way, sir?” asked Baron D’Imhof, who felt more at ease in the presence of the minister than in that of the King.

“Your errand is desperate,” replied the Count, with some feeling for fellow diplomats in a hopeless position, “and the success of it, gentlemen, does not depend on any arts of your own.”

“No,” said M. Pfingsten, “but entirely on the disposition of the King of Sweden.”

“Exactly,” said Count Piper. “Your only hope is that you may excite compassion in the heart of a man who has never known a gentle emotion, and turn from his course the most obstinate creature who ever breathed.”

He smiled cynically, and made a movement with his hands as if he cast away the responsibility of his master’s actions.

“You give us good hopes,” said Baron D’Imhof, with some bitterness.

Count Piper did not directly reply to this.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “I will give you this advice—whatever the King says accept it; take up your hats and begone with what good grace you can, for he will never alter his mind.”

As he spoke Karl entered from the cabinet, carrying a paper on which the close writing still gleamed with the wet ink.

He gave this to Count Piper and bade him read it to the Saxons.

“I will give your master peace on these terms,” he said, “and you must not hope that I shall alter any of them.”

The minister bent nearer the two tall candles on the table that gave the sole light in the rooms and read, in an even official voice, the terms of the conqueror.

The King had written his fiat with his own hand without troubling to call his secretary, and the calligraphy was quick and flowing as that of one whose thoughts move faster than his pen; as Piper knew Karl was only now putting on paper the terms that he had in his mind from the first to impose on Augustus.

The conditions were four in number.

“Firstly.—The Elector must renounce forever the throne of Poland, recognize Stanislaus Leczinski as King, and, even in the event of this prince’s death, make no attempt to regain the throne.

“Secondly.—He must renounce all the alliances he has made against Sweden—particularly those with Muscovy.

“Thirdly.—The Princes Sobieski and other prisoners of war are to be sent with honor to my Camp.

“Fourthly.—He is not to seek to punish any one of his following who have joined me, and he is to deliver to me all these deserters whom he has with him, and especially John Patkul.”

As Count Piper finished the two Saxons cried out in startled tones against the hardness of these terms.

Karl smiled.

“Did you expect,” he asked dryly, “other terms? Think, gentlemen, what Augustus would have exacted had he been at the gates of Stockholm as I am at those of Dresden.”

“Sire,” returned M. D’Imhof, in great agitation, “my master is honorable and merciful—he would never have propounded such a condition as that last.”

“You question these terms?” demanded the terrible young conqueror, with a cold and disdainful look.

“I say, sire,” replied the Saxon firmly, “that my master can never in honor surrender General Patkul.”

The sound of the name seemed to anger Karl; his blue eyes darkened and flashed.

“I do not argue,” he said. “These are my terms.”

“But General Patkul,” urged M. Pfingsten anxiously, “is an envoy of the Czar, and as such sacred——”

“Since when,” interrupted Karl, with a biting contempt, “has the Muscovite claimed the privileges of civilized rulers? Patkul is my subject, a deserter and a traitor.”

“The conditions are very bitter,” said Baron D’Imhof. “Let your Majesty reflect if they are such as a Christian Prince can accept.”

“Well,” replied Karl, with his cold air of stubborn hardihood, “no doubt I can find another Elector for Saxony as I found another King for Poland.”

“We may, sire, discuss these terms with Count Piper?” asked M. Pfingsten, clutching at straws.

“As much as you wish,” said Karl, with a stern smile. “Count Piper knows my mind and if I am likely to change it.”

“I have already warned these gentlemen,” remarked the minister.

Karl now turned and with a rude coldness was leaving the chamber.

Count Piper gave the piece of paper that had so tremendous a meaning to the confused and humiliated deputies of Augustus.

M. Pfingsten took courage to speak.

“Our master can never surrender the crown of Poland or General Patkul.”

Karl paused on the threshold of the inner room.

“Why was John Patkul arrested in Dresden the other day, as soon as his protector, the Muscovite, had left for Astrakan?”

“It was of some mistake, sire——”

“Ah,” interrupted Karl, with an ugly laugh, “it was no mistake. Your master saw that he had the Livonian in his house before he asked for peace—and why? Because he knew that I should ask for Patkul and that he would surrender.”

With these words, spoken with a cold indifferency more than any passionate tone of insult, Karl, disdaining to hold further argument with the envoys of his fallen enemy or to take any ceremonious leave of them, bowed briefly to the Saxons and left the chamber.

Baron D’Imhof could hardly contain himself.

“So this is greatness!” he exclaimed ironically. He put up the paper in his bosom. “We will wait on you to-morrow, Count, though I doubt if it will be of any use.”

“You have heard my master’s will,” replied Count Piper, “and he never changes his resolutions.”

In the small, bare inner chamber the man, who had upset kingdoms and altered the face of North Europe for no other reason than pride and the desire for military glory, laid himself again on his straw mattress and hard pillow.

Augustus was conquered as effectually as had been Frederic; it had taken longer, years instead of weeks, but it had been done.

And Patkul, the arch conspirator, would finally be punished.

There remained only Peter....

Karl turned on his rude pillow and fell asleep, dreaming of the downfall of the Czar, his last and greatest enemy.

CHAPTER IV

Elegant and beautiful articles were scattered about the room, and a cardinal of violet silk and a pair of heelless white silk slippers bespoke the presence of a woman.

But the fair face of the Elector was haggard and pale; he looked at M. Pfingsten with eyes full of a cruel distress.

“Sire,” this gentleman hastened to say, “I rejoice to find you in circumstances which can enable you to deal on terms of equality with the King of Sweden.”

“Do not mock me, Pfingsten,” replied the Elector, in a tone of agitation. “You find me in the most miserable position, and whatever the terms you have brought back I must sign them.”

“Nay, God forbid!” exclaimed the envoy.

Augustus set down his coffee cup with a shaking hand.

“Are they then so hard?”

“Sire, they are impossible.”

Augustus gave a miserable smile.

“You do not understand my position,” he said bitterly. “This victory is futile and barren and will only further serve to inflame the Swede.”

“Then, why did not your Majesty wait my return before giving battle?”

The Elector replied with the useless impatience of a weak nature.

“It was the cursed Muscovite! What was I to do? Mentchikoff would give battle, no excuse would put him off. I knew that it would mean a defeat for Sweden, they were so outnumbered. I had only a handful of Saxons, and had those savages guessed that I was in treaty with the Swede they had murdered me—cursed be the day when I was allied with such dangerous rascals!”

M. Pfingsten could say nothing; he saw that this new victory had indeed put his master in a delicate and difficult position; he was forced either to affront his dangerous allies in whose power he was or to offend the conqueror on whose mercy he had thrown himself; his was the common fate of the weak, who, lacking all qualities of resolution and daring, find that concession and subterfuge lead them into a position where no way is open to them with both safety and honor.

“I sent privately to General Mardenfeldt,” continued the Elector, pouring out another cup of the strong coffee, “warned him of his danger and my secret negotiation, and advised him to retire—but the hard-headed fool took it for a trap and would fight.”

“At least the victory was complete?”

“Yes. I was surprised myself. The Muscovites can fight as well as marauder, it seems. Mentchikoff is sending the Czar a bombastic account of it, but it is all futile,” he added peevishly.

M. Pfingsten, a man of more nerve than his master, did not entirely agree with this dispirited view.

He thought that at least Augustus could now refuse the shameful terms imposed by Karl XII.

Taking the letter from his breast-pocket he put it among the delicate coffee service on the tulip-wood table by the Elector’s elbow.

Augustus picked it up with nervous fingers, glanced at it, and fetched a groan, a look of real anguish distorting his handsome face.

Each of the four conditions were bitterly hard, the last struck at his honor as a gentleman; Patkul had been in his service, had trusted and did trust him, and was, moreover, sacred as the envoy of the Czar.

Augustus had shrunk from abandoning his ally; he felt it would be impossible to betray him by delivering to his enemy a man who was general and ambassador of Russia.

He put the letter down and sat staring into the fire.

“There was no possibility of moving the King?” he asked, in a broken voice.

“Not the faintest; he prides himself on his obstinacy and sternness. I think he is quite implacable,” replied M. Pfingsten, with dreary memories of the hardness of the young captain.

“Then there is nothing for me to do but accept these terms,” said Augustus.

This complete and instantaneous submission startled M. Pfingsten; he had not believed that Augustus would have been so subdued by his miseries and disasters as to have no spirit left with which to meet this extremity.

“There is one thing your Majesty can do—you can advance into Saxony with these Muscovite troops and attack the King of Sweden.”

Augustus gave the speaker a wild look.

“Take advantage, sire,” urged M. Pfingsten, “of this moment of good fortune.”

Augustus hesitated; the terms offered by Karl were so hateful that he was glad to catch at anything that seemed to promise relief from the necessity of accepting them.

At the same time his reverses had been so continuous and terrible, he had gradually lost everything and exhausted every resource, he was so convinced of the invincible genius of Karl, so worn out in this long combat with one in every respect his superior, that his spirit, by no means firm or martial, though he was, in his way, brave and ambitious, was completely broken, and his terrified imagination saw no escape from his present difficulties save by throwing himself utterly on the mercy of the man in whose hands his fate lay.

“If I could see Karl face to face,” he began in a distracted tone, “I could surely induce him to soften these terms.”

“Let your Majesty put that out of your head,” replied M. Pfingsten firmly. “The King of Sweden is as hard as one of his northern rocks—his plainness and his show of courtesy to the vanquished but mask a spirit without sentiment, a heart without feeling. Count Piper told me that his preference for Stanislaus Leczinski is but based on his temperate life—he has given that man a throne merely because he is his own body servant and sleeps on a straw mattress! He admires nothing but Spartan virtues and respects nothing but military glory.”

“Well, then,” cried Augustus, a prey to the most bitter distress and agitation, “there is nothing for me to do but to sign this cursed paper!”

“Your Majesty might strike another blow.”

“You do not understand my position—the Muscovites have defeated Mardenfeldt, they cannot defeat Karl—and if they discover that I am in negotiation with him, they will abandon, if not murder me. You do not know, Pfingsten, the ferocity of this Mentchikoff or his devotion to his master. As for my resources,” he added, with a sigh as of one who had too well calculated, often enough, his hopes and fears, “you know what they amount to—Saxony is barren both of men and money—Poland lost.”

“Some help might be hoped for from the Empire, sire.”

“Not while Austria wars with France.”

“And surely, sire, the Electorate is not yet exhausted,” protested Pfingsten.

“Ravaged by the Muscovites, occupied by the Swedes, what can be hoped for from my wretched country?” exclaimed Augustus bitterly; he rose, and thinking of the only friend and confidante he now possessed, he went to an inner door concealed under a hanging of stamped and gilt leather and called a woman’s name.

Aurora von Königsmarck immediately entered the apartment.

She had remained faithful to this King who was without a throne, men, money, or friends, perhaps out of compassion, perhaps because she had no choice of a more glorious destiny; certainly she had accompanied him in all his flights and battles and distresses as closely as had Katherina the Czar, though with a colder sympathy and a more disdainful endurance of evil fortune. She was the only person besides the two envoys who knew of the embassy to Karl; she had sent even her women away, and was alone in the apartment of the King.

“Well?” she demanded dryly, seeing by the Elector’s face that it was further ill news.

Her bold glance flickered to M. Pfingsten.

“You have come on a disagreeable errand, sir,” she remarked, “but these are disagreeable times.”

She came, with her quick, graceful walk, to the fireplace, and stood before the flames looking at the downcast faces of the two men.

Since she had, in the height of her pride, lowered herself before Karl XII, she had lost something of her beauty and all of her magnificence.

Like everything belonging to Augustus, she was tarnished by continual ill-fortune; nor did she care for the neatness and order possible even in poverty; she would be either splendid or careless, and disdained those shifts that labor to cover deficiency with artifice.

She who had blazed in Dresden as the most gorgeous lady of the court, now showed in a negligent undress of soiled sprigged silk over a petticoat of yellow taffetas, with her rich hair fastened in a loose knot without either art or neatness; her beauty was not of that radiant youthfulness that can overcome these disadvantages, and she looked as damaged in her fortunes, as eclipsed in her charms, as was proper to the favorite of a fallen prince.

In silence Augustus handed her the letter from Karl.

He had a great faith in her intelligence, and even now cherished a hope that her wit would point out some way of escape from his dilemma that had not occurred to either Pfingsten or himself.

Aurora read the letter and her nostrils dilated.

Not Augustus himself knew a bitterer humiliation than she experienced as she read the conqueror’s terms.

She hated Karl with all the hatred of which her passionate nature was capable.

As he had so easily resisted her fascinations, so rudely refused her advances, so completely scorned her, she did not regard him as a man, but as some soulless creature, a werlion or wertiger sent on earth to plague mankind.

She fumbled at her laces with a quivering hand and darted a keen glance at the gloomy countenance of the Elector.

“Are you going to take these terms?” she demanded impetuously.

“Do you see anything else for me to do?” asked the disheartened Prince.

“Nothing a man like you could do,” she replied sharply.

“Madame,” said M. Pfingsten, “there is the Muscovite army.”

“But where is the man to lead it?” asked Aurora, with a cruel glance at Augustus.

M. Pfingsten was encouraged by her presence, which breathed energy and vitality.

“Let your Majesty,” he urged, “tear up that paper—put yourself at the head of the army now in Varsovia and march on Saxony—there is nothing more to lose and everything to be gained.”

“Sir,” said the Countess bitterly, “you discuss expedients only possible with another prince—and with another prince we should not have been brought to this pass.”

Augustus flushed but could find no answer in his own defense.

“What is it that you propose to do?” she added sharply.

“To sign that paper and go to Saxony to entreat Sweden to soften these terms,” replied the unfortunate Elector; he was indeed so absorbed in the contemplation of his own misery as to hardly wince under Aurora’s scorn.

She tapped her foot in an angry silence; she saw this was the fatal way of weakness, which would have neither the dignity of defiance nor the advantage of concession, since she knew well enough that Karl would be merely irritated by any attempt to dispute his terms.

But she also knew the man with whom she had to deal, and that it was hopeless to expect even the semblance of heroism from a Prince like Augustus, overwhelmed by six years of a disastrous war that had stripped him of everything, even faith in himself.

“Well, you must sign,” she said.

There was a little silence, then the Countess added in a hard tone:

“Mdle. D’Einsiedel came here last night—hurrying from Dresden to beg for General Patkul’s release.”

“My God!” broke from Augustus, as he realized the baseness of the action he contemplated.

“And she has been to Prince Mentchikoff, who is going to ask for the Livonian’s release in the name of the Czar.”

Augustus stood in a wretched silence.

“I never understood why Patkul was arrested,” continued Aurora, in a curious tone.

An uneasy flush stained the Elector’s distressed face; he did not look up.

“Was it because you foresaw this emergency?” added the Countess.

M. Pfingsten was startled to hear her express the same question as had Karl.

He knew that General Patkul had been arrested, on some flimsy pretext of having exceeded his duties, immediately after the Czar’s departure for Astrakan, and that he had been kept in easy and honorable captivity at Sonnenstein, but not even when Karl had flung his sneer had he thought for a moment that there was any connection between the arrest of the Livonian and the position of Augustus before the conqueror.

Now, as he heard the sharp words of the Countess and looked at the stricken figure of Augustus, it occurred to him as at least strange that the very man, on the surrender of whom depended the peace, should be so completely in the Elector’s power—so that no warnings by his friends, no protection from the Czar, his master, could save him from being delivered to Sweden.

“If you had not had Patkul at Sonnenstein,” said Aurora, “you could not have surrendered him to Karl, and there would have been no pacifying this victor. You are fortunate.”

Goaded, Augustus turned on her with a flash of impotent anger.

“You talk so much of General Patkul, Madame—you do not seem to attach any importance to the fact that I shall have to surrender Poland!”

It was M. Pfingsten who replied—with great earnestness.

“Sire, your Majesty, by the fortunes of war, may easily regain the crown of Poland, but you can never regain what you lose if you surrender General Patkul.”

“You are a poor diplomat,” returned the Elector angrily. “Are there not ways of saving General Patkul? I can appeal to the King of Sweden personally.”

His hedging weakness angered Aurora; it was true that she had suggested the surrender of Patkul and even broached the subject to Karl, but that had been while there had been something to gain by concession; now that her side was thoroughly beaten her blood was up, and, if she had been Augustus, she would have cast Sweden’s terms in his face. Also she was naturally generous, and once she realized what the delivery of Patkul to Karl meant she could not put her hand to it; she saw that Augustus would yield, had always meant to yield, and she despised him for it, as women will despise men for weaknesses and meannesses of which they are capable themselves.

“Very well,” she said, “sign those terms.”

She came quickly up to him, putting her lovely hand on his brocaded sleeve.

“Patkul must escape,” she added, gazing into the trembling face of Augustus. “Send an order to the Governor of Sonnenstein to let him, secretly, go at once.”

Augustus was relieved by this suggestion that seemed to suit both his convenience and his honor, yet he hesitated; to do this would be to play a trick on the man on whose mercy his very existence would depend; if Karl, who would be already sufficiently irritated by the victory of Kalisz, knew of this fresh attempt to fool him, he would undoubtedly refuse any possible concession in the harshness of his demands.

But Aurora had pushed pen and paper under the reluctant hand of Augustus.

“He trusted you,” she said, “and to give him to Karl is to give him to a cruel death.”

“Sweden might be merciful,” muttered Augustus.

Aurora ignored this feeble futility and resorted to another argument, more powerful to influence the distracted Elector than the last.

“Sire, Prince Mentchikoff will demand Patkul, Mdle. D’Einsiedel will rouse Russia—better, at least, compromise.”

Augustus seized the pen and hastily wrote an order for the secret and immediate release of Patkul; Aurora von Königsmarck took it from him and left the room.

Everything was lost, but the brilliant and wayward woman did not think of that; she went to her bed-chamber, threw on a mantle, and hastened to a little closet in her suite of apartments, now all dismantled and in confusion.

A pale girl stood with locked hands at the window, staring out at the chill September morning.

The Countess thrust into her hands the order for General Patkul’s release.

“That goes to-day, dear, by our fleetest courier.” In the evening Augustus signed the terms dictated by Karl XII.

BOOK VI

THE BETRAYAL

CHAPTER I

He sat on a gilt leather arm-chair, in the little front room of his cottage, dressed in a rough green frieze riding suit, his boots muddy and a riding switch in his hand; he had just returned from a visit of inspection of St. Petersburg, where streets, shops, palaces, and churches were already covering the outlines of the city.

Mentchikoff stood before him in the rich costume of a Russian general, European in cut, but Eastern in color and embroidery, a diamond in his sword hilt, a star on his breast, lace at his throat and wrists.

His long brown and lean face, with the sharp bright black eyes and thick lips, was pale with the intense passion of a fierce and uncivilized nature.

“This is what he did, Peter Alexievitch! I put him back in Varsovia; he did not want to give battle at Kalisz—one knows why now! And one morning he was gone—gone! With his woman and his valets—gone! To Altranstadt—to the camp of the Swede!”

“You were properly fooled,” muttered the Czar, in a stifling voice.

Mentchikoff made not the least attempt to deny this.

“There was one Pfingsten, one of his Germans, whom he sent to Karl—and who brought his terms writ on a bit of paper, and he, this cursed Augustus, signed and fled, to put himself at Karl’s mercy.”

The Emperor’s eyes showed red, a faint dew besprinkled his forehead, he bent his whip across his knee till it cracked, then flung it away and buried his face in his hands, running his fingers into his dusky curls.

“Mdle. D’Einsiedel came to me, the very day before—for months she had been trying to find me—to tell me about Patkul. The whole thing was kept secret, but it seems that he was arrested when you were called to Astrakan. Of course Augustus knew the Swede would ask for him.”

“My ambassador—my general!” groaned Peter.

“When the Elector fled, this lady went back to vantage of his hurried departure to order at once the release of Patkul, but there was much delay, he having been moved from Sonnenstein to Königstein; the messenger reached the governor of this place in time—the Countess von Königsmarck was very active in this intrigue—but he tried to get Patkul to pay ransom, knowing of his wealth, and while this argument was in progress the Swedish officers arrived, and Patkul is now in Altranstadt, fastened in a cellar with a great iron chain round his waist.”

Peter raised his face which was quite distorted, the eyes infected with blood, the lips livid.

“May the Devil overtake Augustus and torture him in Hell forever!” he stammered. “May he be steeped to the lips in sorrow and bitterness, the vile, false coward.”

He ceased with a sob of sheer fury; he had always despised Augustus, but never believed him capable of this; disloyalty and cowardice were the two unforgiveable crimes in the eyes of the Muscovite; his primitive nature did not recognize the usual excuses offered by diplomacy for the actions forced by necessity on states and princes; nothing could palliate the Elector’s conduct in his eyes; he considered that he had been treated with black treachery and base ingratitude, and that Augustus had behaved with the utmost villainy. He certainly was incapable of such conduct himself; he would have died cheerfully sooner than submit to an enemy, and though he might punish even his own family with savage cruelty if he suspected them of treachery, he would never have deserted a friend or have betrayed an ally.

Through all the Elector’s misfortunes Peter had been staunch to him, and, to the best of his ability, held out a helping hand; and when he remembered that last Conference at Grodno, the amiable flattery of the Saxon, the mutual promises, the sworn treaties, the vows of friendship and mutual help against the Swede, and thought how the Elector had taken advantage of his hurried departure to order at once the arrest of the man who was a valuable asset in dealing with the enemy, he was shaken by an excess of fury.

“Danilovitch!” he cried, “I shall never forgive you that you did not discover this traitor and bring him in chains to me!”

“I shall never forgive myself, Peter Alexievitch,” replied the Prince simply. “But who would have thought of such vileness? He has that smooth Western way of lies and smiles.”

“The woman Königsmarck is in this.”

“I do not think so. I know that she did her best to save Patkul; she has more courage than he, and I think, more honor. She is a friend, too, of Mdle. D’Einsiedel—that child will die of this, Peter Alexievitch.”

“What will they do with Patkul?” asked Peter fiercely.

“He is to be tried by a council of war. Karl treats him as a rebellious subject. He will suffer a cruel death.”

In Karl’s place Peter would have behaved with the same severity; he had never shown mercy to those whom he judged rebels, and therefore he did not feel the fury of hate towards Karl that he felt towards Augustus, but he was conscious of a certain wonder that this young king whom he had regarded with secret admiration as being much greater than himself, could indulge in the same bloodthirsty vengeances.

“Is this Sweden’s famous clemency?” he asked bitterly. “Is he then so magnificent?”

He was silent, communing with his own soul; he thought he would have been more chivalrous than Karl, and not taken advantage of the weakness of Augustus to demand the surrender of a man in the employ of another monarch.

From that moment the cold knightly figure of the Scandinavian, vested with all the virtues to which he himself might never hope to aspire, was smirched in the eyes of Peter.

“The Muscovite prisoners were slain after Fraustadt—by whose orders?” he said. “And now this. This man is no better than I,” he added, with a strange simplicity, “and I shall defeat him.”

Then his thoughts turned to Augustus, and he flashed from brooding into wrath.

“How was the Elector received at Altranstadt?” he demanded.

“The Swede met him privately, they say, and treated him with a cold civility. Their talk was of trifles, mainly of the boots Karl wore, which he had never been without, he said, for ten years, save to sleep, and then Stanislaus Leczinski came, and Augustus had to salute him as King of Poland.”

“Is it possible there lives a prince so spiritless!” exclaimed Peter.

“He must have suffered,” said Mentchikoff with satisfaction. “After Kalisz Sweden’s terms became harder. Augustus had to send the archives and State jewels to Stanislaus, cause his name as King of Poland to be effaced from all documents and monuments, and write a letter of congratulation to Stanislaus.”

“And that is the mercy he obtained by throwing himself on the compassion of Karl!” cried the Russian, “and I was allied with such a prince! What does he mean to do now?”

“Karl is supposed to retire from Saxony and leave him in peace,” said Mentchikoff dryly. “As for the Palatine of Posnania, he has a poor gift in the throne of Poland—the factious nobles, such as the Sapieha, have laid waste what the Swedes and your Muscovites have spared. The country is a smoking ruin.”

“And that is what the King of Sweden has achieved by his conquest,” said Peter grimly. “Why does he so favor Stanislaus Leczinski?”

“No one knows—perhaps because he knows how to flatter him.”

Peter gave his favorite an ugly look.

“Do you think that is the sole reason for the friendship of kings?” he demanded.

Mentchikoff saw his danger and fell on one knee, kissing passionately his master’s rough hand; he knew that there is nothing an absolute prince dislikes more than the insinuation that he is ruled through his vanity and adroitly influenced by flattery, even though he is seldom led by any other means or persuasion.

Peter was mollified by this act of homage.

“If you flattered me, Danilovitch, I should love you no longer,” he said.

“If I had been a flatterer,” replied Mentchikoff, “I should not have brought you this ill news, Peter Alexievitch.”

The Czar rose, raising his favorite also to his feet. He did not feel any ill-will towards the Prince for his failure to detect the secret negotiations of the Elector; all the force of his ardent soul was absorbed in fury against his faithless ally.

“Patkul must be saved,” he said. “Am I to submit to this treatment? I will appeal to England, to Holland, to the Empire!”

Mentchikoff did not voice his thoughts, which were that the name of Karl now sounded so terribly in Europe that it was doubtful if any nation would dare to interfere with him, besides the fact that the countries mentioned by Peter were engaged in a costly war with France.

He frowned at the floor and was silent; he could see no way by which Peter could come by satisfaction and vengeance save through his own genius and might.

“Patkul shall not die,” said Peter. “Karl would not dare.”

“There are the Swedish prisoners who might be executed in reprisal,” remarked Mentchikoff.

This suggestion suited Peter’s breed and training, and, perhaps, his disposition, but that prudence and foresight that distinguished him from his predecessors caused him to reject a proposal that was useless and dangerous.

“There are more Muscovites in Sweden than Swedes in Muscovy,” he said grimly. “I will take another vengeance. I will march on Poland.”

He paused and tore at his neckcloth as if to loosen it and give himself air.

“Of all those who joined against Karl, there is only Russia left,” he added, with a terrible look. “But Russia will defeat him—listen, Danilovitch, I will not stop until I have crushed him, beaten him, reduced him, as he has crushed, beaten, and reduced Augustus! And if he slays Patkul——”

He paused and added in a low voice: “I loved Patkul.”

He took a turn about the room in a great and increasing agitation.

“Seven years have I fought him—with no weapons but those that I could forge myself well; he had everything to his hand, and he conquered. But I am ready now. Are not things different, Danilovitch? I have built a city and a fort, a navy; I have trained an army—can I not defeat Karl of Sweden?”

“I never doubted,” replied Mentchikoff, a look of fiery enthusiasm in his little dark eyes, “that your Majesty would bring down this insolent braggart.”

“To break him, Danilovitch!” cried the Czar. “To smash his invincible armies, to send his veterans flying before me, to make him fly—to drive him to ruin, to exile, to make the glory of his victories disappear like smoke before the sun! That would be an achievement, Danilovitch!”

He paused, exhausted by his own passion, and caught hold of the back of the chair in which he had been sitting.

“I did not enter into this war for lust of conquest,” he said, as if justifying himself, yet with an almost wistful dignity. “Not for hate, as Denmark did—not for folly, as Saxony did. I wanted my Baltic ports—the trade, the commerce, the prosperity. No one understands that.”

“These things must be fought for, Peter Alexievitch,” replied Mentchikoff.

“To that end have I built a navy and trained an army,” said Peter sternly. “I perceive that I shall get nothing of what I want as long as Karl of Sweden is master of the North.”

He sat down again with something of a groan; rage at the defection of Augustus so consumed him that he could hardly command his thoughts.

“Sweden does not know,” remarked Mentchikoff, “what he has roused in Russia. He thinks the Muscovites may be scattered by the whip and are not worthy of powder and shot—he insults Augustus with impunity because he does not think that we are to be feared.”

Peter turned his inflamed eyes towards the dark, pearl-crowned ikon that hung above the stove.

“God, help me to do this one thing,” he muttered. “To smite Sweden.”

His face assumed an expression of dark and lowering anger.

“If Patkul is slain,” he added. “Now would Sweden dare?”

Then, with a sudden and entirely unconscious pathos, “Europe will not listen to me—I am only the Czar of Muscovy. They do not take me as a power to be reckoned with, Danilovitch.”

“They do not know you, Peter Alexievitch,” replied Mentchikoff.

Peter pursued his own train of thought.

“He breaks all international law—if Patkul had been the envoy of any other country but Russia the world would have cried out against this treatment.”

Despite his passionate nature and his autocratic position he saw shrewdly enough just how Europe held him.

“I will make my protest, but who will take any notice of it?” he continued.

“Peter Alexievitch, you must make your own protest,” said Mentchikoff, in an energetic tone. “Cannot you defeat Sweden?” added this fiery Russian.

“It has been done,” responded the Czar, with a sudden smile. “You beat them at Kalisz!”

He spoke warmly and without a trace of envy of his subject’s success in a war where he had every time failed himself, thereby, had he known it, showing himself greater than Karl, who had not been able to restrain his jealousy on hearing of Mardenfeldt’s victory at Fraustadt.

With equal generosity and selflessness Mentchikoff replied:

“I was in a little way the forerunner of you, Peter Alexievitch—when you strike, Sweden will quiver to the shock!”

The Emperor fixed on him soft and lustrous eyes, tired and earnest.

“I must call a council,” he said, “but I know what to do—I will descend on Poland with my new army. Karl is likely to remain at Altranstadt?”

“There is no talk of his leaving. The English are sending an envoy to him—at least a rumor says so.”

“They are afraid he will fall on the Empire,” said Peter instantly.

“He will not,” replied Mentchikoff simply. “His design is solely against Russia.”

“He troubles himself not at all about the West?”

“Not at all, I think. He would be Alexander—Saxony is but his Thrace—Russia must be his Persia, and he thinks all his conquests little things beside that battle that must be his Gaugamela!”

“He would dethrone me, and I would break him utterly,” remarked Peter. “It only is to be seen which is the stronger man.”

He pressed Mentchikoff’s hand and left the room abruptly, seeking that comfort which never failed to soothe him in his most gloomy and bitter moods, Katherina, now his wife.

He found her in the garden amid the lilac thickets that were just beginning to be covered with their pale flowers.

The Livonian peasant girl was now rather stout, heavy and indolent in habit, slow in her movements, generally silent, with a good-natured smile on her full lips.

Her extraordinary elevation had in no way altered her disposition; she was as unassuming as she had been when she was the servant of Mentchikoff; she did not mingle in the least in politics of which she understood nothing, but she was intelligent enough to at least feign an appreciation of what Peter was trying to do for Russia, and her quiet sweetness, her placid cheerfulness never grew stale to Peter; he looked upon her almost as his savior, from the devils of melancholy and horror that tore at his soul.

He was not nice in his tastes. Her lack of refinement did not vex him; her over-blown, untidy beauty still satisfied him, neither her manners nor her past troubled him; with a certain grandeur he disdained everything but the fact that she was the one woman he had found wholly pleasing; she went everywhere with him and knew all his secrets; so far she had been faithful to him, perhaps because in her heart she was entirely afraid of him, and, for all her outward calm, very wary.

The Czar flung himself on the seat she reclined on, and put his arm round her shoulders, turning her fair countenance, framed in the long, Russian veil, towards him.

“Saxony has delivered my Patkul to Sweden!” he said.

“Alas, poor gentleman!” cried Katherina, in genuine distress.

Peter kissed her fiercely.

“What do you think I shall do, my rose?” he asked.

“Why, rescue him, Peter Alexievitch.”

“That, if I can—if I am too late—” the veins stood out on his forehead and a light foam gathered on his lips. “Do you not think I shall avenge him?” he asked pitifully.

Katherina answered as if he had been a child.

“Why, of course,” she said.

CHAPTER II

The Diet at Lublin, however, distracted by faction and intrigue, fearful of Sweden and suspicious of the Czar, made little progress towards any settlement of the affairs of Poland; it would recognize neither Augustus nor Stanislaus, but was by no means agreed as to the man to put in the place of these monarchs. Peter, with a slowness that led his enemy into despising him, remained at Lublin watching these intrigues and training his army, his sole encounters with the enemy being skirmishes between wandering parties of Muscovites and detachments of Lewenhaupt’s Swedes in Livonia and Lithuania; a kind of warfare which ruined the wretched country without giving any advantage to either side. Meanwhile the Sapieha and Oginski, again commenced pillaging and burning, marauding friend and foe alike, causing Karl to send Stanislaus with General Rehnsköld to Poland to endeavor to reduce these disorders.

Peter, finding it impossible to maintain an army any longer in a country so ruined and desolate, and pursuing his waiting policy, left the Diet of Lublin to their deliberations and fell back on his base in Lithuania, daily strengthening his forces and filling the courts of Europe with his plaints against Karl and his demands for the return of Patkul.

This left Stanislaus sole master of Poland, and the power of Karl was at its height; his camp at Altranstadt held envoys from all the princes of Europe, seeking his favor, endeavoring to discover his plans and to gain his alliance.

In this moment Karl gave little thought to Peter, save to issue scornful orders for the suppression of his predatory bands of Tartars and Cossacks.

Karl now turned his attention to the Empire, and in revenge for a slight he thought he had received at the hands of the Emperor’s chamberlain, he demanded reparation from Joseph in the haughtiest terms, insisting not only on the banishment of the offending Count Tobar, but on that nobleman’s delivery into his own hands, and the surrender of the Muscovite refugees that had escaped over the frontier into Austria.

This abuse of the law of nations passed without a murmur in Europe, so powerful was Sweden, as did also Karl’s demand that their ancient privileges be restored to the Protestants of Silesia.

Joseph humbled himself as Augustus had done, and the court of Vienna was as humble as that of Saxony.

“If the King of Sweden had asked me to turn Lutheran I should have been obliged to do it,” said the Austrian, in reply to the papal nuncio’s protests.

Peter heard these things with outbursts of fury, but continued to accept the German officers secretly sent him by the feeble Emperor.

He was in Lithuania, occupying his days with training and hardening his troops, endeavoring to rouse Europe to save Patkul, and watching the increasing splendor of his terrible enemy, when Hélène D’Einsiedel, who had made her way from Dresden amid incredible difficulties, forced her way into the Czar’s presence and besought him, in the accents of a creature distracted, to rescue her lover.

“I am helpless,” said Peter, with a dreadful look at the livid face of the wretched girl.

“He will be executed—in the most horrible way,” whispered Hélène. “We were to have been married this autumn.”

“Child,” said the Czar kindly, “I have done what I could. I do not need a woman to urge me to this duty.” He looked away from where she knelt, huddled on the dirty floor at his feet, in her dusty traveling dress, all grace and beauty crushed out of her. “I will break Sweden,” he added.

“What is that to me,” cried Hélène, “if Patkul dies?”

“Would it not be something,” asked Peter, “to have revenge?”

She appeared not to hear him; her distraught mind was concentrated on one thing only that was stronger than her fatigue or her despair—the effort to save Patkul.

“Cannot you, who are an Emperor, do this?” she implored.

Peter turned fiercely to Mentchikoff.

“Take away this woman,” he said, “I cannot endure it.”

The shuddering creature staggered to her feet before the officers could touch her, and flung out her poor, feeble hands with a shriek.

“They will break him on the wheel!” she wailed. “Oh, let me die first!”

Peter had looked on many frantic women before, and heard similar words often enough. The wives, mothers and sisters of the Strelitz executed in the Red Square, many of them by Peter’s own hand, had comported themselves in similar fashion, mad with grief and horror, and he had given them never a glance, yet the anguish of this fond creature, who had traveled so far and through such perils that she was half-crazed with terror and fatigue, to demand a protection it was out of his power to bestow, moved him terribly; he could not bear to look on her, and she was forced from his presence and given to the charge of the servants who had come with her on this desperate journey.

“Let Katherina go to her,” muttered the Czar. “Katherina has a gentle mind and a soothing tongue.”

For himself he sought Mentchikoff, that firm and tireless friend.

Throwing an old mantle about his shoulders, for this autumn was unusually chill, even for the North, he mounted his great, rough horse and rode to the quarters of the Prince that were far more comfortable than his own.

He was humiliated and struck to the heart; with an impatience and gloomy bitterness he eyed his huge encampment; what use was it to train these men who fled at the very name of the King of Sweden? What good his pains, his example, his rewards, his punishments, to mold a nation uncivilized in every art and science?

The reactionary party was still at work; there were eager hands ready to undo his every reform; his heir, son of the repudiated Eudoxia, was a weakling, none of the children of Katherina, his chosen woman, had lived.

Almost his task seemed too great for the Russian; the war had been long and entirely disastrous; if it had taught him the art of war, it had done so in lessons rude and bitter.

His allies had fallen away from him; his enemy was in every way triumphant, had eclipsed his glory, dimmed his rising renown, made him and his attempts at greatness a laughing-stock.

Europe would not even listen to him when he complained of Karl’s breach of international law and demanded his ambassador; instead they sent their representatives to do homage to the conqueror in his camp. The Emperor of Austria cringed, Europe was at the feet of this young man—in truth a second Alexander, who had but to decide in which direction his further glory should lie; and no one troubled about Muscovy and its passionate ruler, so fiercely trying to educate his country into some semblance of his ambitious dreams.

“Sweden blocks me,” said Peter to Mentchikoff. “He must go, or all we have done is in vain. He stops my progress, Danilovitch; he wants to pull down, I to build. What am I to do—it seems that he is invincible.”

He spoke without malice or hate now, only with a sadness that was wistful in its sincerity.

“And Patkul!” he added. “Patkul will be broken, Danilovitch.”

“I would we could break Augustus,” said the Prince.

“With my own hands,” remarked the Czar, “I would put him to the torture. That little thing came from Dresden to ask me to save Patkul—and I can do nothing!”

It was the bitterest mortification to which he had ever been subject in a life full of vicissitudes; Mentchikoff knew it and scowled; he could not endure to glance at the cruel position in which his adored master found himself; his own whole being was absorbed in a deep hatred of Augustus and the Swede.

But he had a greater faith in Peter than Peter had himself; the Czar might be torn with doubts and fears, but the subject was certain of the ultimate downfall of the Swede.

Peter, with an effort, it seemed, to shake off the gloom that was settling on him, asked Mentchikoff for a certain Pole who had been employed as a spy in the camp at Altranstadt, and who had lately returned to Lithuania.

“I would like to see him,” said the Czar somberly.

“But he knows nothing,” replied Mentchikoff; “nothing—I have already examined him.”

“He knows,” returned Peter, “something of the life of the King of Sweden—bring him here, Danilovitch.”

Mentchikoff was reluctant to do this; he felt that it was morbid for Peter to be so interested in the habits of his rival and a certain slight to his own dignity, but he did not dare refuse, and the Pole, a tall, thin fellow with red eyes and sandy hair, was brought before the Emperor. Peter eyed him gloomily.

“Prince Mentchikoff tells me that you discovered nothing at Altranstadt,” he said.

“Sire,” replied the Pole, with a movement as if he would prostrate himself before the Czar, “how can one discover the secrets of a King who has no confidants?”

“I think he has no secrets either,” remarked Peter, “his design is clear enough. He wishes to dethrone me.”

“Yet that is not clear, sire,” answered the spy earnestly. “All the princes of Europe have envoys at his camp trying to find out his plans, each begging for his favor and alliance. And he is dumb to all.”

The Czar glanced at his friend.

“A proud position, Danilovitch!” he said. “A proud position!”

“They wonder,” resumed the spy, eager to show that he had not been altogether useless, “why he lingers so long in Saxony—there are many comments as to that. He cannot,” added the Pole, who knew that he might safely speak of the humiliation of Augustus to Peter, “further lower the Elector who has even written a letter of congratulation to Stanislaus Leczinski.”

“May every ill overtake him for it!” exclaimed Peter in a loud voice, and with a suffused face.

“He has even, sire, had the mortification of having to deliver his favorite, General Fleming, to the King of Sweden who claims him as his subject, and only the entreaties of Stanislaus Leczinski stayed Karl from putting him to death.”

Peter was not interested in General Fleming, and was impatient of hearing of what he considered further vileness on the part of the Elector, whom he regarded as one dead and damned—no longer to be taken into account, and only to be remembered to have his memory cursed.

“Tell me how the King of Sweden lives,” he demanded, fixing his soft, dark, bloodshot eyes on the ferret-like face of the spy.

“Sire—as he has always done—he is the worst housed, the worst served and fed in his army. He never touches wine, and his food is plain and scanty, his bed a straw pallet. It is his pleasure to inure himself to every kind of fatigue and hardship. He rides out three times a day, and has no amusements or diversions of any kind.”

Peter looked at Mentchikoff, regardless of the presence of the Pole.

“Think what a man I could be, Danilovitch!” he cried enviously, “could I so control myself!”

“Peter Alexievitch,” replied the Prince hotly, “do you seek to compare yourself with this hard, heartless automaton?”

“It is a wonderful thing,” insisted the Czar, “for a man to be so master of himself.”

“It is their manner in Scandinavia,” said Mentchikoff. “They have few passions and dull appetites. But Karl boasts himself too soon if he would be above humanity—he takes his revenge on Patkul!”

The spy glanced furtively at the two Russians, not himself daring to enter on ground so delicate.

“Where is he better than us wretched mortals in that?” added the hot-hearted Prince.

“Indeed,” said the Pole, “he is quite hard in these things. He has never been known to grant mercy to those who offend him. There was a Livonian officer captured and sent to Sweden, sire, and there in Stockholm judged and condemned to death. The King would not listen to any entreaties, but this soldier persuaded the Swedes that he knew the secret of the philosopher’s stone, and the Queen-Mother sent to the camp to know if she might offer pardon to the man in exchange for his secret. But the King replied that he could not do for interest what he had refused to do for compassion. And the officer was beheaded.”

Peter had listened intently, his eyes full of a dark fire.

“Did the King believe that the man knew how to make gold?” he asked keenly.

“Sire, it is said that he did,” replied the Pole, “for a pure bar of gold was sent him that the prisoner had made in his cell before the Swedish councilors.”

“Then,” exclaimed the Czar, “this action shows a certain grandeur in him!”

But Mentchikoff was quick to seize on another aspect of the tale.

“Did you say this fellow was beheaded?”

“Yes, excellency.”

“And Patkul is to be broken on the wheel—and his crime is equal to that of this man. Where is the grandeur in that, Peter Alexievitch? Not the offense but the man is punished by this cruel sentence.”

At this mention of his unfortunate general, Peter’s brow darkened again.

“Whether such a man as this is to be respected or not, I cannot say—but he is to be feared, Danilovitch!”

The Czar then turned abruptly to the spy.

“Is there no whisper in Altranstadt as to Sweden’s future designs?” he asked.

“Sire, there are many whispers. He has sent envoys into Persia and India. The Sultan has sent an ambassador to him returning the Swedish prisoners who fled into Turkey; his officers have always boasting stories on their lips of what he will accomplish.”

“And they are right!” exclaimed Peter. “What may not this man, twenty-five, hardy, fearless, never defeated, and whose feats of arms have astonished the world, expect to achieve?”

“Nothing that you cannot thwart him in,” replied Mentchikoff, who did not like his master’s attitude of admiration for his enemy.

The Czar took no notice of this remark but continued to question the spy.

“He never looks at women, this Swede? There is no one who influences him?”

“No one, sire. For him it seems as if women did not exist. When he is forced to meet them he treats them with a freezing coldness—and avoids them when he can. They say he favored one woman when he was in Stockholm, but she died soon after he left for the war.”

“Indeed,” said the Emperor, who could hardly conceive of a life of such austerity, “if he has never been drunk or in love or in a passion, he is hardly human—and the more dangerous.”

“He is neither invulnerable nor invincible,” remarked Mentchikoff.

Peter suddenly flashed him a warm smile.

“You are jealous for my dignity, Danilovitch,” he said. “I love you for it. And it is true that I am not defeated yet, nor old nor sick, and I have still to try conclusions with the Swede. Twenty times has he driven me out of Poland—and twenty times have I returned.”