Kings-at-Arms

Instead there had been this nine years’ war, empty of all but that glory that a day’s mischance might eclipse forever.

Nothing had been done for Sweden—she had been drained of men, of money, left unprotected, her King a mere name.

There was no direct heir; it seemed as if a grandson of Karl XI would never rule in Stockholm, as if the fine line was at an end.

The King began to toss in the heat of the fever, and in his sleep a groan of pain now and then escaped him.

“Ah, you, what have you done for all of us with your heroic deeds?” muttered Count Piper; he came into the tent and looked at the tall figure in the blue coat, with the flushed fair face and loosened neck-cloth, sleeping the heavy slumber of an utter fatigue that was stronger than the torture of his wound.

Count Piper was certain of complete disaster on the morrow; he did not believe that there was the least chance of a success against the Czar.

He saw better perhaps than his master, how Peter had labored towards this moment, how he had learnt bitterly and painfully the art of war from many defeats; he knew that the Russians at Poltava would not be as the Russians at Narva.

He was aware also in what a desperate condition were the forces of Karl, how two winters in this terrible country had tamed their pride and lowered their faith in their own good fortune.

And if this bubble of Karl’s invincibility was pricked, what then?

Nine years’ brilliant success would be, in a moment, valueless; Europe but yesterday at Karl’s feet would soon forget him, and Sweden, depleted of her men, penniless and abandoned by her King, would be a prey to the vengeance of her enemies.

Peter, bitterly offended by Karl’s brief “peace in Moscow,” and with many humiliations to avenge, would be no gentle foe.

In that moment Count Piper almost hated the King.

He was foolishly glad of the twinges of agony that caused Karl to moan in his slumber, and when the King gave a half-unconscious murmur for water the minister made no movement.

It had been his own wish that he should be left alone till the dawn when he was to be roused for the battle.

“I will not interfere with his Spartan habits,” thought the minister grimly.

He went to the door again and looked out on the fair night, opal pale, and the long encampment, colorless light and dark shade under the moon.

Count Piper thought as he had never thought before on the eve of any of the many battles at which he had been present, of the men sleeping now for the last time, of the distant homes they would never see again, of the Swedish blood that would water this arid soil to-morrow, and the Swedish bones that would crumble into the dust of this lost country.

Already the camp was full of movement; the beautiful horses of the Kalmucks and Cossacks could be seen moving among the tents, and here and there the moonlight fell on the steel of cuirass or the bosses of leather trappings, as the Swedish officers rode from one point to another fulfilling General Rehnsköld’s orders.

Count Piper was preparing to go to his own tent for an hour’s rest, if indeed his body could repose when his heart was so heavy, but a sudden exclamation from the King startled him into turning.

Karl was sitting up, his right hand flung out and grasping his sword.

His face showed ghastly in the mingled lamp and moonlight, his wet hair looked dark on his forehead, and his eyes were staring and congested from fever.

“I thought I was being broken on the wheel,” he muttered in a low tone.

He tried to move, and the pulsing anguish the effort brought him made him remember his crushed limb.

“Faugh!” he exclaimed, in a tone of angry disgust. The sword dropped from his hand on to the earthen floor; he started, then peered at the silent figure by the door.

“Is that the dawn, Piper?” he asked, in a quiet, natural voice.

“No, sire, the moon.”

“Send one to bid Neumann come and dress my wound. I would sooner be abroad than abed to-night.”

“I, too, could not rest, sire.”

“There will be time enough to rest when we are in Poltava,” replied the King; there was a note of wildness in his voice foreign to his character; he seemed aware of this himself for he added fiercely: “Curse this fever—I have Peter’s devils on me to-night. Fetch Neumann.”

Count Piper bowed and turned away.

Thus, without a word or handshake parted King and minister on the eve of the Poltava fight.

CHAPTER III

He had now only four pieces of cannon, and was beginning to lack ammunition; Peter had at least 120 guns.

It was one of the first volleys from these that had killed the King’s horses and guards.

Karl shivered with rage as his glance swept over the battle, and he thought of the artillery that he had been obliged to abandon in the marshes and forests of the Ukraine, either through the weather or because the horses had perished, and he remembered with a pang the men who had dropped from cold and hunger on those terrible marches.

It was burning hot as the sun rose higher into the pale cloudless sky; the air was foul with dust and smoke, and full of curses, shouts, and orders, and the irregular booming of the Russian guns.

Before the horses could be harnessed to the King’s litter, another cannon-ball fell near; again several of the guards were killed and the litter this time reversed, shattered to pieces, and flung on top of the King who was cast on to the trampled ground.

Four of his officers dragged him from the ruins; he was covered with dust and blood, and almost speechless.

The first line of the Swedes was beginning to fall back.

The swooning King perceived this, but he was almost past speech.

The Muscovite cannonade was so continuous and fierce that those about the King thought of retreating also, to get their master to a place of safety in the rear.

A stretcher was hastily constructed of pikes, and the King was raised shoulder high.

He raised himself on his elbow and cried out for his sword which he had dropped; they gave him this, and a pistol which he grasped in his left hand.

His blue eyes, inflamed with rage and pain, shot a desperate glance over the battle-field. On every side the Swedes were giving way; each line falling back on the other, and the cavalry breaking at either wing.

“Swedes! Swedes!” cried the King.

Rallying his strength with a mighty effort he directed his bearers to take him to the head of several regiments, mentioning these by name. But it was too late; already everything was in irredeemable confusion; General Poniatowski forced his way through the mêlée to the King, and ordered the soldiers to take him to the rear.

Karl made a sign with his head that he would not go, but he could not speak.

“Sire,” said Poniatowski, “the day is lost—Wurtemberg, Rehnsköld, Hamilton, and Stackelberg are prisoners.”

It was doubtful if the King heard; he lay like one insensible, though his blue eyes were open wide and staring through the battle-smoke.

They were now being hotly pursued by a charge with bayonets, pikes, and swords; the intrepid Pole, though he held no rank in the Swedish army, rallied some of the Swedish horse round the person of the King.

Some of those supporting him had fallen, and he lay on the ground.

Poniatowski dismounted and shouted to the King’s valet whom he saw pressing close; the little band of horsemen, guards, officers, and troopers, who did not number in all 500, but who were all that were left to Karl of his hitherto invincible army, kept off the fierce attacks of the Muscovites, while Poniatowski and the valet, with the help of a horse soldier, got the King up and on to Poniatowski’s horse, a noble dark Arab.

Karl did not speak a word; he had tried to mount a horse at the beginning of the engagement, but had been unable to do so, and now the agony of his wound, the shock of his fall, the passion of rage and grief he was in, had so weakened him that he fainted twice while they were getting him on to the charger.

At last it was accomplished, and the valet, mounting behind his master, clasped him round his waist.

The anguish caused to his shattered foot by the movement of the horse brought Karl to his senses; but he was incapable of anything; he had dropped both his sword and pistol, and his head sank on to the breast of the young man behind him.

In this manner did the Swedish cavaliers, fighting off the fierce Muscovite attack every inch of the way, escort their unhappy master.

They had not reached their objective, the baggage camp (the other Swedish camps being already in the hands of the Muscovites), when Karl’s horse was killed under him; one of the officers with him, Colonel Gierta, though sorely wounded himself, gave the King his mount, and again with infinite difficulty Karl was helped into the saddle.

The little troop, fighting through ten Muscovite regiments, at length brought the King to the baggage of the Swedish army.

The Russians were hotly pursuing them, and Poniatowski saw that a moment’s delay might be fatal.

Among the baggage was the only carriage in the Swedish army, that of Count Piper.

The King was helped into this and the Pole, who by tacit consent had taken command of this band of fugitives, ordered a retreat with all haste towards the Dnieper.

He and the valet, Frederic, entered the carriage with the King, and supported him, as best they could, against the jolting on the rough roads.

Karl had not spoken a word since Poniatowski had conducted him from the field of battle; he now sat up, drew out his handkerchief, and wiped the sweat and dirt from his face, at the same time glancing at the blood that was soaking from his reopened wound on to the cushions and floor of the carriage.

“Where is Count Piper?” he asked.

His voice and face were calm, but the ghastly hue of his usually fresh and glowing face told of his intense suffering.

“Sire,” replied Poniatowski, “Count Piper is taken, with all the ministers. He came out to look for your Majesty, and wandered into the counterscarp of Poltava where they were taken prisoners by the garrison.”

Karl gave not the least sign of emotion.

“And the Prince of Wurtemberg and General Rehnsköld?” he asked.

“They also are prisoners,” said Poniatowski mournfully.

The King shrugged his shoulders.

“Prisoners of the Russians!” he exclaimed. “Let us rather be prisoners of the Turks!”

He said no more, and the flight towards the Dnieper was continued.

Another misfortune overtook the unhappy King; a wheel of the carriage was wrenched off on the barbarous road, and there was no time to stop and repair it; he was therefore obliged to continue his journey on horseback.

The day was insufferably hot; they could find neither food nor water, nor was there any prospect of obtaining any in this desolate country, arid and uninhabited; several of the men were lost on the way or had dropped with fatigue; only a small number remained with the King.

These, towards evening, lost themselves in a vast trackless wood that was believed to stretch to the banks of the Dnieper.

Here, while they wandered about in the endeavor to find some road, the King’s horse fell under him with fatigue, and no efforts could get Karl any further.

Blood-stained and soiled with dust and powder, without food, drink, or repose, maddened by the pain of his wound which increased with his fatigue, his spirit tortured equally with his body by the agony of defeat at the hands of the man he most hated, even the courage and endurance of Karl could support him no longer, and though he was told that the Muscovites were searching for him in this very wood, he made no effort to move but crept under a great tree and lay there motionless.

Poniatowski put a horse-blanket under his head and sat beside him to watch, together with the few horsemen who now comprised the royal bodyguard.

As soon as the moon was up another body of fugitives, by rare good luck, came up with them.

These were Cossacks, headed by their hetman, General Mazeppa.

From them the Swedes learnt some further particulars of the battle.

The Muscovites had taken everything; baggage, guns, stores, such as there were, and the treasure consisting of 6,000,000 crowns in specie, the remains of the spoils of Poland and Saxony, together with many thousand men taken prisoners and many more slain.

Lewenhaupt, Mazeppa added, was flying towards the Dnieper with the remainder of the army; and he himself, added the old Cossack chief, had managed to bring away some mules laden with provisions, and a number of carts loaded with silver and gold.

Karl did not hear this news, either good or bad; he lay in a swoon of fatigue and pain, the moonbeams striking through the thick summer foliage on to his low fair head and blood-stained uniform.

Mazeppa glanced at him; their mutual disaster was so complete that any lamentation or even comment seemed grotesque.

The Prince said nothing, therefore, but with the fortitude that belonged to his character and his mode of life, directed that the food and water that he had brought with him should be distributed among the Swedes, then lay down on the grass and slept.

The next day the painful march was continued, and a juncture effected with Lewenhaupt on the banks of the Dnieper almost at the same moment as news was received of the approach of the Muscovites.

Lewenhaupt’s men had not eaten for two days; they lacked powder, provision—everything; they had no means of crossing the river.

But their spirit did not fail them; they had been the victors in a hundred fights that even Poltava could not efface from their remembrance, and there was not a man among them who did not believe that, now their King had rejoined them, they would once more conquer, or else completely perish, selling their lives dearly. But the man on whom they relied was no longer the man who had led them to victory; Karl, whose wound was become poisoned and who was in a violent fever, unconscious of his actions, was hurried into a small boat that the army had with it, and taken across the Dnieper with Mazeppa and his treasure, which was afterwards obliged to be cast overboard to lighten the boat.

A few other craft having been found, a certain number of officers managed to cross the river, but the desperate Cossacks who endeavored to swim on horseback or on foot were all overwhelmed and drowned.

While the army was in this pass, Prince Mentchikoff, having found his way by the broken bodies of the Swedes along the route, arrived and called upon Lewenhaupt to surrender.

One colonel of this army that had been so long glorious hurled himself with his troop at the ranks of the enemy, but Lewenhaupt bade him cease his vain defiance.

It was all over now; everything was lost, even the chance of a glorious and splendid death; several officers shot themselves, others leapt into the waters of the Dnieper.

Lewenhaupt surrendered.

The remnant of that triumphant army that had so confidently marched out of Saxony was now in the hands of the Russians; slaves henceforth who might come to envy their compatriots who had perished of misery in the forests of the Ukraine.

The news of the end of his nine years’ war was brought to Karl by the last fugitives who were able to cross the Dnieper.

He seemed incapable of understanding what was taking place, but lay silent in the poor carriage which was all that had been able to be procured for him. Without food, save the scantiest, and almost entirely without water, the little party traveled for five days across a desert country until they arrived at Oczakow, the frontier town of the Ottoman Empire.

The bureaucratic delays of the local officials hindered the progress of the fugitives into Turkey.

All the able negotiations of Poniatowski were unavailing, and pending the permission that was to come from the Pasha at Bender, the Swedes were forced to take what boats they could lay their hands on and cross the river Bug that lay between them and safety. The King and his immediate suite reached the opposite shore, but 500 men, the bulk of his little army, were captured by the pursuing Muscovites, whose cries of triumph echoed in the ears of the flying King.

So, sick, penniless, without hope or resource, his glory shattered in a day, his prestige gone forever, Karl XII entered Turkey, to throw himself on the mercy of the infidel.

CHAPTER IV

The building of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt had already shown his intention of making his empire not Eastern but Western, and he had now demonstrated that he had mastered the art of war sufficiently to defeat utterly the greatest captain of the age.

He was not unduly elated at this success which was so much more than he had dared to hope for.

At first he had thought the Poltava battle lost; he had been in the thick of the fight and twice a ball had pierced his hat; perhaps Karl himself was no more surprised than Peter at the final issue of the combat.

The Czar’s manner of celebrating his victory was at once generous and savage.

He treated the Swedish generals with courtesy and consideration, drinking their health as “My masters in the art of war,” but the Cossacks and Kalmucks were broken on the wheel and the Swedish soldiers sent as slaves to Siberia.

He would have liked to have taken Karl, not from pride, but because he wished to know personally so remarkable a man, and he wished to capture the old hetman of the Cossacks that he might impale him alive.

“I wonder Sweden tolerates such a villain near him,” he exclaimed. “It must have been by his advice he came into the Ukraine.”

He spoke to his two generals, Mentchikoff and Alexis Golowin, as he took his ease after dinner in the fortress of Poltava.

“Sweden is insane,” said Mentchikoff calmly. “No man in his senses would have come so far from his base.”

“Nor turned into the Ukraine without guides or provisions,” added Golowin.

Peter made no reply; leaning against the frame of the open window he stared out into the sunny, dusty courtyard.

He was now thirty-six years of age and had lost all the bloom of youth; he was getting stout and his excesses had left their mark on his face, which, though still soft and handsome, was lined and swollen and an unhealthy color.

The thick locks were tinged with gray and his eyebrows and lips twitched with incipient disease.

He was now unbuttoned because of the heat; his green coat was grease-stained, his linen soiled.

In his right hand, coarsened by manual labor, he held a glass full of some sweet liquid round which the flies buzzed.

A star of the purest brilliants hung by a common ribbon from one of his buttonholes, which gleamed as his breast rose and fell with his heavy breathing.

The two generals were magnificent in satin coats, perukes, stars, and laces, but neither had clean hands or linen.

The air was heavy with the odors of the sour, greasy Russian cooking and the smell of brandy.

The room was roughly and coarsely furnished, but a valuable ikon hung in one corner adorned with pigeon blood rubies and still garlanded with the wreaths of wax fruit from the Easter offerings.

Peter’s thoughts were far away.

He was not dwelling on the personal advantages likely to accrue to him from this great victory, nor even on its military aspect; he was thinking that now at last he could secure his Baltic ports and gain for Russia that enormous trade once in the hands of, and so jealously guarded by, the Hansa League. The Russians, long treated as barbarians by the industrious and crafty Germans, had sold their goods to the great Hansa station at Novgorod always at a great loss, despite their persistent efforts to cheat, or bartered them for the English and Flemish cloths which could have been made in Russia.

Peter, who admired as much as he disliked the Germans, intended now that the Russian woods, metals, furs, wax, and honey should be traded direct with Europe.

He meant also to get the trade with Asia, and by this intercommunication with nations to teach arts and crafts to his own people. While he drunk his kvas, regardless of the circling flies, and stared absently into the sunny courtyard, Golowin and Mentchikoff were discussing the present plight of Karl XII.

The fugitive King had gone to Bender in Bessarabia, and was being treated with generous courtesy by the Porte.

He was, however, for all the pomp that surrounded him, nothing but a prisoner, and it was doubtful if, even had he wished, he could have left Turkey.

“He will give no further trouble,” remarked Prince Golowin.

But Mentchikoff was not of this opinion.

“A man of those lion-like qualities,” he said, “is not so easily subdued.”

“He may not be,” replied the other shrewdly, “but without resources he can do nothing.”

Peter turned his head and listened to this conversation.

“How many men has Sweden with him?” he asked, setting down his glass.

“They do not know, Peter Alexievitch,” replied Mentchikoff, “but it cannot be many—only those fugitives who contrived to escape across the frontier.”

“No one of importance?”

“Not beyond Poniatowski, Müllern, his chancellor, and a few officers—and the old Mazeppa,” said Mentchikoff.

At the mention of the hetman of the Cossacks Peter’s face twitched with fury.

“May the devil overtake that ancient traitor,” he cried, “and roast him to all eternity!”

He did not care to dwell on the thought of the escape of this rebel, who had indeed behaved with ingratitude and falsity to the monarch who had so warmly befriended and protected him.

Without any more words he left the room and went to the apartments of his wife, who accompanied him on all his campaigns.

He intended soon to marry her publicly and proclaim her as Czarina.

Not that Katherina had ever demanded this of him (indeed she had not expected him to marry her at all), but to please his own passion for this woman, who still continued to entirely please his curious fancy.

There were those who believed that if she had had a living child he could have disinherited Prince Alexis in favor of the offspring of Katherina, since the heir was not only the son of a disgraced and imprisoned mother, but showed already strong reactionary tendencies towards the barbaric customs Peter was so painfully eliminating from Russia.

Katherina was now clothed in Western fashion; a tight bodice and full skirt of blue silk, a pearl necklace, and her hair rolled into long curls.

She was now very stout, and her teeth were ruined through eating sweetmeats; her complexion was greasy, and her hands ill kept; she had acquired no air of dignity, but an expression of complete good nature showed still on her handsome features.

A Tartar maidservant with Asiatic features was seated on a scarlet cushion, singing as she worked a piece of orange and gold embroidery on a frame.

Peter spoke to neither but seated himself on the low covered chair beside his wife who knew better than to speak to him when he was silent.

The little maid, with an unchanged countenance, continued singing, in a low, melancholy, and monotonous voice, an old Tartar song:

Peter stared at the singer, as if fascinated by her flat, brown face.

Katherina was not thinking of the song nor of him; it was very hot and she was almost asleep in her comfortable chair.

Katherina glanced rather uneasily at the Czar; she had hoped that now he had achieved this great victory he would be less moody and melancholy.

Even her placid good-humor did not always find Peter easy to manage; sometimes her ease-loving temperament was inclined to regret the days of her comfortable prosperity with Prince Mentchikoff.

“The King of Sweden has not been captured?” she asked gently.

“Nay, he crossed the Bug and is safe in Turkey, flattered by the Sultan.”

“Well, he will trouble you no more,” said Katherina pleasantly.

The little Tartar maid rose and crept away, with a furtive look at the terrible Czar.

“I do not know,” replied Peter. “He is a very able man. But I think I have secured the Baltic Provinces.”

Leaning forward with a sudden eagerness he began discoursing of this Baltic Empire and what the acquisition of it would mean to Russia, what she could do when she commanded the town and gulf of Riga and all the islands, of the new naval base of Kronstadt, and the new arts and sciences already beginning to flourish in St. Petersburg.

As he spoke, his rough voice, suffused face, and swollen eyes became inspired; he forgot the ignorant woman to whom he spoke, and declaimed as if he was before a nation of men.

All that he said Katherina had heard before; she, who was not able to read or write, was not interested as to whether Esthonia, Livonia and Lithuania were in the hands of the Czar or not. As for his new city, she preferred Moscow to the new buildings that had risen on the marshes of the Neva.

It seemed to her a thing sufficiently tremendous to be Czar of Russia, and in her heart she wished that Peter would leave his ambitions and be content with the greatness he already had.

She was slightly disappointed that he was not satisfied with the great success he had just gained; she had hoped that when Karl was defeated Peter would enjoy the greatness and power he possessed in that peace and quiet and comfortable pomp that were her ideals of happiness.

Therefore a certain weariness came over her at hearing him once more expound the schemes she had never understood and now was tired of; even his project of making himself Emperor of All the Russias and her his Empress did not excite her; ease and tranquillity were what this lazy woman wanted, and she would sooner have been left in a secure obscurity than be dragged forward to a dubious and perhaps dangerous greatness.

Peter, talking vehemently and absorbed in these matters so near his heart, rose and began to walk up and down the room without noticing Katherina.

And she, half dozing, did not trouble to reply, but began to nod in her chair.

The Czar, suddenly turning to enforce some point, saw her heavy attitude and half-closed eyes; as he stared at her she yawned.

Peter instantly flamed into terrible wrath.

“Ah!” he cried. “You sleep while I talk, eh?”

She sat up at once, wide-awake and pale.

“I heard every word you said, Peter Alexievitch,” she stammered.

“You lie,” returned the Czar fiercely, “but what does it matter if you heard or no? It was all beyond your pitiful understanding.”

Katherina began to whimper.

“I have always been faithful,” she murmured, twisting her plump hands together.

Peter looked at her with contempt.

Anger would sometimes give him a clear-sighted vision of the creature who had so long infatuated him; he saw her now as a stupid peasant woman, and despised himself for the dominion she had over him.

His anger dropped to gloom.

“It is not your fault, but mine,” he said, “for putting you where you are.”

Katherina, grateful that his wrath had passed, dared not risk inflaming him by another word, but sat meekly pulling at the folds of her blue silk skirt.

Peter shrugged his shoulders and left her abruptly; his mood had been crossed and he had no wish for the company even of Mentchikoff, who was, like Katherina, a creature of his own creating, and accordingly sometimes despised by the Czar, who, despite his Western reforms, remained Eastern in his ideas of autocracy and his own almost divine power and privileges.

He went heavily downstairs, called for his horse and rode, alone, round the counterscarp of Poltava.

Karl would molest him no more—North Europe lay open to his armies; he could pull Stanislaus down as quickly as he had been set up, and put whatever puppet he chose on the throne of Poland.

He had accomplished his army, his navy, his port, his capital—and yet in his half-savage heart was still this brooding melancholy, this lingering dissatisfaction.

His own cruelties, his own excesses, seemed even to himself to mar his triumph.

The wife and the friend he had chosen dragged him down and he knew it, yet he could have no more avoided them than the diseases that hampered his body and clouded his brain.

He reined up his beautiful black Arab on the ramparts and gazed across the plain where he had broken Karl XII.

And even at that moment he felt a half-wistful envy of the man whom he had vanquished—the man who could conquer himself.

PART III

EXILE

CHAPTER I

Viziers had risen and fallen, plots had become complicated and bitter, war had been declared on Russia, peace made, war declared again, then peace once more, and finally the Sultan had wearied of his guest, and every effort was made to induce Karl to return to his own country.

After long and involved negotiations Karl had consented to go if his expenses were paid; more than the sum asked for had been sent him thankfully by Ahmed II, but Karl, after receiving the money, had again refused to depart, alleging that he suspected a plot to deliver him into the hands of his enemies.

Even Eastern hospitality was now exhausted, and on Karl’s cool demand for more money an order came from the Sultan that if he would not go willingly he was to be moved from Turkish territory by force.

It was this order that the Governor of Bender, grieved to his courteous soul by the turn of events, had just delivered to Karl, without making the least impression.

Four years of what was in truth but an honorable captivity, of idleness and exile, had by no means lowered the lofty spirit or softened the hard obstinacy of the King of Sweden. Through all the ramifications of the intrigues of which the Porte was the center, his one purpose had remained clear and unshaken.

He wanted an army to lead against Peter, and latterly he wanted the punishment of Mahomet Baltadgi, the vizier who had let the Czar escape with the easy terms of the Peace of Pruth.

While Ismail Pasha was galloping, a thing unusual in a Turk, away from Varnitza with the news of the King’s obstinacy to the Khan of the Tartars who, conjointly with him, had received the Sultan’s orders, he met M. Fabrice, the envoy of the Duke of Holstein, who had his residence with Karl, and reined up his sweating steed.

“What news, Ismail Pasha?” asked M. Fabrice anxiously.

The Turk’s expression was mingled grief and indignation; he knew that this affair might cost him his place and perhaps his life, since he had given the twelve hundred pieces to the Swedes trusting to their honor to depart.

“Your King will not listen to reason,” he replied, “and we shall see strange things.”

M. Fabrice rode on through the sunny afternoon and, by the time he reached the camp at Varnitza, found that the Governor was carrying out already the instructions brought him that day by the Sultan’s grand equerry. The guard of janissaries that had attended Karl during his exile had been removed, the supply of provisions stopped, and all the followers of the King told that if they wished for food they must leave the Swedes and go to the town of Bender.

Consequently, M. Fabrice met a stream of Poles and Cossacks, hastening from the village of Varnitza, and the huts and tents they had raised round the King’s house, to put themselves under the protection of the Porte.

The heart of M. Fabrice sank; long and weary had been the exile, bitter the hope deferred, the suspense, the waiting, fatiguing, the long idleness to those used to an active life, deadening this suspension of all part in the affairs of Europe, and he for one could not understand why Karl should have preferred to prolong such a life sooner than take his part in the politics of the world, nor how he could have so long permitted himself to be misled by the chimera of Turkish assistance.

Sadly he went to the King’s house; the domestics were depressed, the Swedish soldiers eyed with gloomy contempt the departing crowd of Russians and Poles, as if they regretted the good food that these people, so worthless in the hour of need, had for so long consumed.

The King had just risen from the table, and it was in his ante-chamber that M. Fabrice found him.

Poniatowski was still at Constantinople, endeavoring to serve Karl by his endless intrigues among the ministers and favorites of the Sultan, but the rest of Karl’s few faithful friends were with him, as if they all took counsel together.

There was M. Grothusen and the Baron Görtz who between them had taken the place of Count Piper, now miserably dead in Russia, General Hord, and General Dahldorf, and Colonel Gierta, who had saved Karl’s life at Poltava, and several other officers and ministers together with the King’s chaplain, and another Lutheran priest.

The house, contrary to the King’s tastes, was furnished magnificently, to impress the Turks who were not apt to respect a monarch entirely without pomp, and this room was richly hung with silken tapestry, covered with Persian carpets, and filled with Eastern and European furniture of costly material and pattern.

All of this had been bought out of the Turkish bounty, which had been generously lavished on Karl until these disputes about his departure arose, and only lately withdrawn; Karl was now subsisting on borrowing the money his reckless munificence had enriched his friends with, and raising loans at 50 per cent from Jew and English bankers in Constantinople.

Karl was seated in an ebony chair with sapphire-blue velvet cushions; his own dress was unchanged; he was booted, spurred, wore a black taffeta cravat, and no peruke but his own hair, now close-cropped and scanty on the forehead.

He had never altered the stern austerity of his life, nor his rigorous exercises, and was in perfect health and superb strength.

He was now thirty-two years of age, and his noble face, unlined, and fresh and clear in color, still had the look of extreme youth; his figure was heavier but yet active and graceful, he had hardly reached the flower of his strength, and began to show the magnificent proportions of a Viking, deep-chested, long-limbed, strong, without being coarse, and powerful, without being clumsy.

Adversity had given him neither a sense of humor, gentleness, nor gaiety, yet in some way he was more attractive than he had been, and the uncomplaining fortitude with which he had endured his cruel fortune inspired a noble pity in the hearts of brave men.

Not by a hair-breadth had he deviated from the code of pride, of honor, and endurance that he had followed when North Europe trembled at his feet, nor in any way faltered from the serenity that had been his when his conquests had dazzled mankind.

Nor was his obstinacy, a less admirable virtue, in any way abated, as his present attitude showed.

M. Fabrice found that the generals and ministers were engaged in persuading the King to abandon the design of opposing to the utmost the wishes of the Sultan.

Karl’s blue eyes, that had more fire than formerly, glanced at once at the new-comer.

“Ah, M. Fabrice,” he said, “have you come to join your prayers to those of these gentlemen who want me to run away?”

The envoy from Holstein did not know what to say; despite what he had heard from Ismail Pasha, and his knowledge of the character of Karl, he could hardly believe that the King meant to make an armed resistance with 300 men against 26,000, which was the number of the Tartars and Turks in Bender.

“God knows,” broke out Councilor Müllern, with tears in his eyes. “Your Majesty does not need to prove your courage to the world, and it would be a nobler part to submit.”

“Submit! submit!” repeated the King angrily. “You tire me with words!”

General Hord, who had fought by Karl’s side at Poltava, and who was still maimed as a result of his wounds, now addressed the King.

“Sire,” he asked, “will you condemn to a miserable death, at the hands of the infidel, these poor Swedes, the remnant of your victories?”

“I know, by those victories, that you know how to obey,” replied the King sternly. “Till now you have done your duty, General Hord—continue to do it to-day.”

M. Fabrice now found his voice.

“Sire,” he said, “I was with the Khan, and on leaving him met Ismail Pasha; from what I learnt it is but too true that they have received orders from the Porte that every Swede who resists is to be slain, even to your Majesty!”

“Have you seen this order?” demanded the King quietly.

“Yes,” replied M. Fabrice, “the Khan showed it to me.”

“Well,” said Karl, “tell them from me that I give another order—and that is that no Swede leaves Bender.”

M. Fabrice was in despair; he glanced at the sad faces of Karl’s faithful friends who had suffered such pains and hardships for him, and he felt it was unendurable that all should end in a useless death.

He fell on his knees, grasping the skirts of the King’s coat.

“For the sake of these others, sire, who are all that are left to you, out of so many who have perished for your sake——”

“Get up, M. Fabrice,” said Karl kindly, “and return to your lodging. There is no need for you to remain to share my fortune.”

M. Fabrice sprang to his feet, angry and agitated.

“This obstinacy is not worthy, sire. You have no right to fling away so many lives for a whim!”

Karl only smiled; he was not easily angry with M. Fabrice.

Holstein-Gottorp had always been specially under his protection, nor had he ever forgotten the young Duke for whose sake he had first gone to war and who had been killed at his side.

It was his nature to be most tenaciously faithful to any cause or friendship he had once undertaken, and he had never faltered in his resolve to uphold the rights of his brother-in-law; he intended to make the little orphan Duke, his elder sister’s son, his heir, and to that end kept M. Fabrice near him, and gave him as much of his confidence as he accorded to any man.

Therefore he endured calmly the reproaches, the anger, and the pleadings of the excited envoy who was listened to with approval by the others, yet they, who had tried the like arguments in vain, had little hope from the eloquence of M. Fabrice.

All, as the listeners had foreseen, was useless.

“Return to your Turks,” smiled the King. “If they attack me, I shall know how to defend myself.”

M. Fabrice had not the heart to reply, and in the little silence that followed the King’s speech, Jeffreys, the English minister, entered the chamber.

He advanced and kissed the King’s hand with the air of one bringing good news; he also had been trying his good offices with the Khan, and had obtained this favor—that an express should be sent to Adrianople, where the Sultan then was, to demand if in reality extreme measures were to be taken against the King of Sweden, and in the meanwhile permission to allow provisions to be sent to the King.

Karl received this very coldly.

“You are a voluntary mediator, sir,” he said. “I ask for no favor at the hands of the Sultan.”

“Nor did I, sire,” replied the Englishman. “But it is possible that the Porte may repent of the delayed severity of these orders, and in any case this gives your Majesty time to leave with dignity.”

“M. Jeffreys,” remarked the King, with freezing coldness, “as you leave my house you will see my entrenchments.”

“Can it be possible——” began the minister.

“Sir,” interrupted the King, “more things are possible than you may dream of. I do not want your mediation. Nor do I want the provisions of the Turks. What I need I can pay for.”

The Englishman, who, in common with every man present, had lent the King money and knew the difficulty Poniatowski had in raising forced loans in Constantinople, thought this pride as ill-timed as the King’s obstinacy, but he knew that it was in keeping with Karl’s character, and that he did not speak out of flaunting vanity but from that superb disregard of money that he had always possessed; gold and human life, worldly dignities, and common prudence had alike been always too utterly disregarded by the King of Sweden.

“I will mingle no more in the affairs of a monarch so inflexible,” said the Englishman, with a slight smile, as he prepared to retire.

“A wise resolution, M. Jeffreys,” replied the King gravely.

The clergy now essayed to attempt what ministers and soldiers had alike failed to effect.

Karl’s chaplain, coming forward, addressed him in stern tones.

“Has your Majesty considered how long and generously these Turks have succored you? What Christianity is it that so rudely returns such generosity? Have you considered your poor subjects who yet hope, after these weary years of wandering and of exile, to see their homes?”

In this the chaplain was seconded by some other pastors who threw themselves on their knees before the King.

Karl started to his feet; though the discipline of the Lutheran religion was peculiarly suited to his temperament, and the observance of its rules had always been a factor in his success, still there was little of the fanatic in him, and his long sojourn in Turkey had induced a considerable indifference towards Christianity in the heart of one who had always admired pagan virtues and pagan heroes.

He therefore viewed with real anger the interference of these pastors whose appearance at the conference he had hitherto hardly noticed.

His face flushed, and his blue eyes darkened ominously.

On the heads of the clergy broke all the anger the other remonstrants had failed to provoke.

“I keep you,” he said, with cutting anger, “to say prayers, and not to give me advice.”

With that and a general glance of contempt for the entire company he left the chamber, and the only man who dared follow him was Baron Görtz, a man of a spirit akin to his own.

“I wish Poniatowski was here—he might do something,” remarked Grothusen despondently.

“Not an angel of God could do anything,” said the chaplain, who, in common with the other clergy, found himself in the ridiculous position of rising from his knees in front of an empty chair.

“He will be massacred!” cried General Hord in despair.

“We shall all be massacred,” said Müllern. “How long do you think 300 men will resist 26,000?”

“I know,” put in Colonel Gierta, “that the King will suffer the roof to be pulled over his head sooner than surrender.”

“The Sultan may grant a respite,” suggested M. Fabrice.

But Grothusen shook his head.

“His patience has been too greatly tried—and the vizier dare not risk our presence here long.”

“But Poniatowski may do something,” urged Müllern, who had much confidence in the tireless and resourceful Pole.

The words had hardly left his lips before several shots rang out, and all started to their feet, thinking this the signal for an attack on the house.

But immediately after, Neumann, the King’s surgeon, entered.

“The King is having all the Arab chargers given him by the Sultan shot,” he announced, “and the carcases flung to the Tartar troops.”

The Swedes were silent.

In their hearts they knew there was no excuse for Karl’s behavior, and that reason, right, and justice were all on the side of the Sultan, who had from the first been forbearing, chivalrous, and generous to a stranger whom he neither liked nor understood, and who had been the cause of much annoyance to him and of many distractions in his court. Yet they all loved Karl, who till the days of his exile had awakened little affection in any heart, and who now exhibited few lovable qualities.

But his unyielding determination, his iron inflexibility, his austere life, his high ideals of heroic virtues had inspired a feeling that was almost reverence in the hearts of those who had shared his dreary exile.

And in this bitter pass to which his obstinacy had brought them it was not of themselves they thought, but of the King—it was his peril, not their own, that forced the tears to their eyes.

CHAPTER II

While he was thus helpless a council of war was called at which Katherina presided.

By the advice of this ignorant but astute woman, now roused from her usual placidity, all the available treasure in the camp was gathered together and sent as a present to the Grand Vizier in command of the Turkish army, together with a demand to know his terms of peace.

The result of this was the treaty of Pruth or Ialciu, by which Peter ceded all the advantages he had gained in his previous war with Turkey, including the town of Azov, and agreed to withdraw his troops from Poland and to renew the tribute to the Tartars that he had long ceased to pay. In return he was allowed to retire with his army, cannon, flags, and baggage, furnished with food by the Turks, and Karl, hastening to the battle and hoping to find the Czar as he had been himself before Poltava, found that the Russians had retreated untouched.

Nor had Poniatowski, who was with the vizier, been able to obtain a single advantage for his master in the signing of the peace, beyond an article by which Peter engaged not to trouble the return of Karl to his dominions, should he choose to come through Russia.

Karl, who had ridden fifty leagues from Bender, swum the Pruth at the risk of his life, and dashed through the Muscovite encampment, had been driven beyond his usual control at the news which he received on entering Poniatowski’s tent.

In a cold fury he went to face the vizier, but received no satisfaction from the calm Turk, who, having as he believed secured his master’s interests, cared little for the rage of the fugitive King of Sweden.

“I have the right,” he said, “to make war and peace.”

“But you had the whole Russian army in your power!” cried Karl.

“Our law,” replied Mahomet Baltadgi, “tells us to give peace to our enemies when they demand our mercy.”

“And does it order,” retorted Karl, “that you make bad treaties when you might make good ones? Do you not know that you could have led the Czar prisoner to Constantinople?”

The vizier replied gravely and dryly in words that Karl never forgot.

“We cannot shelter all the Kings of Europe in Turkey.”

The King, turning with disdainful haste, caught his spur in the Turk’s long robe, purposely tore it with an angry movement of his foot, and galloped back to Bender, blacker despair in his heart than there had been after Poltava.

He then resolved that he would not leave Turkey until he had secured the punishment of Mahomet Baltadgi and another army with which to march against Peter.

The vizier took care that his plaints and protests should not reach the Sultan; all letters from Bender were intercepted on the road, but after a while Karl’s hopes were flattered by the Porte which became indignant at the behavior of the Czar. The Keys of Azov did not arrive, the tribute was not paid, and Poniatowski was able to convey to the Sultan the news that Muscovite troops were still in Poland.

Peter, however, had soon accommodated matters with the Porte, and Mahomet Baltadgi was more resolute than ever in insisting on the removal of the man whom he now knew to be his enemy.

He obtained from Vienna a safe-conduct for Karl if he chose to return through the territories of the Empire, and he put galleys at his disposal if he wished to go by sea.

But Karl, bitter and humiliated, had been from the first resolute not to be chased from Turkey, but to leave at his own convenience.

He had been confirmed in this attitude by the discovery of a correspondence between the Khan of the Tartars and General Fleming, the minister of Augustus of Saxony, in the ambiguous phrasing of which he and Baron Görtz had thought they had discovered a design to deliver Karl to the Saxons on his return.

M. Fabrice had satisfied himself that the Khan spoke the truth when he denied these allegations, but Karl was not to be convinced.

The express having arrived from Adrianople, the predictions of M. Fabrice and the English minister having failed, and Karl being still inflexible, there remained now but to expect an assault of the Tartars and janissaries.

The King had already entrenched his 300 troops and disposed his household for the defense of his house.

Müllern, with Karl’s secretary, the clergy and the other ministers were to defend the chancellor’s house; Baron Fieff was to command the little garrison of cooks and servants and grooms in the house of Grothusen.

The King assigned to every one his post, and promised rewards to those who should conduct themselves bravely.

The Turks came to the attack with ten pieces of cannon, but Grothusen rode out to meet them, unarmed and bareheaded, and appealed to these janissaries, who had so often enjoyed Swedish bounty, to desist from this attack on helpless and brave men, and to grant a delay of three days in which to ascertain if in reality the orders of the Sultan were so severe.

These words produced a revolt among the janissaries, who swore to accord the three days to the King, and rushed in a tumult to the Pasha of Bender, declaring that the orders of the Sultan were forged.

Despite the protests of the Khan, Ismail Pasha postponed the assault till the next day, and drawing aside sixty of the oldest janissaries showed them the positive order of the Sultan, at the same time telling them to go peaceably to Karl and request his departure, offering themselves as his escort; so anxious was Ismail Pasha to avoid hurting Karl or any of his suite.

While these veterans were proceeding, armed only with the white wands they bore in times of peace, to the King’s camp, M. Fabrice, who could not now come to see the King in his state of siege, sent him a letter by the hands of a Turk, enclosing one from Poniatowski, then at Constantinople.

Baron Görtz took this dispatch to the King who was then (it was an early hour of the morning) alone in his chamber.

A great sadness filled the heart of this faithful friend as he looked at the King.

Karl, despite his strength and pride and obstinacy, was in a piteous position.

There was something heartrending, almost ridiculous in the King’s attitude; this useless heroism, this futile defiance—all that had been splendid at Poltava was pitiful at Bender.

And all the more so because Karl saw neither the pathos nor the tragedy of his situation, and disposed his cooks and grooms, his pastors and clerks, with as much gravity as he had disposed his veteran troops before Varsovia or Klissow.

Yet he was more moved than Grothusen had ever seen him, save in the Turkish camp at Pruth. Something of the old Viking fury that could only be satisfied by an orgy of blood was upon him, apart from his real conviction that it would be dishonor to depart peaceably; he lusted to fight.

A warrior by birth, inclination, and training, these four years of idleness had been almost unendurable to his fierce spirit.

He longed to draw his sword once more and feel that atmosphere of excitement and peril that was the breath of life to him.

Added to this he was deeply angry with the Turks; no one could tell the bitterness of his disappointment in having failed to achieve a Turkish army to lead against Peter.

And the news from Europe could hardly have been worse; all his enemies had attacked his estates during his absence, Augustus was once more King of Poland, and Russia occupied the place Sweden had so lately held as Arbiter of the North.

All these reflections weighed on Grothusen as he addressed the King.

“Sire, there is a party of janissaries on their way to your Majesty, and I beseech you to listen to them.”

Karl looked up as if he had been startled from a reverie.

Without replying he took the letter from M. Fabrice, broke the seal, and read the enclosure from Count Poniatowski.

The intrepid Pole had fallen into disfavor with the Sultan after Karl’s imprudent demand for more money and was not permitted to be with the Court, then at Adrianople; he had, however, managed to keep in touch with affairs, and he now wrote to inform the King that it was but too true that Ahmed had ordered the Khan to proceed to extremity if Karl refused to move from Bender.

In impassioned words of love and respect Poniatowski implored the King to relinquish his mad design of resistance, to think no more of assistance from Turkey, and to return to his own country, trusting to his own genius to retrieve his fortunes.

The King put down the letter and rose.

“All, all so ready to persuade me to my own dishonor!” he exclaimed.

He was deeply moved, and his eyes showed dark in a pale face as he flung back his head and stared at Grothusen.

“On my soul,” cried that nobleman, “these Turks mean no dishonor.”

“Have you not yourself seen,” returned Karl, “the letters to the Khan from Count Fleming? I believe they mean to sell me to Augustus.”

“I am sure, sire,” replied Grothusen, with some heat, “they do not. I know truth when I see it, and I am convinced that the Khan and Ismail Pasha are acting as honorable men.”

“Very well, then,” said Karl, “I also will act as an honorable man. I refuse to be forced to do what I would not do willingly.”

“You know that this may mean your life, sire, which is sacred to your people? That all your friends, servants, and guards, so long faithful to you, and looking to you for protection, will be either massacred or taken into slavery?”

“Grothusen,” replied the King coldly, “if you fear to share my fortunes, join the Poles and Cossacks who have gone to Bender.”

At this cruel remark the Swede flushed hotly all over his fair face.

“That you are beyond reason, sire, does not mean that I am beyond loyalty.”

“No,” replied the King more gently, “I have no doubt as to your loyalty—nor as to that of any with me.”

“The generals are in despair, sire.”

“They have rusted too long—like my sword,” remarked the King briefly. “Have you any other news, Grothusen?”

He spoke as if he would dismiss the subject of their present position, and Grothusen endeavored to follow his humor, though indeed there was no subject on which he could speak that would be particularly pleasing to either.

“M. Müllern had an express this morning to say that King Stanislaus was still on his way to the Turkish frontier.”

“He is my friend,” replied Karl. “Were he not I should call him weak and foolish.”

In truth, the inflexibility of the King of Sweden had for some time been forced by the pliability of the man whom he had made King of Poland.

Stanislaus, faithful as Karl to an ancient friendship, had, on being driven from the Polish throne, gone to Pomerania to defend the dominions of his benefactor.

After many vicissitudes he had resolved to abandon the crown that was the real cause of contention between Karl and his enemies, and by admitting the claim of Augustus to pave the way for a peace for Sweden.

To this end he had written to Karl several times begging him to leave him in retirement, and not for his already lost cause to risk blood, treasure, or his own advantages.