CHAPTER I

NEARLY four years after the battle of Poltava on a cold clear day of early spring the Pasha, who was governor of the Turkish province of Bender, turned sadly away, followed by his suite, from three stone houses, strange in structure and design, that stood near the village of Varnitza, near the banks of the Dniester.

These houses had been recently built by the King of Sweden, whose camp in Bender had been threatened by floods.

One was occupied by the King himself, one by his friend Grothusen, and the third by his ministers, and these plain buildings looking so incongruous in the eastern landscape, had become an eyesore and a terror to the Porte.

Ever since Karl had flung himself on the mercy of the Turks, sooner than fall into the hands of Peter, intrigue and counter-intrigue had distracted the Ottoman government.

Count Poniatowski, able, subtle, and tireless, had used every art to persuade the Sultan to take up arms for the defeated King, and the Muscovites had done their best to check him at every turn.

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

THE answer from Adrianople was to the effect that the Swedes were to leave Bender at all costs and that all who resisted were to be forcibly ejected, and, if need be, slain.

Their commands were not at all to the liking of the Khan or Ismail Pasha, both of whom had come to like Karl, a type admirable in the eyes of a Mussulman, and M. Fabrice again tried his talents as mediator.

All these efforts, like so many others, proved fruitless, and for the same reason—the inflexibility of Karl.

Even Baron GÖrtz thought the King went too far, and he knew, better than any man, the real cause of Karl’s bitter obstinacy.

And this was the treaty of Pruth.

When, after years of dreary waiting, the endless intrigues of Poniatowski had at last succeeded in causing the Porte to declare war on Russia, Karl had believed that his patience was rewarded and that his downfall would be avenged.

And it seemed as if fortune was again favoring him; Peter, marching into Turkey as recklessly as Karl had marched into the Ukraine, found himself on the banks of the Pruth, isolated, outnumbered, without provisions or stores, in a position as desperate as that in which Karl had found himself at Poltava.

So terrible was the prospect, so certain seemed defeat, slavery, the triumph of his defeated rival, and the failure of his own life’s work, that the Czar fell into a state of despair which brought on a fearful attack of convulsions.

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.

In acting thus the generous Pole showed that he did not know the man with whom he dealt; Karl was merely angry at this self-sacrifice; he was haughtily decided never to permit Augustus to keep the throne of Poland, and equally to never permit Stanislaus to resign it; he had never, in the dreariest, most hopeless hours of his exile relinquished the dream of unthroning the Czar, and the chivalrous withdrawal of Stanislaus Leczinski from the combat merely irritated the indomitable Swede.

Learning his humor, but still convinced of the wisdom of his own decision, Stanislaus had decided to come himself to Bender to inform Karl of the state of Europe and the desirability of his resigning the crown of Poland.

It was this journey, that the Pole was making incognito, that Grothusen now referred to.

It was not a happy change of subject, for it vexed Karl almost as much as that of the deputation of the janissaries.

“He too comes to dissuade me from what I have already set my mind on,” remarked the angry King. “Well, let him come. If I meet him, I shall tell him that if he will not be King of Poland, I can find another who will.”

He walked up and down the room, slowly and in a controlled manner, but the heaving of his bosom, the pallor of his face, and the dark flash in the eyes usually so cold, told that he was angry in no common fashion.

He suddenly stopped before his friend.

“And you, Grothusen!” he exclaimed, “you too would wish to see me a laughing-stock for the Czar—turned from this country at his pleasure.”

His emotion overpowered him as he mentioned his chief enemy; he turned to the window and leant his sick head against the mullions.

Peter Alexievitch!

That name was the cause of all his wrath and soreness, all his stubborn pride and deep fury; the Czar, the only man who had been worthy of his steel—the man who had defeated him—the man, who, through what Karl considered the baseness of Mahomet Baltadgi, had escaped vengeance on the banks of the Pruth.

In many bitter ways had Peter made Karl feel the sting of defeat.

Piper, RehnskÖld, Wurtemberg, and other ministers and generals, famous and glorious for their part in Karl’s great victories, his close companions for ten years, had marched in chains, two by two, through the streets of St. Petersburg, following the barbaric triumph with which the Czar impressed his people.

And the Muscovite ambassadors at Constantinople had flourished with Swedish slaves, the heroes of Klissow and Poltava, in their train.

And Karl had the humiliation of knowing that the rest of his veterans, the flower of the army, were working as slaves in Siberia or teaching their masters their native handicrafts.

Every way Peter was prosperous; his navy rode the waters of the gulf of Riga and the gulf of Finland; his armies spread all over the Baltic Provinces, and held Poland at their mercy; his ambassadors were received at every Court; the arts and sciences grew apace in Russia.

It was no wonder that his name inspired with despair the proud young warrior who had thought to dethrone him in a year.

“Do you think,” he suddenly asked aloud, “that I shall leave Turkey till I secure the punishment of Mahomet Baltadgi?”

He now hated this man, who had snatched his patiently waited-for vengeance from him, almost as much as he hated Peter Alexievitch.

“Count Poniatowski does his best——” began Grothusen.

“Cease to weary me with that useless talk,” interrupted Karl fiercely.

Grothusen looked mournfully at the strong noble face; he felt an overwhelming pity for this life that was so strong and brave and steadfast, and so lonely and so thwarted, for this nature that had greatly dared, greatly achieved, and then had to endure the humiliation of complete failure.

Karl was not lovable, but in that moment his friend yearned over him as if he had been a woman.

Before either could speak again Baron GÖrtz entered.

The sixty janissaries, white-bearded veterans, unarmed and on foot, had arrived.

They sent the most humble, most respectful message to the King.

If he would only leave Bender they would themselves escort him anywhere he wished, even to Adrianople, so that he might put his case to the Sultan.

“I will not see them,” said the King.

“Sire, I fear they will never leave until you have spoken with them,” replied GÖrtz.

The King gave a deep sigh and rang the bell; Frederic the valet, who had held him on his horse at Poltava, appeared.

“Go to these old Turks,” commanded Karl, “and bid them leave my house, or else,” he sought for the worst insult one could give a Mohammedan, “I will send my soldiers to cut off their beards.”

CHAPTER III

THE janissaries, utterly outraged at this insult, retired muttering in anger: “Ah, head of iron, head of iron, if you will perish, you shall!”

The Turks and Tartars were now again advancing to the attack.

Karl ran out, mounted and galloped, in company with three generals, towards his little camp. He was in time to see the 300 Swedes surrounded and overwhelmed by the Turks to whom they surrendered without firing a shot.

When the King beheld his veterans thus delivering themselves into the hands of the enemy, in his very presence, the deep color sprang into his cheeks.

For an instant he covered his face with his hands, then, throwing back his head haughtily, he spoke to the officers who accompanied him.

“Come, let us defend the house, then,” he said, and turned swiftly about, and followed by the generals gained his residence that he had left garrisoned by forty servants and fortified as best he could.

These defenses, however, had been useless before the onslaught of an army; the Turks had stormed the house and entered by the windows, a surging crowd of janissaries heaved before the door.

The King’s servants had retired into the large dining-hall that opened off the entrance chamber on the ground floor, their fair frightened faces could be seen at the great window, in strange contrast to the dark triumphant faces shouting without.

The King leant forward from the saddle; his look was as intent as that of an eagle bending from a rock to drop on its prey. He glanced forward at his beleaguered house then back at those about him.

His following numbered in all twenty persons, including the generals Hord, Dahldorf, and Sparre, M. Fabrice who had contrived to join the King, and Frederic his valet.

“Stand by me now,” cried the King, “and we will gain the house.”

Mad as they thought his action, there was not one of them who would not have been ashamed to draw back now.

Flinging himself from his horse, grasping in one hand his sword and in the other a pistol, Karl threw himself on the crowd of janissaries who surged before his door, and began to cut his way through the press.

The Turks hurled themselves on him; Ismail Pasha had promised eight golden ducats to each man who could only touch the habit of the terrible king, if he was captured, and the janissaries fought and struggled to get near the tall figure in the blue uniform.

Karl laughed; the fury and the joy of battle, doubly grateful after years of enforced idleness, filled his veins; he cut down all those who stood in his way and, a head and shoulders above the crowd, forced through to the door.

A Turk placed a musket at his head, Karl turned and ran him through the chest; the musket went off, the ball grazed the King’s nose, wounded his ear, and broke the arm of General Hord.

The Turks began to fall back before this man who appeared invincible and even superhuman; his long sword dripping blood, his pistol hot and smoking, his fair face calm yet lit with that cold fury of the North, so strange a thing to Eastern people, Karl of Sweden smote to right and left until he had cut his way to his doorstep.

The little garrison, who had been watching the desperate fight with breathless agitation, threw open the door.

The King strode in, followed by his escort; the door was instantly bolted and barricaded with chairs, tables, and other articles of furniture. Karl now found himself in the large dining-hall; his entire retinue consisted of sixty men, of whom several were wounded, General Hord severely so.

The King’s own face was all bloody from the gash in his ear; he wiped this away with a gesture of impatience and tossed down the soaked handkerchief.

The little company looked at him, no one saying anything; all were standing save the wounded general, who was seated while a valet tied up his arm with rough splinters and bandages. They all of them counted on certain death, and had only the melancholy satisfaction of resolving to sell their lives dear.

Only one or two intrepid spirits shared the King’s humor, and were indifferent to the issue of the fray as long as they might acquit themselves with honor.

Among these was Baron GÖrtz, a daring, audacious, and courageous man full of nerve and resource, Grothusen, a calm, bold spirit, and Frederic, the faithful and intrepid valet.

For a moment the King stood silent, leaning on his bare sword, and listening to the Turks who had overrun the rest of the house and were hurrying from room to room, pillaging and searching for the King.

Shouts and heavy steps told that they had entered the adjoining apartment which was the King’s bed-chamber.

Karl wiped his sword on the blue damask cover of a chair and picked up his musket and loaded it.

“Come,” he said, “help me to turn these barbarians from my house.”

So saying he flung open the inner door that led to the bed-chamber and strode in among the Turks, raising his musket as he did so and firing into the group of plunderers. These, startled at the sudden apparition of the man whom they had believed dead or captured, and loaded with booty, were taken at a disadvantage.

The magnificent figure with the calm face now so fierce in expression, that they had been used to respect, filled them with awe; they retreated before Karl, dropping the gold and silver vessels, the rolls of tapestries, the knives and firearms that they had despoiled from the King’s stores.

Karl advanced among them, throwing away his musket; he drew his sword and drove the Turks backwards before him; many jumped out of the window, two crawled under the brocade valences of the King’s bed.

Karl, perceiving this, ran his sword through one; the other crawled out, and bending low before the King besought his mercy.

Karl turned to Grothusen, now close behind him.

“Tell him,” he said, “that I will give him his life if he tells Ismail Pasha what he has seen.”

Grothusen translated this; the shivering Turk eagerly promised, and was suffered to jump out of the window after his companions.

The invaders had now taken refuge in the cellars; from these Karl and his now heartened followers soon dislodged them; some were killed, others contrived their escape through doors or windows.

Karl ordered the dead to be flung out after the living, and in a short space of time the house was free of the enemy.

The Swedes now proceeded to barricade doors and windows, and to fetch such arms as were available.

A large store of muskets and powder had not been discovered by the Turks, and these proved ample for the arming of the garrison.

Karl, as composed and cool as always when in the midst of battle, was nevertheless animated by a furious anger and passion; his blood was up, and he was utterly reckless of all consequences both to himself and others.

“We will make this house famous,” he said, when he had given instructions to his men to resist to the very utmost and the very last.

“But too famous!” General Dahldorf could not help saying, “if it is to be the scene of your Majesty’s——”

He could not say the word, and the tears rose to his eyes.

“My death,” finished the King. “Well, if these are our last hours it is the more needful that we should make them honorable.”

He posted such as he had of guards and soldiers and the more skilled of the servants at the windows, with orders to fire on the swarms of Turks and Tartars pressing about the house.

The Khan and Ismail Pasha now brought their cannon into action, but with no avail; the balls fell harmlessly from the stoutly built stone walls.

In a few moments the Swedes firing from the windows had killed over 200 Turks and wounded a great many others.

“See you,” cried the King to Grothusen, “if my soldiers had stood firm we had defeated all these infidels!”

“Ah, sire,” replied Grothusen, “had every man a spirit such as yours we should be invincible!”

It was no mere flattery he spoke, he meant and believed what he said.

And in his heart he thought—“If you had not been sick we had fought and died like this on the banks of the Dnieper, and not lived to see this exile.”

The King was at one of the barricaded windows, firing over the heads of his crouching soldiers who were picking off the Turks who seemed in a certain confusion, when Baron GÖrtz gave a sudden cry and a deep curse.

He had perceived that the Turks, ashamed at being so long kept at bay by a handful of men, were sending arrows, twisted with flaming straw, on to the roof, the doors, window-frames, and all the inflammable portions of the building. The exclamation had hardly left his lips before a great gush of flame invaded the room where the King was.

The roof, burning with a hundred flaming arrows, was falling into this upper chamber.

Karl, without a change of countenance, called two guards to help him find water.

General Dahldorf dragged along a small barrel from the stores.

With his own hands the King staved it in and hurled the contents on to the advancing flames; with a roar the fire increased so that all had to hurl themselves against the door; the perukes of the officers were singed, and arid smoke filled the eyes of all.

The barrel had been filled, not, as was thought, with water, but with brandy.

There was nothing to do but to retire into the next apartment; this was already menaced and full of smoke.

The roof was blazing, and flames began to creep round the walls.

The Turks, now passive, waited, with a kind of awe, for the Swedes to leave the doomed building; they had ceased their cries and shouts, and their excited faces were all turned towards the flaming house.

The King’s position was indeed becoming untenable; driven from room to room by the darting flames the Swedes were forced to take refuge on the ground floor.

Even this was invaded by smoke and large sparks from the burning woodwork.

The fumes were becoming blinding, choking. They could hardly see each other’s faces; only the King, GÖrtz, and Grothusen continued to fire from the flaming window.

A soldier, with singed clothes and hair, staggered up to the King and cried out, with his arm flung up to protect his eyes, that they must surrender.

“Surrender!” cried the King, looking over his shoulder. “Who dared say that word?”

“Sire,” answered the wretched guard, “we shall burn alive!”

“Here is a strange man,” said Karl contemptuously, “who thinks it is better to surrender than to die!”

Another soldier, who was near the King now, ventured to speak.

“Sire, could we not gain M. MÜllern’s house that is not fifty paces away, and that has a stone roof that is fireproof?”

The King’s straight gaze was turned for an instant on the speaker; then his blue eyes flashed with joy.

He flung away his smoking musket and seized the soldier by the arm; he remembered the fellow’s name, for he was among his personal guard.

“You are a true Swede, Colonel Posen!” he said.

The man crimsoned, even in this moment, with delight at this promotion, but Karl left him no time for thanks.

The flames were now enveloping them, and there was no time to be lost in forcing a way out of the burning house.

Putting himself at the head of his men, Karl issued from the door least damaged by the fire and emptied his pistol into the crowd of expectant and waiting Turks.

This example was followed by the officers and soldiers immediately behind, and so terrible was this onslaught of the desperate Swedes that the Turks recoiled, calling on “Allah! Allah!” to defend them from this dreadful hero.

But the little band had not gone far before they were overpowered; Karl, forced forward ahead of the others, was separated from them and entirely surrounded.

He threw away his pistol, and passing his sword from his left hand to his right, defended himself with that against the janissaries who pressed upon him with shouts of triumph.

For several moments he held his own against his enemies; several reeled back dead before him. He was hatless, and his fair, flushed face, the blue eyes vivid, showed above them all; then one caught him by the belt and dragged him half down; but he resisted to the full of his great strength and would have got free, but, in turning, his spur caught in the robe of one of his assailants and threw him.

They had him down, and twenty janissaries threw themselves on him to pin him to the earth.

Karl, with one last effort and a loud cry, flung his sword up into the air.

The bloody blade glittered a second in the pale spring sunshine, then was caught by a dozen eager hands.

The King, knowing now that all was useless, remained perfectly motionless.

The janissaries, whose cries of anger and triumph were mingled with exclamations of respect, lifted their terrible captive from the ground, and carrying him by the knees, the feet, and the shoulders, bore him to Ismail Pasha’s tent. At the door of this they set him on his feet, and conducted him into the presence of the Governor of Bender.

Karl made no resistance; he looked at his captors with a little smile and passed into the tent.

It was the first time in his life that he had been without a sword.

Ismail Pasha, cool and grave, richly dressed and splendid in his luxurious tent, rose and courteously greeted his presence, asking him with many compliments to be seated on the silk-covered divan.

“I bless the All Highest,” he said, “that your Majesty is alive—it was my despair that your Majesty compelled me to put in execution the orders of the Sultan.”

Karl remained standing, a soiled, bloodstained figure, his clothes scorched and rent, his face blackened, his eyebrows and hair singed, but erect and haughty.

He disdained to notice the Turk’s civilities.

“Had my 300 Swedes stood firm,” was all he would say, “I had fought you for ten days, not ten hours.”

“Alas!” said Ismail Pasha gravely, “here is misdirected courage!”

He turned aside to speak to the Khan of the Tartars who was present, and the interpreter, with much respect, informed Karl that he would be reconducted to Bender.

Karl smiled bitterly.

He would sooner have died than have been in his present position, but he gave no outward sign of discomposure; he wanted to known what had become of his servants and friends, but was too proud to ask.

It seemed that he had lost everything; his Swedes either killed or captured, his house burnt, his furniture, papers—everything, even to his wearing apparel, pillaged or destroyed.

And he knew of no one to whom he could turn in this extremity to which his obstinate pride had reduced him; he was now the prisoner of the Turks, and for all he knew might end his life a captive in exile.

He was mounted on a richly appointed horse, and conducted to Ismail Pasha’s house in Bender. On the way he had the anguish of seeing his Swedish officers, chained two and two together, following, half nude, the Turks or Tartars who had captured them.

Karl started, and for the first time since he was a child, his cold blue eyes were wet with tears.

CHAPTER IV

NEXT morning M. Fabrice obtained permission to see the King.

He found him closely guarded by the janissaries who had captured him, in an apartment of Ismail Pasha’s palace at Bender.

Karl was as the fight had left him; he had slept in his coat and top-boots, to the great amazement of the Turks, and received M. Fabrice seated on a divan covered with costly cushions, in his torn and burnt uniform, his person all stained with blood and powder.

He looked at M. Fabrice with his extraordinary straight and expressionless gaze; his eyes were slightly bloodshot, his cheeks unshaven, his fair hair disheveled, but his demeanor was calm and even gentle; there was nothing of yesterday’s Viking fury.

He raised M. Fabrice, who had gone on his knees beside him, and passed over the envoy’s emotion by asking with a smile what the Turks thought of the battle of Bender.

“Sire,” replied M. Fabrice, “they say that your Majesty killed twenty janissaries with your own hand.”

“Ah, these tales are only half true,” remarked Karl.

M. Fabrice now informed him that M. Grothusen, M. GÖrtz, and the principal officers had been ransomed.

“Who by?” asked Karl sharply.

“Ismail Pasha, sire, who paid for M. Grothusen out of his own pocket, the English minister, and that French nobleman, La Motraye, who came to Bender to see your Majesty.”

“And you yourself,” said the King keenly. “You have contributed your best.”

“Sire, it was my bare duty.”

“You shall all be repaid,” answered Karl briefly; pecuniary obligations weighed very lightly on him, for he made no account at all of money in which he had no interest, and which he profusely scattered whenever it was in his possession.

Still the obligation to the generous Pasha slightly galled him.

“Is Frederic ransomed?” he asked abruptly.

“Alas, sire, he was slain by the Tartars who captured him, and who quarreled over their victim.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Karl, then he added, “I think first he must have slain a dozen of these barbarians with his own hands!”

M. Fabrice was silent a moment, and the King stared down at the floor.

“I have other bad news for your Majesty,” said he sadly. “King Stanislaus has been made a prisoner by the Turks and is being brought to Bender.”

Karl’s hard chest heaved and he raised his head as if to speak.

His eyes shot a fiery glance, but he was silent.

“A messenger came from Moldavia this morning,” continued M. Fabrice, “to say that the King was stopped at Jassy. He was traveling as a Swede with a message for your Majesty, but was recognized by the hospodar of Moldavia——”

“Why could he not stay in Pomerania?” demanded Karl sternly.

“Sire, he certainly hoped that his presence might accomplish what his letters have not been able to—and that he might persuade your Majesty to permit him to resign the crown you gave him.”

Karl rose impatiently, towering over the envoy, himself a tall man wearing a high peruke.

“No more of that, M. Fabrice,” he said. “I will not hear these arguments.”

But M. Fabrice insisted, thinking, not unnaturally, that his present misfortunes might soften the inflexible spirit of Karl.

“Sire, the King of Prussia offers a treaty whereby Poland and your Majesty league to keep the Czar in check. This cannot be until Stanislaus resigns his claim, and this he is willing to do—to benefit your Majesty whom he loves,” added M. Fabrice simply.

But Karl was not to be moved; not even this powerful alliance against his arch-enemy, not even the prospect of gaining the dearest wish of his life in humbling Peter could shake him for an instant from the course that he considered the just and right, nor into forsaking his friend, even at that friend’s request.

He was no politician, and, now that Count Piper was not there to guide him, solved these questions by the simple code of a soldier’s honor, a proceeding strange indeed to the councilors of Europe.

“I will never make peace with Augustus, who has broken the peace of Altranstadt like the villain he is, nor with Denmark, who has broken the treaty of Traventhal, nor with Prussia and Hanover, who have vilely bought my lands from the false princes. Times will change—do you think I shall always be like this—and then I will smite them as I smote before. Mark you, M. Fabrice, it was only behind my back they dared to raise their heads—and when I return——”

He made an instinctive movement towards his sword, and finding only the empty straps gave a start, while the color paled in his face.

Instantly recovering himself, he turned to M. Fabrice with a proud smile.

“You know that I am not given to boasting,” he said. “And you know that when I return the affairs of Europe will change.”

As he spoke these words, the quiet confidence of which was not affected, he was without any resource in the world, not even master of his own person.

His enemies had indeed reared their heads in his absence; Denmark had fallen on his provinces and succeeded in achieving some success despite the Swedish victory of Helsingborg; Augustus was again firmly established on the throne he had vowed to renounce; the Elector of Hanover, now King of England, and for that reason dangerous, had bought some of the territory wrested from Karl in his absence, and was prepared to defend what he held; and Frederic of Prussia would be Sweden’s foe if Karl did not consent to the resignation of Stanislaus.

Therefore Karl had practically the whole of Europe either secretly or openly against him, and no friend or ally; both Louis XIV and the Emperor were unfriendly to him, and it had been one of the excuses he had made for not leaving Bender that he could not trust himself in the territories of either of these nations.

The condition of his own country, without her ruler, drained of her best manhood, with commerce ruined, the command of the Baltic lost, and surrounded by enemies, was deplorable.

It seemed as if Count Piper’s worst forebodings were to come true, and the exploits of Karl XII would lose all that Karl X had won by the Peace of BrÖmsebro and the Peace of Roskilde, and Karl XI consolidated by the Battle of Lund.

M. Fabrice, steeped in the politics of Europe, and whose main interest in life was the fortune of the realm over which his young master was one day to ride, looked with amazement at the fortitude of Karl in face of events so untoward and a future so uncertain.

Yet in his own heart he felt a certain spark of hope inspired by the sheer strength of this strange character.

It was Karl who broke the thoughtful silence.

“Go to King Stanislaus, my dear Fabrice,” he said quietly, “and tell him never to abandon his claims, for I never shall, nor make any peace with our mutual enemies. And that if I live, all will be different.”

“If only your Majesty would return to Stockholm!” exclaimed the envoy.

Karl gave his ugly smile.

“That I shall never do,” he replied, “until I can return victorious. But perhaps it is time I went North.”

By which M. Fabrice concluded that the King had now resigned all hopes of that Turkish army for which he had waited and Poniatowski intrigued for nearly four years.

The envoy from Holstein-Gottorp wondered where Karl hoped to find the means to carry out these defiances he still hurled at his enemies; the task seemed to him fairly hopeless, and yet, as he stood in the presence of this man, he could not feel disheartened.

“You have no longer any faith in me, M. Fabrice,” said Karl, looking with a smile at the envoy’s perturbed face.

M. Fabrice did not answer, but with a swelling heart turned away.

The King looked at his bloodstained hands with some disgust and was about to call for water, when Ismail Pasha entered, conducting M. Grothusen.

The Swede gave an exclamation on seeing the state of his master.

“It is a shameful thing to leave his Majesty without a sword!” he exclaimed.

“Allah preserve us,” answered Ismail Pasha, “he swore that he would cut off our beards.”

With that he retired, leaving the King and his two friends alone.

As if he wished to prevent M. Grothusen from referring to his present plight, Karl began to speak at once of the arrival of King Stanislaus at Bender.

“I must see him,” said the King. “I must tell him to return at once to Pomerania and fight there to the utmost.”

“Sire,” replied M. Grothusen sadly, “King Stanislaus comes under a military escort, and I do not think that anyone will be allowed to approach him.”

“But they bring him to Bender!” exclaimed Karl.

M. Grothusen averted his face.

“I do not think that your Majesty will stay at Bender.”

At this reminder of his captive position the King, who had not allowed a single impatient word to escape him since he had been made prisoner, colored and made a haughty movement with his head.

“Where do they propose to take me?” he asked haughtily.

“I cannot discover, sire. I think to Adrianople.”

Karl glanced at M. Fabrice whose face was still further overcast.

“Well,” he remarked, “perhaps we shall yet get our 200,000 men from the Porte. See if you can get a message to King Stanislaus to say that we are still unshaken in our designs.”

He was silent a moment, and then added in an impetuous manner, rare for him:

“If they take me to Adrianopole I will punish Mahomet Baltadgi—I will disclose to the Sultan that my letters were intercepted and that Count Fleming was corresponding with the Khan.”

That evening the King was taken in a scarlet litter to Adrianople, and King Stanislaus arrived at Bender, having received on the road, by the mouth of M. Fabrice, the message of his inflexible friend.

CHAPTER V

KARL was conducted to Demotica, a little town some leagues from Adrianople; a few of his suite were allowed to be with him and the rest of the Swedes were kept in prison.

Through Poniatowski’s able negotiations the Sultan was apprised of the King of Sweden’s side of the story, and the Grand Vizier Soliman was dismissed, the Khan and Ismail Pasha banished.

But, despite the efforts of the French ambassador and various secret friends whom Karl had in Constantinople, the Porte showed him no favor, and so far from obtaining the succor of which he had dreamed he was treated as a prisoner, and not allowed even to communicate with Ahmed.

Despite this, Karl, who had by no means so completely relinquished hope of Turkish help as his friends had supposed, refused to return to Sweden, preferring captivity to the humiliation of returning to his realm a defeated and stripped fugitive.

The new vizier having sent for him to be present at a conference with the French ambassador with a view to an alliance against Muscovy, the King, deeply wounded in his pride, sent MÜllern, and himself feigned sickness, keeping himself for months enclosed in his chamber, so fearful was he that the Turks might in some way force him to compromise his dignity. He lived now in the simplest style, waited upon by his friends Grothusen, GÖrtz, and MÜllern, for he was without servants, such of these as had survived the Bender fight being in prison, and without any luxuries or even comforts, all his possessions having been burnt at Varnitza, and the Porte now having ceased the princely generosity that had rendered easy the first years of exile. The news that he received in his confinement was of disaster upon disaster.

Sweden was attacked on all sides.

General Stenbock worthily filled the place of the King in defending his country, and revenged the burning of Stade by reducing Altona to ashes; but he could not long hold the field with such diminished forces against such a powerful combination of enemies, and all the provinces of the Baltic were lost to Sweden as well as most of her possessions in Germany, and Stenbock was losing ground in Breme and Pomerania.

The Saxons, Danes, and Russians joined forces, advanced on Holstein-Gottorp, the little duchy that had been the first cause of this long quarrel; the Swedish army was destroyed, Stenbock made a prisoner, the whole of Pomerania, with the exception of Stralsund, fell into the hands of Russia, the Danes seized Breme, the Russians Finland, and Karl remained at Demotica.

It was believed in Europe that he was dead; the Swedish senate implored his sister to accept the regency; she did so, and wrote to her brother that the councilors wished to make peace with their enemies who on every side overwhelmed them.

Karl sent an imperious and haughty reply, saying he would send one of his boots, if they wished for a master, and that they could take orders from that.

In this extremity the Princess sent Count Liewin to Demotica to argue with Karl.

This nobleman was conducted into the King’s presence by Count Poniatowski, who had lately come from Constantinople, where he was convinced he could do nothing more for the Swedish cause.

“You will find his Majesty changed—but not his inflexibility.”

To which Count Liewin made answer:

“If he does not return to Sweden, there is not one of us will answer for the crown.”

Karl was shut in his chamber, away from the watchful eyes of his Turkish guards that he found so hateful.

As he had now no domestics, MÜllern and Grothusen waited on him, and amused his dreary leisure by the reading of French poems and plays and the tales from the sagas.

This life of confinement and idleness, together with the heart-sickness of disappointment and hope deferred, had at last told on Karl’s superb constitution as no fatigue or hardship had been able to; the sickness he had so long feigned had now become almost a reality; the glory of his strength had gone.

He had risen from his bed to receive Count Liewin and wore his old blue uniform, black cravat, and top-boots; he was thin and pallid, the blue eyes half-closed, his air languid and apathetic.

His face was beginning to be lined and shadowed; his fair hair was close cropped and receding from the forehead; he was newly shaven and fresh in his person, for he had to the full the Northern fastidiousness as to cleanliness, but his habit was more than ever careless, and there was not as much as a ring on his finger to show his rank.

Count Liewin, looking at him, thought he was different indeed to the gallant youth who had left Stockholm fifteen years before, as indeed Sweden was different to what she had been.

He went on one knee and kissed Karl’s passive hand.

“Sire,” he said, in a low voice, “all Europe thinks you are dead.”

Karl looked at him without answering.

“There is no one who can believe,” added Count Liewin, “that Sweden is in such a pass and Karl XII still alive.”

These words seemed to move Karl, he colored and dropped his gaze.

“Tell me,” he said, “the news from Sweden.”

Count Liewin rose and faced the King mournfully.

“Madame Royale, your Majesty’s sister, will have told your Majesty of the state of Swedish affairs,” he answered.

“She wrote to me as a woman and I replied to her as a King,” said Karl. “Tell me now, Count Liewin, as one man to another.”

As he spoke he lifted his eyes and gazed at the envoy with his usual coldness.

“Affairs are so bad at home,” responded Sweden’s envoy, “that the instant return of your Majesty is begged for—nay, demanded.”

“Demanded!” cried the King. “Your senate gets out of hand, Count.”

He spoke harshly; in his misery he was as jealous of his authority as ever he had been in his grandeur; he refused the senate any right to interfere in affairs save by obeying his orders (forgetting that he was the first king to make a free Sweden enslaved), and he had never forgiven the regency for signing, four years ago, the treaty of neutrality at The Hague.

Count Liewin, though respectful and even humble in demeanor, faced his sovereign boldly.

“Sire, someone must conduct affairs—we have nothing from your Majesty.”

Karl ignored this.

“And you would make peace, my sister tells me,” he said sternly.

“Sire, we may be forced to take that course,” replied the Count.

“If you do,” returned Karl, “I shall never ratify it.”

“Sire, we are attacked on all sides——”

“Cannot you defend yourselves?”

“Sire, the country is empty of money, men, and all resources.”

He wished to add—“drained by your ruinous, useless wars,” but checked himself.

Karl glanced towards the window-place where MÜllern, Grothusen, and Poniatowski were standing.

“You hear,” he said, “how poor-spirited they become at home.”

Count Liewin flushed.

“Call us desperate, sire!” he exclaimed.

MÜllern and Grothusen were silent, out of pity and respect for the King, but Poniatowski, out of his love, spoke.

“Sire, it would be better that you should return, for there is nothing to be hoped from the Porte.”

At these words, coming from the man who had labored so long and faithfully in his cause, who had intrigued for him with such tireless energy, and always so eagerly supported the scheme of obtaining assistance from the Porte, Karl started, and a look of reproach crossed his face.

“Alas!” cried Poniatowski, “in my great loyalty to your Majesty, I must speak the truth—the Swedish cause is lost in Constantinople.”

“And in Europe, it would seem,” said Karl, with much bitterness, as he rose.

“No,” put in Count Liewin quickly, “Sweden only languishes for her King.”

“I could not return,” said Karl dryly, “in this miserable estate. I have no army.”

“Once your Majesty is present to hearten the people an army can be raised.”

M. MÜllern ventured now to speak.

“And not only your Majesty’s army, but your Majesty’s councils need your presence.”

“So it would seem,” replied the King dryly, “since they talk of peace.”

“And they will make peace, sire,” said Count Liewin boldly, “unless your Majesty returns.” Karl, standing now, overtopping all of them, eyed the speaker with a rising anger.

But Count Liewin, who knew that the very existence of his country depended on his firmness, stood his ground.

“Yes,” he continued, “if your Majesty does not return to defend us, we have no resource but to throw ourselves on the mercy of our enemies.”

The King turned aside with a swelling heart; these enemies were those who had attacked him fifteen years ago, those whom he had put under his feet so splendidly and gloriously.

He thought now of Count Piper, if, instead of acting according to his code of chivalry and justice, and refusing any advantage to himself from his victories, he had taken the political advantage of his success that his minister had wished him to, if he had refrained from the mad enterprise of endeavoring to dethrone the Czar, if he had never undertaken the reckless expedition into the Ukraine, the results of Narva would not have proved such Dead Sea fruits, nor he and his country be in such peril now.

“If Count Piper had been alive he would have smiled at me now,” remarked the King to Grothusen.

“Sire! He has been very loyal to your Majesty.”

Karl smiled; he had never been deceived in those about him.

“If Piper had had the power he would have thwarted me in all I did, Grothusen.”

He walked up and down the narrow chamber with a languid step, for he was sick in mind and body.

“See how many there are to persuade me against my honor!” he exclaimed.

It galled him beyond words that he must return to his kingdom a fugitive and a beggar when his had been the most renowned name in Europe.

The miseries of Sweden were as nothing in his eyes compared to the affront offered to his pride in this proposed return under present conditions.

“Look you, Count Liewin,” he said abruptly, pausing in his walk, “I am without even the money for the journey—Grothusen will tell you how much I am in debt.”

“We could raise more money in Constantinople,” said Grothusen quickly. “For my part I do perceive that this return of yours is imperative, sire.”

The King gave his friend a strange look.

“Grothusen, do you recall a little dog I had, named Pompey, that died in Saxony? I thought you loved me well, but now I perceive that no one loved ever as did that beast—he never sought to turn me from my will!”

“Sire!” cried Count Liewin desperately, “does your Majesty mean that you will not return to Sweden?”

“Aye,” replied Karl, “we will return, Count, we will return!”

He seated himself wearily, rested his arm on his crossed legs, and shaded his bent face with his hand.

M. MÜllern signed to Count Liewin that the audience was ended; he and Poniatowski conducted the envoy from the chamber, leaving the King alone with M. Grothusen.

For a while Karl sat motionless, so uniformly cold and reserved was he, even with his intimates (and those few now with him had become of a necessity very intimate in this close, prison-like life), that this man with him now, his nearest friend, expected no confidence from him, even at this moment. But for once the inflexible pride of Karl gave way to the despair in his heart.

“Oh, Grothusen!” he cried, “how differently I dreamed it all!”

“Sire!” answered Grothusen, profoundly moved, he could say no more; the King was not to be deceived by trite comfort, and his friend knew of no real consolation.

“Peter Alexievitch has all I had—all I want!” continued Karl, in a terrible, broken voice. “The cunning Muscovite! Had I been a well man at Poltava I had broken him as he broke me!”

He rose, clapping his hand down on his sword-hilt, a fury in his blue eyes.

“But as it is, he wins—he has my provinces, my seas, my commerce, my people as his slaves, my generals as his prisoners—he wins, that drunken savage, Grothusen.”

“He too may meet his Poltava,” said Grothusen fiercely.

The King gave a short laugh, with an effort controlling his rare passion.

“Could we decide it face to face, man to man, I should have no fear of the issue, ruined as I am,” he said, looking down at his sword arm, “for he is very sick, Grothusen, and worn out by many vices. He has a camp follower for his wife, an idiot, rebellious son—after all, I would not be the Czar of Russia.”

Then with an effort to put so bitter a subject from his mind he turned sharply to his friend.

“How much money do we owe?” he asked.

Grothusen named a sum that sounded large even to the King’s prodigality, but he had always been utterly reckless of money, had refused even to glance at accounts, and had encouraged his followers to be the same.

These were all sums of money owing to the French ambassadors to the Porte, Thomas Cook, and other English, and Jews of Constantinople, to M. La Motraye, the French gentleman of Bender, besides to all the members of his suite.

Karl chafed at all this like a lion tickled with straws.

“We must have more money,” he said impatiently. “Pay these usurers cent for cent—get it, somehow. I must send an embassy to the Porte to say farewell. You must go, Grothusen, and with some magnificence. Poniatowski thinks the Sultan might lend money if he will not lend an army.”

“Your Majesty is resolved to return then?” asked the courtier, some hope springing in his heart at the thought of this dreary exile at length coming to an end.

“What else can I do,” returned the King, “when they break my authority in my absence?”

He made no reference to the wretched condition of his unhappy country and Grothusen knew that he never would; if he cared in the least for Sweden, or regarded her merely as the arsenal from which to take his weapons of war, it was impossible to tell, but he always showed an unconcern amounting to indifference to all that concerned the true welfare of his subjects.

“Grothusen,” he said suddenly, “the son of Aurora von KÖnigsmarck was at the battle of Stade, was he not?”

“Yes, sire,” replied Grothusen, wondering at this change of subject, “a brilliant lad, they say.”

“His mother defied me once,” remarked Karl, with his ugly smile. “She was a surprising woman—what happened to her?”

“I do not know, sire—she left the Elector years ago.”

“If she is alive,” said Karl grimly, “she will be pleased to hear of my present state.”

Grothusen looked startled and bewildered, but the King said no more; he was thinking, irrelevantly, of John Rheinhold Patkul.

The execution of this man, his one barbarity, was the sole fruit of his victories—the only thing that he had achieved and that no one could take away from him; the might of the Czar and all his allies could not put together the broken bones of Patkul.

Karl moved abruptly, checking his line of thought.

“Well,” he said, “let us make our preparations to return home.”

CHAPTER VI

A FREEZING night in November, a cutting wind sweeping up from the Baltic, a sky so black with heavy clouds that not a star gleamed through, and the sentries on the walls of Stralsund shivered at their posts.

It was the only city in Pomerania still held for Karl; everything was ready for defense in case of an attack, and the eyes and ears of the sentinels were strained against the darkness of the night.

They knew not when they might be surrounded by the armies of the Czar.

A clatter of hoofs out of the obscurity of the night and the sentinels at the gates stood at attention.

It was one o’clock in the morning and the whole town slept.

“Who goes there?” challenged the sentry, as the horsemen drew up at the gate.

There were but two of them, as shown by the lantern beams above the arched entrance.

The foremost answered.

“We are couriers dispatched from Turkey by the King of Sweden,” he said.

The soldier looked at him curiously and saw a tall, powerful-looking man in a gray suit and dark blue mantle, wearing a black peruke and a riding-hat laced with gold.

“Sir, it is a long while since we have heard of the King of Sweden at Stralsund,” remarked the sentry, not moving from his post.

“Call out the guard,” said the stranger imperiously. “I must pass.”

His companion, a slight, fair young man, wrapped in a heavy furred mantle, now spoke.

“Fellow, do not keep us here parleying this bitter night—we have ridden from Hungary to Mecklenburg, and it is sixteen days since we saw a bed.”

The guard had now turned out into the narrow gate space, and the officer asked the strangers their business.

“Sir,” said the first speaker, “we bring dispatches from the King of Sweden.”

“The Governor is in bed,” said the officer, “you must wait till daybreak.”

“Sir,” cried the traveler, with a flash of terrible blue eyes from the shadow of his laced hat, “if you do not go at once and wake General DÜcker you will all be punished to-morrow.”

The officer admitted them into the town at this, but was still inclined to refuse to wake the Governor.

“My God!” murmured the fair young man. “Is this journey to have no end?”

His companion turned sternly to the soldiers.

“Dismount my friend,” he said. “He is exceedingly fatigued.”

Two of the men ran forward to the horse’s head. As they grasped the bridle the rider sank fainting from the saddle.

“Poor During!” exclaimed his companion. “He is not used to these hardships.”

He looked with some tenderness at the slack figure of the young man as the soldiers carried him to the guardroom, and bade them treat him with all care and respect.

In the meanwhile a sergeant had been sent to awaken the Governor, who, thinking it must be some person of importance or some imperative message, bade the stranger to his presence.

General DÜcker’s house was near the gates, and it was only a short time after his appearance at the city walls that the messenger from Demotica was admitted to the bed-chamber of the Governor.

That gentleman, startled by this sudden rousing from his sleep, stood in a dressing-gown by the side of his bed; a valet was lighting the candles that stood on mantleshelf and bureau.

The stranger entered, making the room look small. He brought with him the cold outer air; wet, dirty snow was on his boots that were flecked with mud to the knees; he flung back his heavy blue mantle and showed his gray coat, laced with gold which was like that of a German officer.

“You are from Turkey, sire?” asked the General, speaking with some sternness as he observed the visitor did not remove his braided hat.

“Yes,” replied the other, “we have traveled all through Germany, from Moravia to Westphalia—good riding in sixteen days.”

He took off his hat as he spoke, and flung himself into the first chair he came to with a careless ease very displeasing to the Governor of Stralsund.

“You came a long way round,” he remarked.

“The journey, sir, could have been made shorter by half.”

The stranger looked full at the speaker; his face looked pale between the full curls of the black peruke; his blue eyes, that were of an unusual size and brilliancy, held a curious expression.

“Is it possible,” he said, “that my most loyal subjects have forgotten me?”

“By Heaven,” cried General DÜcker, in a loud voice, “it is the King!”

He threw himself on his knees and kissed Karl’s hand.

“It is the King come back!”

“And not too soon, General DÜcker,” smiled Karl. “Come, I will sleep a little.”

But the old soldier was sobbing with joy, the valet had run from the room with the great news, and the house was lit from cellar to garret in an instant, and full of the officers of the garrison.

“But like this! Your Majesty returns alone?”

“There was neither money nor men to be had from the Porte,” said Karl dryly. “My escort I left at Pitesti on the Turkish frontier. I had no wish to go through Germany like a traveling show, satisfying the curiosity of the vulgar. I took Colonel During with me, and we made a detour, traveling with post-horses. We were not known anywhere. I have not taken my clothes off since we started,” he added. “We rode day and night I fear I have nearly killed During.”

He smiled and rose.

“So I am on Swedish soil again—and this is the sole town I hold in Pomerania. There is much for me to do, General DÜcker.”

The town was now full of people and illuminated from end to end; candles and lamps appeared in all the windows, barrels of wine were rolled into the streets, and the King’s health drunk amid fierce excitement.

The soldiers pressed round the house of the Governor hoping for a glimpse of the King who had returned to restore Sweden’s fortunes.

A chamber was hastily prepared for the King; he had no clothes save those he wore, and his boots that he had worn for sixteen days had to be cut from his legs, so swollen were they with excessive riding.

He tossed off the dark peruke that had served as a disguise, looking different with his clipped fair hair and more like the King these men remembered fifteen years ago.

“To-morrow I will inspect the fortifications, General DÜcker,” he said, as he stretched his great length on the bed.

He bid them open the shutters that the light of the illuminations might fall across the room, and the sound of his people’s acclamations come to his ears.

He was soon in a deep slumber of absolute exhaustion; his hand, even in his sleep, stretched towards his sword that lay by his side.

In this wild way did the wild King come home.