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.