“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.