“Sire,” he said briefly, “I have just been informed that the Czar is advancing on us with his entire army.”
Karl, with unshaken calm, looked at Rehnsköld.
Karl had known this; he had merely spoken to gain time; the intolerable pain was making it difficult for him to think clearly, and he realized that never had he needed to think clearly as he needed now.
Even his haughty spirit was forced to face the fact that he was in a desperate position, and one which most men would have judged as hopeless.
Cut off from all reinforcements or supplies, lacking everything, half his troops starving or sick, many bandits, untrained and unreliable, shut in between two rivers with no shelter or cover in a country so desolate and barren--and now helpless with a hideous wound--it might well seem that he was about to lose the fruits of nine years’ victories, and be deprived, in one sharp moment, of that glory for which he had sacrificed himself and his country.
“Seventy thousand men,” he repeated; he had himself but 32,000, of which only 16,000 were trained troops, but he remembered Narva, where the odds had been greater, and forgot the genius of Peter that in nine years had created a nation.
When Count Piper came to see the King that night he found him on his camp-bed, fully clothed, even to the boot on his uninjured foot, with sword and pistols, and a lamp on the table beside him.
The night was hot and breezeless; the sky cloudless, behind Poltava the moon was rising.
Karl lifted his eyes to glance at it as the tent flap was lifted.
“Are you wondering when you will see Stockholm again, Count?” he asked irrelevantly.
“I dream no more of Stockholm,” replied Piper. “I came to see how your Majesty does.”
He moved the lamp so that the rays did not fall fully on his face; he was shivering and burning with fever, and knew it; he did not wish Piper to notice his condition.
Karl put his hand to his head, pushing back his short locks of fair hair that were wet with sweat; his whole body ached with pain, and his wounded foot was a fiery agony.
“Ah, well,” he said, “I will tell you myself. We give battle to-morrow.”
Count Piper lifted his head and looked sharply at his master; so desperate a resolution was what he might have expected from the King, yet it startled him, as a general may be startled by the trumpets sounding the retreat he has himself ordered.