CHAPTER X
After he had brought to an end the investigations connected with his son’s trial, Peter left Petersburg for Reval on August 8, at the head of a fleet, consisting of twenty-two men-of-war. The Tsar was on board the new ninety-gun frigate, The Old Oak, which had only quite recently been launched from the Admiralty dockyard. This was the first ship which had been built according to the Tsar’s own designs, by Russian workmen, from Russian wood, without the help of foreigners.
One evening, as they were passing out of the Finnish Gulf into the Baltic Sea, Peter stood at the helm and steered.
The weather was bad. Black, heavy iron clouds massed over the black, heavy, also as it were, iron waves. It was rough. The sea was fretted with hoary surge, suggesting the pale arm of menacing phantoms. At times the waves would wash over the ship and a shower of salt water would drench all those upon deck, the Tsar-helmsman most of all. His clothes were wet through; the cold icy wind cut his face. Yet nevertheless he felt, as he usually did when on the sea, vigorous, strong and joyous.
With his gaze fixed on the gloomy distance he piloted the vessel with a firm hand. The huge body of the frigate trembled under the pressure of the waves, yet The Old Oak was strong and obeyed the rudder like a good horse obeys the bridle; she was tossed from wave to wave; sometimes the colourless deep would all but engulf her, it seemed well-nigh impossible for her to come up again; yet every time she reappeared—triumphant.
Peter was thinking about his son. For the first time he thought about all that had happened as belonging to the past. There was infinite sadness in his reflections, but no dread, no anguish, no repentance. He felt here, also, just as all through his life, the manifestation of the divine will.
He remembered his son’s words addressed to the Senate: “Peter is great, very great, but he is heavy, he crushes. The earth groans under the burden.”
How else could it be? thought Peter. The anvil groans under the hammer. He, the Tsar, was only the hammer with which God was forging Russia. He had roused her with a massive blow; but for him Russia would be still sunken in a deep sleep.
And what would have happened had the Tsarevitch remained alive?
Sooner or later he would have come to the throne, and returned the power to the priests, the monks, the “long-beards,” and they would have turned away from Europe back to Asia, extinguished the light of civilization, and Russia would have slowly crumbled and perished.
Peter had founded the new empire; but he had knowingly sealed that foundation-stone in the blood of Alexis, his son.
“There will be a storm,” said the old Dutch captain, approaching the Tsar.
Peter made no answer and continued to gaze into the distance.
Darkness was swiftly approaching. The black clouds descended lower and lower towards the black waves.
Suddenly, at the very edge of the sky, the sun peered through a narrow cleft from under the clouds; it seemed as if blood was gushing from a wound. The iron clouds and waves became flushed as with blood. Wonderful and terrible was the aspect of this sea of blood.
“Blood! Blood!” thought Peter, and to his mind came his son’s prophecy.
“You are the first to stain the block with the blood of a son, the blood of Russia’s Tsars; this blood shall descend upon successive generations of thy lineage unto the last Tsar; all will perish in blood. God will visit your sin upon Russia!”
“Not this, O Lord!” again, as on that night before the ancient icon, portraying a dark face surrounded by a crown of thorns, Peter was praying direct to the Father who sacrificed His Son. “Let it not be so! Let his blood come upon me, me alone! Punish me, O God! Spare Russia!”
“There will be a storm,” repeated the old captain; thinking the Tsar had not heard him. “I advised your Majesty to return——”
“Never fear,” answered Peter with a smile. “Our new ship is strong; she will weather this gale. God is with us.”
And with a firm hand the helmsman steered his vessel across the blood-red waves towards the unknown.
The sun had set; it grew dark, the storm began to howl.