“The governors of the Ukraine,” answered the King. “And moreover you are charged with other crimes, among them that of persecuting this citizen here before me—you have destroyed his home and fields, and attacked him while he was on duty in the church tower. The penalty for any one of these is death.”
Peter did not lose his self-assurance for a moment. He realized more quickly than another might that his plea of innocence would soon be broken down. He fell back then quickly upon another means of obtaining his end.
“I would buy my freedom,” he asserted.
“What have you that is worth while to me?” asked the King.
“Much. You are threatened in the Ukraine.”
The King thought for some minutes. It rather irked him to give this man his life since he had already done such damage, but on the other hand he might be able to obtain some really valuable information. The whole Ukraine was in some kind of uproar, and even his most trusted spies had not been able to get to the bottom of it. The usual method of obtaining information from prisoners in those days was torture, and in the field of battle it was employed widely, but often in cases of such desperate men as Peter torture led them to confess wildly but seldom with truth. The Cossack was ordinarily a man of his word, and Peter had enough Cossack blood in him to make him pass for a Cossack in the Ukraine and in the East.
“It pleases me to be merciful to-day,” replied the King. “There has been too much suffering at my very gates to make me wish for more. Your death would in no way pay for your crimes, and it is possible that your information might be of service to the commonwealth. I could wrest this information from you by torture, but I prefer an easier way. . . . Now, mark,” he cautioned the Cossack, “I know certain facts concerning what you have to tell, I have information from my own men in the Ukraine, and if you utter so much as one word of a falsehood to me, I will have you taken out and hanged by the neck from the tower gate. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” answered Peter, turning just a trifle pale at the threat. He was a bold man, he was a desperate man—otherwise he would not have ventured back into Krakow after having been defeated there twice—and he had no fear of death in any form, so long as he was free and able to fight. But now his knees smote together at the thought of hanging and he resolved that he would keep close to the truth. After all, the whole affair was finished for him. The crystal was in the hands of the King and he was not likely to part with it easily.
“One thing,” he said in a low tone, “one thing, your Majesty, I beg, and that is that you will let none talk of what I say. For if it were known that I had spoken the truth, my life would not be worth—that,” he snapped his fingers. “I have your promise, your Majesty.”
“You have.”