‘I have out-foxed Mazeppa,’ I said, ‘and would have the fruits of my victory. Her father’s head is turned by her almost success at the bride-choosing, and he will not hear of me.’
‘How would it be to tell the fool you may one day be Hetman?’ laughed Peter; but when I declared I had done so, and that Mazeppa had made the same boast, he looked grave.
‘If that be so, and he prefers to believe that the Regent’s word for Mazeppa will prevail over my word for Chelminsky, how shall he be persuaded except he wait to see the matter proved?’
‘Write me a word on paper, Tsar,’ I said; ‘maybe it is my word he disbelieves, not yours.’
‘To be shown by him to the Regent, and she to be put upon her guard? You speak like a fool, Chelminsky, and a dangerous fool! I wish your tongue had not wagged of this. Will the fool blab to my sister that I have said this and that?
‘Fear not, Tsar, for at present he thinks nothing of the matter, misbelieving all that I have said and all that Mazeppa has said. We are, he says, two Cossack liars, and there is an end of the matter.’
‘And a good end too!’ exclaimed Peter. ‘Well, when I come to town for St. Ivan’s Day, which is early next week, it may be I shall go with you to see this Kurbatof, and if we find that he is a discreet Boyar, and one likely to be of service to me (supposing that certain things presently happen which Boutourlin and some of the others think possible), I will show him that you are my man, and that he might do worse for this wench of his than let you have her.’
And thus, perforce, I was obliged to leave the matter for the present.
I went with Tsar Peter, or rather among those who accompanied his Highness, to the Cathedral within the Kremlin, in Moscow, for the solemn service of St. Ivan’s Day, and waited near him at the great entrance until the Tsar Ivan with the Regent should arrive and be greeted by the crowds who awaited him, for this was his name’s day.
And presently there came driving up the great state carriage of her Highness, and in it the Regent herself, the Tsar Ivan, Galitsin, who sat as high as the Tsar, or higher, and—smiling radiantly, most beautiful, the darling of the shouting crowd—Praskovia Soltikof, the Tsaritsa-elect.