‘Kill me, then, if thou must, Chelminsky, for all is lost!’ he said. ‘Thou hast won in the end, but we have run a good race through life, thou and I!’
‘Ride like the devil, man!’ I said. ‘I will not either kill thee or take thee, but I must seem to strike at thee.’
‘Chelminsky,’ cried Mazeppa, as his horse galloped a few paces ahead of my own, ‘I swear I have been a better friend to thee than to any living soul on this earth. Three times I might have——’
But I interrupted him. ‘Ride, you fool,’ I said; ‘the Tsar watches!’
And at this moment, my horse stumbling over a fallen soldier, Mazeppa’s took a good lead; and though I made a show of following out of sight, I returned—to Peter’s anger and disappointment—without my quarry.
CHAPTER XL
But one more scene, and I have finished.
The Tsar’s anger against Mazeppa did not end with the victory of Pultowa. Mazeppa had escaped into the territory of the Sultan, and the Tsar actually sent a mission into Turkey offering an immense sum for the surrender of his person, alive.
Now in this matter, as in my pursuit of Mazeppa on the battle-field, I played the Tsar false; for, in spite of all I had suffered from the old fox during the long years of our rivalry, I could not see him brought living into the hands of this most ruthless, most savage, most relentless of enemies, Piotr Alexeyevitch.
Therefore, breathing hatred and vengeance against my old rival, I besought the Tsar to allow me to be of the mission, and easily obtained his consent.