‘And why, then, was I spared,’ said I, with a laugh, ‘since thou hast never lacked of thy will for fastidiousness?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I will tell thee: I have called thee fool and browbeaten thee, ay, and all but ruined and murdered thee. Nay, I have from time to time hated thee with all my soul; yet, throughout I have after a fashion liked thee too well to destroy thee, and in the end I have always remembered that we two fought those three at Ivan Casimir’s Court, and how thou didst ride after me when they stripped and bound me, curse them!’
‘Then here I repay you with a last service,’ I said. ‘Be not deceived by my companions, Mazeppa; our mission is to bring you alive to the Tsar. They will persuade you, as I am now supposed to be persuading you, that Peter will restore to you your office, if you will reveal certain secrets as to the King of Sweden. Do not be persuaded.’
‘Am I a fool, Chelminsky?’ he laughed. ‘Thou hast called me fox many times; be sure I have not changed my skin.’
Then, but a day later, Mazeppa lay dead within the Pasha’s mansion, and Kozlof threw a phial into the stove in my presence.
‘The old devil would not believe my tale,’ he said, ‘but threatened to spit me with his sword: that was last night. Some of the stuff from this phial made a rare flavour to his sauce this morning! If the Tsar has failed in his vengeance Kotchubey has not, neither have I.’
‘What have you done, Kozlof?’ said I, aghast. ‘Have you murdered him in cold blood?’
‘Call it what you like!’ he laughed. ‘He betrayed Kotchubey’s sister and executed her parents, and my father was beheaded by his orders.’
But the people say that Mazeppa died of a broken heart.
His body was brought to Galatz on the Danube, where he was buried—like a true Cossack—within earshot of the rush of a great river. His bones might not lie beside the Dnieper, beloved of Cossacks, because of his treachery towards his Russian master, who became henceforward absolute lord of all the Cossacks’ territory.