“That is his design?”
“I am sure of it.”
“Well, we have a little time in which to drill our armies.”
“Sire, not so long.”
Peter smiled; he still did not seem greatly stirred by the account of the exploits of Karl.
“Is he not at Cracovia with a broken leg, eh, Patkul?”
“He mends fast; he is a creature of iron, and, once he is in the field again, Augustus will be driven before him as he was before.”
“Curse the Saxon,” exclaimed Peter, with sudden violence. “Had I faced Karl with 20,000 trained troops I had sent this Swede reeling backwards in his tracks!”
He spoke with a passion and a simple grandeur that warmed Patkul’s heart with some glimmerings of hope, unlikely as it seemed to him that out of the chaos that was Russia even Peter could raise an army that would overthrow the Swede, before whose arms the finest troops in Europe had broken.
“Klissow was extraordinary, sire,” he said. “The Saxons had never a chance——”