Peter interrupted.
“If you do not go down in these wars you will see Sweden ruined. As for your country—I shall be an easier master than Karl, if only because of my friendship to you,” he added, with a smile.
With this Patkul had to be contented, nay, grateful; perhaps in his innermost heart was a misgiving that Peter might prove as stern a tyrant as ever Karl or his father had been; he admired the Czar, he was fond of him, but he had not been able to deceive himself as to the terrible aspects of Peter’s character; he knew of his excesses, his cruelties, his fierce vengeances; it might have occurred to him that he was but devoting his life to rescue his unfortunate country from one master to place her under another, and that there could not be much liberty under the autocratic rule of Peter, but he trusted, with something of the faith of desperation, in the Czar’s love of progress and enlightenment, and hoped that a man so remarkable would by degrees reform himself as he reformed others.
There was, however, a shadow on his pleasant expressive face as Peter pronounced these words that referred to the future fate of his beloved Livonia.
The searching, though wild and mournful gaze of the Czar noted the shade that clouded the ardor of his general’s look.
“Patkul,” he said, “believe in me.”
The Livonian eagerly seized and eagerly pressed to his lips the work-worn hand of the Czar.
“Did I not believe in you, sire, I could not live,” he said quietly, but with intense feeling.
Peter smiled.
“Come into the house,” he answered.