But Piper was vexed.
“If your Majesty advances on Moscow, you advance on disaster!” he exclaimed.
The King gave him a cold stare.
“Are you not yet convinced that I never take advice?”
His bitter rebuke caused the minister’s worn cheeks to flush.
It was long since he had given Karl any cause to silence him, so utterly had he refrained from counsels that were useless.
Karl took his face in his right gloved hand, with his elbow on the table, and looked up and round his little council.
“I propose,”, he said, in a manner that left no loophole for argument or suggestion, “to neither march on Moscow nor wait for Lewenhaupt.” What third alternative there could be no one knew.
“I intend,” added the King dryly, “to advance into the Ukraine, to pass the winter there, and continue the route to Moscow in the spring.”
The haughtiness with which he made this announcement covered an inner mortification; he had thought to dethrone the Czar in a year; he had never meant to turn back once on the road to Moscow.