Karl started, and for the first time since he was a child, his cold blue eyes were wet with tears.
CHAPTER IV
NEXT morning M. Fabrice obtained permission to see the King.
He found him closely guarded by the janissaries who had captured him, in an apartment of Ismail Pasha’s palace at Bender.
Karl was as the fight had left him; he had slept in his coat and top-boots, to the great amazement of the Turks, and received M. Fabrice seated on a divan covered with costly cushions, in his torn and burnt uniform, his person all stained with blood and powder.
He looked at M. Fabrice with his extraordinary straight and expressionless gaze; his eyes were slightly bloodshot, his cheeks unshaven, his fair hair disheveled, but his demeanor was calm and even gentle; there was nothing of yesterday’s Viking fury.
He raised M. Fabrice, who had gone on his knees beside him, and passed over the envoy’s emotion by asking with a smile what the Turks thought of the battle of Bender.
“Sire,” replied M. Fabrice, “they say that your Majesty killed twenty janissaries with your own hand.”
“Ah, these tales are only half true,” remarked Karl.
M. Fabrice now informed him that M. Grothusen, M. Görtz, and the principal officers had been ransomed.