“I should like to have met him in the battle,” said Karl, but without a trace of annoyance. “The reserves could have come up without him. I think he did ill to leave his post now.”
“It looks,” said one of the generals who stood beside the King, “as if he was afraid of your Majesty.”
“That is impossible,” replied Karl quietly, “for I take him to be a great man.”
“But it is true, sire,” put in the Scot, “that the Muscovites have a great terror of your Majesty; I was in their camp last night and heard them speak of you and your exploits as they might have spoken of supernatural things.”
“It needs but a poor prowess to achieve a reputation in the eyes of savages,” replied the King, still cold and unmoved. “These Russians are both ignorant and wild. How came you, sir, to escape detection?”
“I speak the German very well, sire, and passed for the servant of a German officer, of whom they have several, and their camp is in such a confusion one might almost come and go as one pleases.”
“They know nothing of war,” observed Karl, “but the Czar will teach them.”
“He seems much loved—though unjustly cruel and unwisely generous. I saw his friend, Mentchikoff, and the Livonian woman who they say has a great influence over him.”
Karl smiled, as if he was glad to hear of this weakness in his rival; there was not a woman in the whole of the Swedish army; the Scot remarked how disagreeable his smile was; it seemed to disfigure his noble face.
“Saw you this woman?” he asked.