Kings & rulers > History of Charles XII, King of Sweden

238 THE HISTORY OF ROOK Vlf.'
a peace with Augustus, and assure him that our affairs
will soon take another turn.’’ So much was Charles
wedded to his own opinions, that, abandoned as he
was in Poland, attacked in his own dominions, a cap¬
tive in a Turkish litter, and led a prisoner without
knowing whither they were carrying him, he still
reckoned on the favour of Fortune, and hoped the
Ottoman Porte would assist him with an hundred
thousand men. Fabricius hastened to execute his
commission, attended by a janizary, having first ob¬
tained leave from the Bashaw. At a few miles dis?
tance he met the body of soldiers that conducted
Stanislaus. He addressed himself to a person that
rode in the midst of them, clad in a French dress, and
but indifferently mounted, and asked him, in the
German tongue, where the King of Poland was? The
person to whom he spoke happened to be Stanislaus
himself, whose features he could not recollect under
this disguise. “ What!” says the King, “ don’t you
know me!” Fabricius then informed him of the wretch¬
ed condition in which the King of Sweden was; but
added, that his resolutions, however unsuccessful,
were as determined as ever.
As Stanislaus was drawing near to Bender, the
Bashaw who had returned thither after having accom¬
panied Charles for some miles, sent the King of Po¬
land an Arabian horse, with a magnificent harness.
He was received at Bender amidst a discharge of
the artillery; and, excepting his confinement, from
which he was not as yet delivered, he had no great
cause to complain of his treatment. Meanwhile
Charles was on his way to Adrianople. Nothing was
talked of in that town but his late battle. The Turks
at once condemned and admired him; but the divan
was so provoked that they threatened to confine- him
in one of the islands of the Archipelago.