But Charles was too much elated with his success
in crossing the river, and placing himself in a position from which he
could advance, without encountering any farther obstruction, to the
very gates of the capital, to be willing then to propose any terms. So
he declined entering into any negotiation, saying only in a haughty
tone "that he would treat with his brother Peter at Moscow."

On mature reflection, however, he seems to have concluded that it would
be more prudent for him not to march at once to Moscow, and so he
turned his course for a time toward the southward, in the direction of
the Crimea and the Black Sea.

There was one secret reason which induced the King of Sweden to move
thus to the southward which Peter did not for a time understand. The
country of the Cossacks lay in that direction, and the famous Mazeppa,
of whom some account has already been given in this volume, was the
chieftain of the Cossacks, and he, as it happened, had had a quarrel
with the Czar, and in consequence of it had opened a secret negotiation
with the King of Sweden, and had agreed that if the king would come
into his part of the country he would desert the cause of the Czar, and
would come over to his side, with all the Cossacks under his command.

The cause of Mazeppa's quarrel with the Czar was this: He was one day
paying a visit to his majesty, and, while seated at table, Peter began
to complain of the lawless and ungovernable character of the Cossacks,
and to propose that Mazeppa should introduce certain reforms in the
organization and discipline of the tribe, with a view of bringing them
under more effectual control. It is probable that the reforms which he
proposed were somewhat analogous to those which he had introduced so
successfully into the armies under his own more immediate command.

Mazeppa opposed this suggestion. He said that the attempt to adopt
such measures with the Cossacks would never succeed; that the men were
so wild and savage by nature, and so fixed in the rude and irregular
habits of warfare to which they and their fathers had been so long
accustomed, that they could never be made to submit to such
restrictions as a regular military discipline would impose.

Peter, who never could endure the least opposition or contradiction to
any of his ideas or plans, became quite angry with Mazeppa on account
of the objections which he made to his proposals, and, as was usual
with him in such cases, he broke