ate. His supplies were cut off and his guards withdrawn,
except his own 300 Swedes; whereupon Charles fortified the house he had
built himself. All efforts to bring him to reason were of no avail. A
force of Janissaries was despatched to cut the Swedes to pieces; but the
men listened to Baron Grothusen's appeal for a delay of three days, and
flatly refused to attack. But when they sent Charles a deputation of
veterans, he refused to see them, and sent them an insulting message.
They returned to their quarters, now resolved to obey the pasha.

The 300 Swedes could do nothing but surrender; yet Charles, with twenty
companions, held his house, defended it with a valour and temporary
success which were almost miraculous, and were only overwhelmed by
numbers when they sallied forth and charged the Turkish army with swords
and pistols. Once captured, the king displayed a calm as imperturbable
as his rage before had been tempestuous.

Charles was now conveyed to the neighbourhood of Adrianople, where he
was joined by another royal prisoner--Stanislaus, who had attempted to
enter Turkey in disguise in order to see him, but had been discovered
and arrested. Charles was allowed to remain at Demotica. Here he abode
for ten months, feigning illness; both he and his little court being
obliged to live frugally and practically without attendants, the
chancellor, Mullern, being the cook of the establishment.

The hopes which Charles obstinately clung to, of Turkish support, were
finally destroyed when Cournourgi at last became grand vizier. His
sister Ulrica warned him that the council of regency at Stockholm would
make peace with Russia and Denmark. At length he demanded to be allowed
to depart. In October 1714 he set out in disguise for the frontier, and
having reached Stralsund on November 21, not having rested in a bed for
sixteen days, on the same day he was already issuing from Stralsund
instructions for the vigorous prosecution of the war in every direction.
But meanwhile the northern powers, without exception, had been making
partition of all the cis-Baltic territories of the Swedish crown. Tsar
Peter, master of the Baltic, held that ascendancy which had once
belonged to Charles. But the hopes of Sweden revived with the knowledge
that the king had reappeared at Stralsund.

Even Charles could not make head against the hosts of his foes.
Misfortune pursued him now, as successes had once crowded upon him.
Before long he was him