reached Plescow yesterday, to learn
that your wound is not a serious one. I saw the doctor, who, I
found, was a countryman of yours, and he assured me that it was
nothing, and made some joke that I did not understand about the
thickness of North Country skulls.

"The czar arrived in the afternoon, but I did not see him until
late in the evening, when I was sent for. I found him with the
general in command, and several other officers, among whom was your
friend the doctor. The czar was, at first, in a furious passion. He
abused the general right and left, and I almost thought, at one
time, that he would have struck him. He told him that he had
disgraced the Russian name, by not treating you with proper
hospitality, and especially by placing you in a miserable cell
without a fire.

"'What will the King of Sweden think?' he said. 'He treats his
prisoners with kindness and courtesy, and after Narva gave them a
banquet, at which he himself was present. The Duke of Croy writes
to me, to say he is treated as an honoured guest rather than as a
prisoner, and here you disgrace us by shutting your prisoner in a
cheerless cell, although he is wounded, and giving him food such as
you might give to a common soldier. The Swedes will think that we
are barbarians. You are released from your command, and will at
once proceed to Moscow and report yourself there, when a post will
be assigned to you where you will have no opportunity of showing
yourself ignorant of the laws of courtesy.

"'Doctor,' he went on, 'you will remember that all prisoners,
officers and men, will be henceforth under the charge of the
medical department, and that you have full authority to make such
arrangements as you may think necessary for their comfort and
honourable treatment. I will not have Russia made a byword among
civilized peoples.'

"Then he dismissed the rest of them, and afterwards sat down and
chatted with me, just as if we had been of the same rank, puffing a
pipe furiously, and drinking amazing quantities of wine. Indeed, my
head feels the effects of it this morning, although I was quite
unable to drink cup for cup with him, for, had I done so, I should
have been under the table long before he rose from it, seemingly
quite unmoved by the quantity he had drank. I have no doubt he
summoned me especially to hear his rebuke to the general, so that I
could take word to the king how earnest he was, in his regrets for
your treatment."

"There was