this and asked for more the sultan grew so angry that he ordered the
arrest of his troublesome guest. It needed an army of men to take him,
for he locked himself in his house and fought furiously with the few
hundred of men under his command. Many Turkish soldiers were killed and
he was only captured by setting fire to his house and seizing him as he
fled from the flames.

The "Iron Head," as the Turks called him from his obstinacy, was guarded
in a Turkish village for ten months by a force of Janizaries. Most of
this time was spent in bed on pretence that he was dangerously ill. At
the end of that time, finding that he could get no more help from the
Turks, he resolved to escape. Accompanied by two persons only, he rode
in the incredibly short period of fourteen days from Adrianople through
Austria, Hungary, and Germany, reaching the Swedish post of Stralsund on
November 7, 1713. Doubtless the sultan was glad to hear of his escape,
since he had borne with his restless and unwelcome guest for more than
four years.

When he came to the gates of Stralsund he presented himself to the guard
under the name of Captain Peter Frisch. The guard was long in recognizing
him, for he was haggard and worn in face and ragged and dirty in person,
having never changed his clothes and rarely left the saddle, except to
change horses, during his long and weary ride.

His long and needless absence in Turkey had left Sweden exposed to its
enemies and it had severely suffered, the greater part of its territory
south of the Baltic being seized, while Sweden itself had been attacked
by the Danes and Saxons and only saved by an army of peasants, so poorly
equipped and clothed that they were nicknamed the "Wooden Shoes."

As for Charles, his era of brilliant invasion was over and he was obliged
to fight in self-defence. When he reached Stralsund it was under siege by
an army of Russians, Saxons, and Danes. Taking command here, he defended
it obstinately until the walls were blown up and the outworks reduced to
ashes, when he went on board a small yacht and crossed the Baltic safely
to Sweden, though a Russian admiral was scouring that sea to prevent his
passage.

A few words must suffice to complete the story of this remarkable man. He
found Sweden largely depleted of men and money and in the new army which
he sought to raise he was obliged to take boys of fifteen into the ranks.
With these he proposed, in the cold winter of 1716, to invade