CHAPTER XVII.OFF TO ENGLAND.
Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch entered with all his impetuosityand marvellous energy into the preparations for the second attackupon Azof. During the whole of the winter and spring he was busysuperintending the work of ship-building in the south of Russia. Everylittle river harbour on either side of the Don had its own improvisedship-building yards, and its hundreds of workmen from all parts of thecountry, engaged in the setting up as quickly as might be of galleysand rafts and every kind of floating vehicle. "We live, as old Adamdid, in the sweat of our brow," wrote the Tsar to one of his intimatesin Moscow, "and have hardly time to eat our bread for the pressure ofwork." Dockyards burned down, and destroying in their own destructionthe work of many months; gangs of labourers deserting and disappearingwhen most required to complete their work--nothing could discouragethe great Tsar, or turn him by the fraction of an inch from the pathhe had laid out for himself. Galleys and boats quickly took shape,and gradually approached completion. Peter was everywhere, swearing,scolding, encouraging, organizing, never weary, and never losing heartbecause of the misfortunes of the moment. The Don waters rose andcarried away many half-completed vessels and much valuable timber;but the forests of Voronej were not so far away nor so poor but thatinexhaustible supplies of birch and oak and pine and beech might be hadto replace what was lost; and these same waters of the Don which hadswept the timber away should be utilized to carry down on their broadbosom as much again and more than they had stolen and cast into thesea. Then Peter himself fell ill; but even sickness could not quellhis ardour for the work he had set himself, and the building was notdelayed for a moment. At last, when the long nights of midsummer werenear at hand, the flotilla was ready and slipped down the broad riverstraight for the doomed city. There were twenty-two galleys, and onehundred large rafts for carrying ordnance, and some seventeen hundredsmaller vessels, boats and lighters.
By this time the regiments from Moscow and the Streltsi, who had neverleft the neighbourhood, were once more assembled beneath the walls ofAzof. The Preobrajensk were there, and among them our friend Boris, whohad spent a delightful winter and spring in Moscow, and was now readyand anxious for adventure again. All the troops which had taken part inthe former unsuccessful attack upon the fortress were now present againto retrieve their laurels, which had faded before the breath of Turkand Tartar.
But many new faces were to be seen among the old ones--veterans,chiefly, of tanned and foreign appearance; experienced engineers andgunners from France, and Hanover, and Brandenburg. Under the orders ofthese men a high wall of earth was built beneath the very ramparts ofthe city, so that the soil, when the wall was finished, trickled overthe ramparts of Azof, which it overtopped, and fell into the streets ofthe city. At the same time the ships and rafts blockaded the town fromthe water side, so that there was no escape this time by way of theBlack Sea. Then, when all was ready for the attack, preparations weremade for a combined assault both by land and sea.
But the hearts of the Tartars failed them, and the city capitulatedbefore the storming was commenced, greatly to the disappointment ofmany young heroes who had intended to perform deeds of valour, andespecially of the valiant Boris, whose arms ached for another brushwith the Turkish swordsmen, especially with those who had been sounfortunate as to be instructed in the art by himself, with whom he hadpromised himself much entertainment.
The Tsar spared no pains to discover Boris's friend the pasha, whom,when found, he placed at the service of Boris. The hunter, rememberingthe palanquin, but recollecting also that he owed to the pasha, in afashion, his deliverance from death by the sword, was merciful, and didbut take his fun out of him for a day or so, after which he releasedhim altogether and let him go free. But for one day that poor pashaafforded much amusement to the officers of the Preobrajensk and tothe Tsar also; for Boris harnessed the poor fat manikin to a lighthand-cart, and, himself sitting as a coachman in front, drove him upand down the camp, whipping him up with a horse-lash when he tired,till the wretched Turk was ready to fall between the shafts and expirefrom pure exhaustion.
Jansen, who was captured also in the streets of the city, thoughdisguised in the garb of a common Tartar tradesman, did not escape soeasily. He was carried in chains to Moscow when the troops returnedto the capital, and there his head was struck off his shoulders andexhibited on a pole as a warning to traitors.
The army entered Moscow in triumph, under festal arches made torepresent Hercules trampling Turkish pashas under foot, while Mars, onthe summit of a second triumphal archway, pitched Tartars over in largenumbers. The principal generals were drawn into the city upon gildedsledges placed on wheels; while Bombardier Peter Alexeyevitch, nowraised, however, to the rank of captain, walked in the procession asbefitted his humbler grade in the service. Boris was there, too, in allthe glory of a major's epaulets; and if he had glanced up at a certainbalcony in the Troitski Street as he passed beneath, there is no doubtthat he might have seen two bright eyes for which he was the centre ofthe procession, if not the only figure in it, and which did not failto notice with pride the new insignia of rank and promotion which hebore on either broad shoulder. There, too, in the midst of the happymarching host, was the wretched prisoner Yakooshka, hooted and spatupon by the crowd as he dragged his heavily-ironed feet over the stonesof Moscow.
Thus the first triumph of Peter's new army and navy was achieved withscarcely a single blow struck; for, with the exception of a brilliantassault upon redoubts by the Don Cossacks and an easily-repulsed sortieby the inhabitants, during which but few lives were lost on the Russianside, there had been no fighting done. But the prestige of the foreigntroops was won, Peter's policy was justified, the enemies of Christ andof the true faith had been overthrown, a seaport had been gained forRussia, and the beginning of her expansion had become an accomplishedfact.
Peter was thoroughly and entirely happy, for he had made the first movein the great game he had come into this world to play, and it was agood move. The Mussulmans had been hustled out of Azof, and a garrisonof Streltsi left in the city to take care that they did not return; andnow three thousand Russian families were sent to the town, there toabide for ever, they and their descendants. Ship-building was commencedwherever docks could be conveniently erected, and all classes wereheavily taxed in order to pay for the ships to be built in them.
Meanwhile, young Russians of talent were despatched to Venice, to theNetherlands, to London, and to Paris, in order to learn the newestthings, whether in ship-building, or in gunnery, or in drill anduniform. Their orders were to keep their eyes open and to see and learneverything worth learning.
And now Peter felt that he might conscientiously undertake that tripto foreign lands which he had long promised himself, and to which hehad so ardently looked forward. He was to travel incognito, in order toavoid the worry of publicity and the tedious attentions of courts. Thejourney was to be undertaken under the aegis of a great embassy, Peterfollowing in the train of his ambassadors in the character of a humble_attache_ or secretary. Boris was to go, as the Tsar had long sincepromised him; for he would be extremely useful, in England at least,if they ever got so far, by reason of his knowledge of the language.Besides, Peter liked to have his faithful bear-eater, as he still lovedto call him, constantly at his side, and would not have thought ofleaving him behind under any circumstances.
There was one little heart that was sore indeed when Boris came totake his leave before the departure of the embassy. It was alwaysgood-bye, Nancy said wistfully, as the hunter tore himself regretfullyfrom her side: would there never come a time when she would notcontinually be looking forward with dread to his departure somewhere?
Boris gazed long and earnestly into the sorrowful blue eyes raised tohis own. "Perhaps there will, my Nancy, perhaps there will," he said atlast, "when you are a little older--God knows; but I must always be asoldier and serve the Tsar wherever he will have me go."
"And I shall always love you and be miserable when you go away," saidN
ancy, in perfect sincerity.
Nancy had intrusted to Boris many letters and presents to her friendsand relations in England, letters in which she had not failed toenlarge upon the greatness and heroism of the bearer; for she hadextracted a promise that Boris would deliver with his own hands certainof the packages. There would be frequent couriers backwards andforwards, so that she could write to her friend, and he would writetoo; so after all Nancy felt there would still be some comfort in lifein spite of the envious fate which so constantly took her idol awayfrom her.
Then began that historical journey of Peter and his suite through theBaltic provinces, and Koenigsberg, and Hanover, and the Netherlands,where Peter left his embassy to follow him at leisure while he hastenedon and lived for some weeks at Zaandam as a common Dutch labourer, inorder to learn thoroughly the rudiments of ship-building, and to set agood example of industry and self-denial to a lazy and self-indulgentpeople at home. The details of Peter's life at Zaandam are known to the"youngest schoolboy." I need not therefore dwell upon this hackneyedsubject.
Boris had passed with wonder and admiration through the various foreignlands and courts visited by the great Muscovite embassy; but therewas far too much eating and drinking and wearing of fine clothes toplease him, and he soon began to weary of it and think of home and thesimplicity of his life in Moscow, and of hunting expeditions, withNancy for companion. Especially after the Tsar left the suite and wenthis own way, Boris found life desperately dull and monotonous. Rightglad was he when the embassy reached Amsterdam and the spell of theTsar's presence was once more upon him. Peter had just been informedthat, good as the Dutch ship-builders were, they were very inferior tothose of England. This had been quite sufficient for the energeticTsar, and Boris found that arrangements had already been made for avisit to the latter country.
"So get ready, my bold Bear-eater, for to-morrow we cross the water.You will be sea-sick, of course; but then you will see Nancy's nativeland--ha, think of that!"
Boris did think of that, and it rejoiced his heart to reflect that hiseyes should look upon the country which could produce so wonderful athing as Nancy Drury.
So, on the following morning, Peter, with Boris and fifteen otherRussians, took ship in the private yacht of his Majesty William III.,which that monarch had sent for his accommodation, together with threeships of war, the whole under the orders of Admiral Mitchell of theBritish navy, and crossed the seas for this hospitable land of Britain.The weather being rough, Boris was sea-sick, as foretold by the Tsar;but Peter himself was as happy as a schoolboy out for a holiday, forthat sail in his Majesty's beautiful yacht, escorted by such ships ofwar as he had never yet beheld, was the most delightful thing he hadever experienced. Such being the case, Peter arrived in this countryin the highest good-humour, having familiarized himself on the way withthe name and use of every single object on board the yacht, as well aswith the names, ages, duties, and salaries of every man and boy thatwent to make up her crew.
Once on shore, the Tsar would hear no talk of palaces and luxury andthe idle life of courts, but went with two or three chosen followersand pitched his tent in a country house close to the shipping atDeptford, where he was soon busy among the skippers and sailors,inquiring into and laying to heart everything that he saw which waslikely to prove of service to him in his own country. And ever at hisright hand, ready for work or for play, though preferring the latter,was Boris the Bear-Hunter, whose prowess in all athletic matters Peterwas never weary of showing off to his English friends.