Charles XII, not being used to this threatening language, could not command his temper. “Obey your master if you dare,” he said, “and begone.” The Pasha in indignation set off at a gallop, an unusual thing with a Turk. On the return journey he met M. Fabricius, and called out to him without stopping, “The King won’t listen to reason; you’ll see strange doings presently.” The same day he cut off the King’s supplies and removed the guard of janissaries. He also sent to the Poles and Cossacks to let them know that if they wanted to get any provisions they must leave the King of Sweden’s camp and come and put themselves under the protection of the Porte at Bender. They all obeyed and left the King, with only the officers of his household and 300 Swedes, to cope with 2,000 Tartars and 6,000 Turks. There was now no more provision in the camp for man or beast. The King at once gave orders that the twenty fine Arabian horses they had given him should be shot, saying, “I will have neither their food nor their horses.” This made a great feast for the Tartars, who, as every one knows, think that horse-flesh is delicious. In the meantime the Turks and Tartars invested the little camp on all sides. The King, with no signs of panic, appointed his 300 Swedes to make regular fortifications, and worked at them himself. His chancellor, treasurer, secretaries, valets, and all his servants, lent a hand to the work. Some barricaded the windows, others took the bars behind the doors and placed them like buttresses. When the house was well barricaded, and the King had reviewed his pretences at fortifications, he began to play chess unconcernedly with his favourite Grothusen, as if everything had been perfectly safe and secure. It happened very luckily that Fabricius, the envoy of Holstein, did not lodge at Varnitsa, but at a small village between Varnitsa and Bender, where Mr. Jeffreys, the English envoy to the King of Sweden, lived also. These two ministers, seeing that the storm was about to break, undertook to mediate between the Turks and the King. The Kan, and especially the Pasha of Bender, who had no intention of hurting the monarch, were glad of the offers of their services. They had two conferences together at Bender, at which the Usher of the seraglio, and the Grand Master of the Horse, who had brought the order from the Sultan, were present. M. Fabricius owned to them that the Swedish King had good reason to believe that they intended to give him up to his enemies in Poland. The Kan, the Pasha, and the rest, swore on their heads, calling God to witness, that they detested the thought of such a horrible piece of treachery, and would shed the last drop of their blood rather than show the least lack of respect to the King in Poland.