army of about 30,000 men, in a wretched condition and wanting all necessaries. The Czar had made Pultawa a magazine: if the King took it it would open the road to Moscow for him, and he could await, well supplied, the recruits he expected from Sweden, Livonia, Pomerania and Poland. As, then, his sole resource lay in the taking of Pultawa, he carried on the siege with vigour. Mazeppa, who had informants in the town, assured him that he would soon master it, and hope began to reanimate the army. His soldiers regarded the taking of Pultawa as the end of all their miseries. From the beginning of the siege the King realized that he had given his enemies some useful lessons in the art of war. Prince Menzikoff, in spite of all his precautions, threw reinforcements into the town, and the garrison then amounted to almost 10,000 men. They made sorties, sometimes successfully; but what made the town impregnable was the approach of the Czar, who was advancing with 10,000 combatants. Charles XII went to meet him on the 27th of May, his birthday, and beat one of their corps; but as he was returning from his camp he got a musket-shot, which pierced his boot and shattered his heel-bone. There was not the least sign on his face that he had been shot; he continued calmly to give his orders, and remained mounted nearly six hours after the accident. One of his servants at last noticing that the sole of his boot was covered with blood, ran for the doctor; then the King’s pain was so acute that they had to take him off his horse and carry him to his tent. The surgeons examined the wound and saw that it had already begun to mortify, and thought that the leg must be cut off. The consternation in the army was great. But one of the surgeons, called Newman, better skilled and braver than the rest, was certain that he could save the leg by means of a deep incision. “Begin at once, then,” said the King; “cut boldly, fear nothing.” He held his leg with his own hands, looking at the incisions made as if they were in the leg of another. As they were putting on the dressing he gave orders for an assault next morning, but scarcely had he given the order than they brought him word that the whole army of the enemy was upon him. He was therefore obliged to alter his plan. Wounded and incapable of action, he found himself shut in between the river Borysthenes and the river which runs to Pultawa, in a desert district, with no forts or ammunition, and opposed to an army which cut him off from retreat or provisions. In this terrible position he did not, as might have been expected, assemble a council of war, but on the night of 7th July he sent for Marshal Renschild, and ordered him, without deliberation, but without uneasiness, to prepare to attack the Czar next morning. Renschild did not argue, but went to carry out his orders.