"It shall be as you desire, General Castriot. Choose your password, and it shall open the way for you though it were through the back door of the Vatican."
"Let then the 'beard of Moses' be respected. My trusty Albanians are accustomed to it."
"Good!" replied Hunyades. "And I will seal our compact by taking Adrianople in honor of the departure of its only defender."
"Nay," said Scanderbeg. "It will not be wise to press upon the capital. Every approach is guarded more securely than were those at Vienna by the Christians. The Padishah's engineers are more skilful than any in the land of the Frank or German. The new compound of saltpetre and sulphur, of which you hardly know the use, is buried beneath every gate; and a spark will burst it as Ætna or Vesuvius.[16]Even the valor of the White Knight cannot conquer the soulless element. The black grains never blanch with fear. No panic can divert a stone ball hurled from cannon so that it shall not find the heart of the bravest. I advise that your armies pause awhile with the prestige of having scaled the Balkans. In a few months opportunities may have ripened. Once I am in Albania,Sultan Amurath shall know that the name of Scanderbeg—the Lord Alexander—was not his, but Fate's entitling; for, unless my destiny is misread, the Macedonian legions of the Great Alexander were not swifter than my new Macedonian braves shall be. This will encourage the Venetians and Genoese; and with their navies on the Hellespont, the timid Palælogus pressing out from his covert of Constantinople, and insurrection everywhere from the Crimea to Peloponnesus, there will not, a generation hence, be left a turban in Europe. Believe me, General, the Turk's grip of nearly a century, since he pinched the continent at Gallipoli, cannot be loosened in a day."
"To no other than Castriot would I yield my judgment; and not to him, but that his words are as convincing as his sword. Then so let it be," was the reply of the Christian leader.
The Albanian disappeared.
Hunyades, closely muffled in his bear-skin disguise, returned to the camp.
"A desperate adventure that of Castriot," thought he. "It is well that he permits no voice but his own to speak his plans, and no ear but mine to hear them.
"Hist!
"No; it is but the ice crackling from the balsams.Yet who knows what interlopers there may have been? and if the brave Scanderbeg may not be hamstrung before he reaches his own camp? The ride will be long and rattling after he enters the Turkish lines. Will it excite no suspicion? Nor his absence? Heaven guard the brave heart, for the very mole holes in the ground are the Sultan's ears, into which he drinks the secrets of his soldiers. By the way, I must lift the dirty cap from the fellow who called me Kabilovitsch at the herdsman's fire; for the messenger who brought me word surely said that only Castriot and the two children were there. Who may this other one be? I must discover; and if he knows aught he should not, he shall know no more this side of hell-gate, or my dagger's point has grown so honest that it has forgotten the way to a knave's heart."
Approaching the little group, Hunyades went behind them, that, if possible, he might overhear some words before any persons there knew of his presence.
Milosch had been ill at ease through the continued absence of his friend Kabilovitsch, the peculiar action of the strange man who had taken his place beneath the blanket, and the apparition of the one who wore the cap and cape which he thought he could not mistake. There had always been a mystery about Kabilovitsch's early life, which their long and close neighborly relations upon the mountain had not enabled him to solve. The girl, he often thought, was of too light a build and too fair featured to be the child of the mountaineer. The story Kabilovitsch often told about the early death of the child's mother, Milosch's wife never heard without impatience and a shrugof the shoulders. Who was the child? Could there be any plot to carry her away among persons who knew the secret of her birth? Milosch could reach one definite conclusion about the matter, and that was that he ought to guard the child just now. So, with senses made alert by suspicion, he heard the soft footfall of Hunyades through the crust-broken snow; and though with head averted, noted his stealthy approach. The caution observed by the stranger made Milosch feel certain of the intended treachery. Loosening the short sheath-knife, which hung by the ring in its bone handle from his girdle, he grasped it tightly, and with a sudden bound faced the intruder.
"Your business, man?" said he, eyeing him as a hunter eyes a wolf to anticipate the spring of the brute, that the knife may enter his throat before the fangs strike.
"A rude greeting to a neighbor, that," was the quiet reply.
"A fair enough greeting to one who wears a neighbor's fleece, and prowls by night about his flock. Stop! not a step nearer! or, by the soul of Kabilovitsch, whom, for aught I know, you have murdered, I will send you to meet him!"
A motion of the stranger toward his weapon was anticipated by the mountaineer, who gripped the intruder with the strength of a bear, pinioning his arms by his sides, and falling with him to the ground. In an instant more, however, the dagger point of his antagonist began to penetrate Milosch's thigh. Clenching tighter to prevent a more deadly thrust, he felt beneath his opponent's rough outer robe the hardcorselet woven with links of iron—not the coarse fabric such as was worn by common soldiers, but the lighter steel-tempered underwear of knights and nobles.
"You have murdered another better than yourself, damned villain, and have stolen his shirt. But it shall not save you this time."
As he let out these words one by one and breath by breath, Milosch worked the knife into such a hold that he could press it into the back of his antagonist. Slowly but surely the stout point made its way between the hard links until the man's flesh quivered with the pain. Then Milosch hissed through his clenched teeth:—
"Who are you? If you speak not, you die. If you lie, let the devil shrive your black soul! for I'll send you to him on the knife point. Speak!"
"I am General Hunyades," replied the almost breathless man.
The words relieved him from the pressure of the knife, but not from the crunching hug of his captor.
"Prove it!" hissed Milosch. "I have heard that Hunyades has a scar on the left side of the neck. Uncover your neck!"
Milosch released Hunyades' left hand sufficiently to allow him to reach upward. In an instant the leathern string which bound the bear-skin cape about his neck was broken, the lacings of a velvet jacket loosened, and the fingers of Milosch led over the roughened surface of the scarred skin.
The herdsman rose to his knees, and kissed the hand of the general.
"Strike thy dagger into me! for I have raised my hand against the Lord's anointed," cried he in shame and fear.
"Nay, friend," said the chief; "the fault was mine, and yours shall be the reward of the only man who ever conquered Hunyades. Your name, my good fellow?"
"Milosch!"
"Milosch, the goatherd of the Pass? I have heard tell of your strength; how you could out-crunch a bear; I believe it. You have been faithful to your absent friend, as you have been severe with me."
"But what of my friend Kabilovitsch? You surely wear his gear," said Milosch.
"Yes, I borrowed these of a passing stranger—I know not that he be Kabilovitsch—with which I might pass disguised among the guards. The owner of this cape and hood is keeping warm in a tent hard by until I return. But whom have you here?"
"The lad is mine. The lass is my neighbor's. He calls her Morsinia, in honor of your fair mother," replied Milosch.
"Then I must see her face. She should be fair with such a name."
As he raised the coarse-knit hood which closely wrapped her, a flicker of the dying fire-light illumined for an instant the features of the child. The uncombed mass of golden hair made a natural pillow in which lay a face unsurpassed in balance of proportion and delicacy of detail by any sculptor's art. Her forehead was high and full, but apparently diminished by the wealth of curling locks that nestled uponbrow and temples; her nose straight and thin, typically Greek; her lips firm, but arched, as with some abiding and happy dream; her skin, purest white, tinged with the glow of youthful health, as the snow on the Balkans under the first roseate gleam of the morning sun.
"A peasant's child?" asked the general. But without waiting for reply, continued, "No, by the cheek of Venus! It took more than one generation of noble culture, high thoughts and purest blood, to mould such a face as that. She was not born in your neighbor's cot on the mountains? Will you swear that she was? No? Then I will swear that she was not. And the boy? Ah!" said he, scanning Constantine's face. "I know his stock. He is a sprig of the same rough thorn-tree that came near to tearing me to pieces just now. But his face is gentler than yours. Yet, it is a strong one; very bold; broad-thoughted; deep-souled; a sprig that may bear even better fruit than the old one."
"Heaven grant it may!" said Milosch, fervently.
"Yes, if you will let me transplant it from these barren mountains to the gardens of Buda and the banks of the Drave, it will get better shelter than you can give it. The boy shall be my protégé for to-night's adventure, if his father will enter my personal service. You see, you gave me so warm a welcome that I am loath to part company with you, my good fellow."
"Heaven bless you, Sire!" replied Milosch; "but my heart will cling to these cliffs until I know that my faithful wife and other boy are no longer among them."
"I shall give orders that the camp be searched,"promised Hunyades. "If they live, and have not been carried away by the Turks, they must have sought refuge somewhere in the host. Farewell! When you will, Hunyades shall stand the friend of Milosch."
The apparent old herdsman returned through the heart of the camp to headquarters.
"Methinks, comrade, that you bandied words with a greater than you knew, when you teased the old goatherd awhile ago," said a sentinel, thrusting his thumb into the side of the spearman at the entrance to the general's hut. "Do you note his mien as he comes yonder? That crumpled old bear skin cannot hide his straight back; nor those shoes, as big as Spanish galleons, break the firmness of his tread. If the gust of wind should lift his cape you would see at least a golden cross on his shoulders. You cannot hide a true soldier."
The bear-skin passed between the fluttering canvas without challenge. Hunyades made a playful salute to Kabilovitsch, who rose to meet him.
"I found your camp. I have looked into the face of your little daughter."
"Mary save her!" said the old man with gratified look.
"I say I saw your daughter, yourdaughter, you know," said the general again, quizzing Kabilovitsch with his eyes.
"Ay, my daughter! and the Virgin Mother never sent a fairer child, save Jesu himself, to prince or peasant."
"Come, now," said the general, "tell me, did the Holy Virgin send this child to princeorpeasant?"
"Why?" said Kabilovitsch, "these horny hands should tell thee, Sire, that I was not royal born."
"But the girl may be, if you were not. Is she your child?"
"Yes, my child, if heaven ever sent one to man."
"But, tell me," probed the general, "how did heaven send you the maiden? Did the mother bring her, or did the angels drop her at your door? For, if that girl be your child, heaven did not know you even by sight; since it put not a freckle of your dark skin upon her fair face, nor one of your bristles into her hair. The stars are not begotten of storm-clouds; nor do I think she is your daughter."
To this the old man replied, more to himself than to his interrogator, "If she is not mine by gift of nature, she is mine by gift of Him who is above nature."
"I will not steal your secret," said Hunyades. "Her name has excited my interest in her and her heaven-given or heaven-lent father. She needs better protection than you can give her in the camp. I will send her to headquarters."
"I would gratefully put her under your protection for a few days," said Kabilovitsch. "My duty takes me away from her for a while; dangerous duty, Sire, and if I should fall—"
"If Kabilovitsch falls, Hunyades will be as true father to the lass. Have you any special desire regarding her or yourself, my brave man? You have but to name it."
"But one, Sire," replied Kabilovitsch. "That I maysee her safely conditioned at once. For it may be that before the day dawns I shall be summoned. I serve a cause as mysterious as the Providence which watches over it."
"An Albanian mystery? They are generally as inscrutable as a thunder cloud; but are revealed when its lightning strikes!" replied Hunyades, dismissing the old man, accompanied by two guards, who were commissioned to obey implicitly any orders the herdsman might give regarding the party of refugees by his camp-fire.
The Christian host prolonged the festival of the Nativity from day to day, until the mustering forces of the Ottomans summoned them from dangerous inactivity again to the march and the battle. The latter they found at Mount Cunobizza, where the enemy had massed an enormous force. The Christian army, with its splendid corps of Hungary, Poland, Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia, Italy and Germany, was not a more magnificent array than that of their Moslem opponents. For the most part of the day the field was equally held, but in the afternoon the Turkish left seemed to have become inspired with a strange fury. The Janizaries, at the time renowned as the best disciplined and most desperate foot-soldiers in the world, were rivalled in celerity and intrepidity, in skilful manœuvring and the tremendousmomentum with which they struck the foe, by other Moslem corps; such as the squadrons of cavalry collected from distant military provinces, each under its Spahi or fief-holder; and the irregular Bashi-Bazouks, who seemed to have sprung from the ground in orderly array. Their diverse accoutrements, complexions, and movements suggested the hundred arms of some martial Briareus, all animated by a single brain. The war cry of "The Prophet!" was mingled with that of "Iscanderbeg!" In the thickest of the fight appeared the gigantic form of the circumcised Albanian, his gaudy armor flashing with jewels,[17]his right arm bared to the shoulder, his cimeter glancing as the lightning. The Italian legions opposite him, upon the Christian left, were hurled back again and again from their onslaught, and were pressed mile after mile from the original battle site. Hunyades inflicted a compensatory punishment upon the Moslem left, shattering its depleted ranks as a battering ram crashes through the tottering walls of a citadel. The chief of the Christians saw clearly Scanderbeg's plan[18]to leave the victory in his hands, and at the opportune moment he wheeled his squadrons to the assistance of King Vladislaus, thus combining in overwhelming odds against the enemy's centre, which Scanderbeg had effectually drained of its proper strength. As soon, however, as it was evident that the Christians were the victors, Scanderbeg, by superb generalship, interposedthe Janizaries between the enemy and the turbaned heads that, but for this, were being whirled in full flight from the field. The rout was changed into orderly retreat. Hunyades found it impossible to press the pursuit, and muttered,
"Scanderbeg commands both our armies to-day. We can only take what he is minded to give."
At length night looked down upon the camps. Few tents were erected. Hunyades sat for hours beneath a tree, waiting for he knew not what developments. On the Turkish side even the Beyler Beys, the highest commanders, were content to stretch their limbs with no other canopy than the three horse-tails at the spear-head, the symbol of their rank and authority. Far in the rear were the few pavilions of the suite of the Grand Vizier, who represented the absent Sultan Amurath. Late into the night the Vizier sat in counsel with the Sultan's Reis Effendi or chief secretary, to whom was entrusted the seal of the empire. He was enstamping the many despatches which fleetest horsemen carried to distant Spahis, summoning them with their reserves to rally for the defence of Adrianople.
Just before the dawn the secretary was left alone. Even he, and, in his person, the empire, must catch an hour's sleep before the exciting and exacting duties of the new day. He reclined among his papers. But a summons awakened him: the messenger announcing Scanderbeg. The guards withdrew to a respectful distance from the outside of the tent.
"Do not rise," said the general, gently pressing the secretary back to his reclining posture. "I only need the imperial seal to this order."
The secretary scanned the paper with incredulous eyes. It was a firman, or decree of the Sultan, passing the government of Albania from General Sebaly to Scanderbeg, with absolute powers, and ordering the commandant of the strong fortress of Croia to place all its armament and that of adjacent strongholds in Scanderbeg's hand as the viceroy of the Sultan. As the secretary lifted his face to utter an inquiry for the relief of his amazement, knowing that the Sultan, then absent in Asia, could not have ordered such a document, the strong hand of Scanderbeg gripped his throat, and his poniard threatened his heart.
"The mark!" whispered the assailant.
The terrified man tremblingly reached the seal, and pressed it against the wax. The weapon then did its work, and so suddenly that the secretary had no time for even an outcry. Then silently, so that the guards, who were but a few paces distant, heard no commotion, he laid the lifeless form on the divan, and covered it with the embroidered cloak it had worn when living.[19]
Passing out, Scanderbeg gave orders that the tent should not be entered by the guards until morning, that the secretary might rest. He gave the password, "The Kaaba," as sharply as if his lips would take vengeance on the once sacred, but now hated sound. His military staff joined him at a little distance. Vaulting into the saddle he led the way toward the north. At the edge of the camp by a rude bridge he halted, and said to his attendants,
"I meet at this point the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, whose staff will be my escort to his camp. The Padishah's cause needs closest conference of all the commanders; for treason is abroad. Ah! I hear the escort. Return to quarters, gentlemen!"
Riding forward alone in the direction of the noise, he cried, "Who comes?"
"The Kaaba at Mecca," was the response.
"Well, if the Kaaba takes the trouble to come to me it is a good omen, by the beard of Moses!"
"By the beard of Moses!" murmured a group of horsemen, bowing their turbaned heads in the first gray light of the approaching day. The cavalcade closed around the fugitive chieftain, and moved along in silence, except to respond to the sentinels. As they passed the extreme picket of the Turks they halted. A wardrobe had been secreted in a cave beyond a copse near the road. Dismounting, the men exchanged their turbans for caps of wolf or beaver skin. Their gaily trimmed jackets, such as were worn by the Turkish foot-soldiers, gave place to short fur sacks. Their flowing, bag-bottomed trousers were kicked off, leaving abbreviated breeches of leather. In a few moments the splendidly uniformed suite of a Moslem bey was transformed into a rough, but exceedingly unique-looking, band of Albanian guerillas. Scanderbeg assumed a helmet, the summit of which carried as a device the head and shoulders of a goat—since the times of Alexander the Great the symbol of the powers in, or bordering upon, Macedonia. The Turkish uniforms were bundled upon the cruppers for future use.
The men stood for a moment, each by the side of his horse. At a motion of the officer in charge they gave the salute; touching their bared foreheads, and bowing to the ground. The officer then approached Scanderbeg, and, presenting his sword, said:
"Sire! to thee, as the son of our Duke John, we give our swords together with our hearts and our lives." Instantly every sword was laid upon the ground; and the crisp air rattled with the cry, "Long live Duke George! A Castriot forever!"
Scanderbeg gazed silently for a moment upon the faithful group. There was no doubt of their loyalty: for they had proved it by an adventure of rare daring in penetrating the Turkish camp. The face of the great general, usually masking so completely his strongest feelings, lost now its rigidity. His eyes were moist; his lips trembled; every lineament was eloquent with the emotion he could neither conceal nor tell in words. After a few moments' impressive silence, he returned the sword to the officer, and, pointing westward, cried,
"Forward to Albania!"
"Thank Heaven! the plan did not fail," said the chief officer, riding by the side of the fugitive general.
"In no particular has it failed, Colonel," repliedScanderbeg. "And for this every praise is due your wise precautions. I have never known better work of brain or nerve. With such grand soldiers as you and your men, I fear nothing for Albania. But your name, Colonel?"
"Moses Goleme," replied the officer courteously.
Scanderbeg reined his horse, and gave him his hand heartily. "A man as grand as he is brave! And do I really look into the face of him whom I was to have sought out in Dibria, that I might tell him his words had been to me like a voice from heaven? Heaven reward you, good Moses! But you must vow to stand by me yet as patiently as you have done hitherto—during my apostasy. I shall need your charity still; for I am but a returning prodigal; a half-Christian; a man of strange ways; of a temper which I understand not myself, and which will disappoint you. Pledge me that you will be my good angel. Counsel me frankly, fearlessly, as a man should always counsel a man. Rebuke me freely: but bear with me in your heart, as you would with a child."
"I may not advise the most capable general in the world," replied Moses Goleme. "I vow to obey. Let that be my part. As I have already imperilled my estates by open opposition to the Turkish rule, and given my life to the liberty of my country, so I offer all to thee, Sire, the sovereign of my heart, until you shall be acknowledged the sovereign of Albania, and a new empire be founded on the east of the Adriatic which shall take the place of the decaying powers of Italy on the west."
"The task your patriotism proposes is vast," replied Scanderbeg; "too vast for one man and one lifetime."
"Too great for any but the great Castriot!" was the answer, evidently as honest as it was reverent. "But you do me too much honor, General, in praising my plan of meeting you. I was ably seconded by my men, and especially by two of them. One of them was wounded."
"I trust you speak not of a brave fellow who brought me the time and place of the rendezvous: for I never saw such strength and daring in my life."
"The same, I fear," said Moses. "A Servian, whom I had not known before yesterday. But he was boiling over with rage for the slaughter of his family, and commended to me by our most trusted scout."
"Did he tell you how he found me out, and communicated your plan to me?"
"No, for he was too severely hurt to speak much."
"I will tell that part for him, then," said Scanderbeg. "It was in the hottest of the fight. My own body-guard was thrown into confusion. A fellow, clad like one of my own staff, crowded close to my side. His horse actually rested against my own, and I would have severed his head from his shoulders for his impudent valor, had not his oath at his beast been 'by the beard of Moses!' Seeing that I observed it he grunted, 'At the brook to the north!' as he dodged the circles of the cimeters; and 'Near the Roman road!' he hissed as he pared the cap from aChristian's head with his sword; and 'At the ninth hour to-night!' he shouted as he parried a thrust. Before I had breathing space—for I was closely beset at the time—he had gone; borne back by a Spahi,[20]who envied him his place and emulated his valor. But he was not skilful in using his weapon or managing his horse. I am grieved, but not surprised, at his receiving hurt. I thought he must have fallen. But who was the other?"
"Yonder old fellow with a huge green turban on the saddle before him. If his brain were as big as his head-piece, he could not have planned better. He has dwelt about here lately."
"I must thank him in person," said Scanderbeg, riding back toward him.
"What!" he exclaimed as the full daylight fell upon the man's features, "Kabilovitsch?"
The old man diverted Scanderbeg's compliments by an expression of solicitude for Milosch, whom he had permitted to undertake the desperate venture already narrated, although until a few days before he, being a Servian, had no knowledge of the project of the Albanians.
"We must haste, Sire," said Moses. "It is advised that you cross to the north of the pass in the Balkans, and take thence the valley way between Caratova and the Egrisu. A message from General Hunyades informs me that relays can be provided along the road, and that every facility shall be given us."
"Kabilovitsch will accompany us?" asked Scanderbeg.
"On one condition, Sire," replied the old man. "My little daughter must go with me: a lass of ten spring tides—"
"Impossible! for our ride must be night and day."
"Then I may follow, but cannot accompany you," said Kabilovitsch.
"I need such men as you with me. No true Albanian will delay for a child. Country must be child and mother to us all," said the general.
The cheeks of Kabilovitsch whitened; his eyes flashed. Looking Scanderbeg squarely in the face, he said quietly, but putting intention into every word,
"George Castriot may lead, but may not rebuke the patriots who have watched for Albania with sacrifices he knows not of, while he has been among our country's enemies. An old man, thy father's friend before thou wast born, may say that, Sire."
Scanderbeg grew pale in turn. He had been unaccustomed to brook insubordination, however righteous. Who had dared to question him? Who to fling the taunt into his face? The hot words were upon his lips. But he paused, at first from the mere habit of self-restraint. Then, because he was a wise man, and realized that he was no longer the tyrant, with power of life and death over his soldiers—men who had been hired, stolen, impressed into the service, and transformed into mere machinery of flesh and blood—but was to be the public liberator of a people every man of whom was already as free as he. Then, he had become a just man. Strange and sanguinaryas had been the events accompanying his desertion of the Turks, he had taken this step only after a deep moral struggle. He had revolted from his own past life; and felt an inward disgrace for what had been his outward glory—the service of the Moslem; he despised himself more than any other person could. It was this sense of the justice of Kabilovitsch's rebuke that checked the rage which had blanched his face, and sent the flush to his temples, as he slowly, replied, "I bow to the merited chastisement of your words. Your years and your better life give you license to utter them. My future shall atone for the past. But cannot your child be left safely where she is?"
"She is safe where she is; but I may not leave her without providing for her future. Milosch is lying in a cottage but a little before us. If his wounds are not fatal—as I believe they are not, though the leech thought otherwise—I may bring the girl to him, and still overtake you before you come in sight of the Black Mountains. I can cross this country by paths through which I could not direct you. During many years, for justice's sake and our country's, I have wandered over these mountains where only the eagle's shadow has fallen."
"I will stop with you at the cottage," said Scanderbeg, "for, though the moments are precious, I would bless the brave fellow for his work yesterday."
There were several wounded Christian soldiers at the little hovel. A Greek monk was administering both spiritual and physical comfort; for Rilo Monastir had sent its inmates along the track of theChristian army in spite of the insults of the Latin soldiers, who, though in sight of the common enemy of their faith, could not repress the meanness of their sectarian jealousy and hatred. Milosch was doing well. His wounds were, one in the fleshy part of the shoulder, the other a contusion on the head, from a blow which had stunned him. A few weeks would put him again upon his feet, though perhaps his fighting days were over; for the flesh wound lay across an important muscle, and would permanently destroy the strength of the right arm.
Milosch fell in with the proposition of Kabilovitsch regarding Morsinia. Though a Servian, he had lost interest in his own country because of the vacillating course of the Despot, George Brankovitch, who was half Christian and half Moslem, according to the policy of the moment. Milosch would identify himself with the cause of Albania, for which he had already done and suffered so much.
The two men entered into what is known among the Servians and Albanians as "Brotherhood in God," covenanting in the name of God and St. John to devote their lives, each to the other, and both to their common cause. The compact was sealed by each putting the left hand upon the other's heart, and holding up the right hand in invocation of the Divine witness. Kabilovitsch said:
"My brother, I commit to thy keeping our daughter, Morsinia, thine and mine, from henceforth. She is all I have but life to share with thee, which also I freely give."
To this Milosch replied:
"My brother, I commit to thy keeping our boy, Constantine, thine and mine from henceforth. He is all I have that I wot of to share with thee, but my life which—God spare it—I freely give."
"Bismallah!"[21]said Scanderbeg. "And if the girl and the boy were the ones I saw asleep in each other's arms by the fire the other night, the compact is good for two generations at least."
It was agreed that, upon his sufficient recovery, Milosch should bring the children from the camp of Hunyades to Albania.
The ride by the Vitosh and Rilo Mountains where the mighty ranges of the Balkans, the Upper Mœsian, and the Rhodope are thrown close together, was sufficiently grand to engross the eye and mind of the dashing riders. Thus most of the day was passed in silence, broken only by the clatter of the horses' hoofs against the rocks; the roar of cascades making their awful plunge hundreds of feet from the precipices; the complaint of rivers far down at the bottom of ravines, fretting beneath the prison roof of ice and snow; and glorious pines, pluming the brow of crag and ledge, through which the everlasting winds breathed the dirge over fallen empires of men.
As they forced their way up a long and tedious ascent, Scanderbeg joined Kabilovitsch and said:
"To relieve the tedium of this slow part of the journey you must tell me about that lass you would not leave for the love of Albania. A sweet face as I saw it. I could have run off with it myself, had I not other business on hand. And I can pardon a father'sheart for clinging very closely to such a child. You will forget my rude speech a while ago. I played with a little lass like that when I was a boy. The face of your child, that night I watched for you, carried me back to those happy days. I could see my little sweet-heart in her; though thirty years have thrown their shadows of dark events across my memory."
Kabilovitsch turned familiarly to Scanderbeg with the query,
"May I read your thoughts, Sire?"
"Yes, he is welcome to do so who can find my soul beneath this battered face."
"That child was the fair Mara, the daughter of the noble George Cernoviche, whose castle ruins lie now by the shore of Ochrida. Am I not right?"
"Right! but I knew not of the fall of her father's house. Can you tell me aught of the history of my little maiden. If she lives, she must be a goodly matron now."
"Yes, I can tell her story and more. She married the noble Musache de Streeses, whose castle once stood near the Skadar."[22]
"Ah! I have heard of his sad fate," replied the general. "Oh, for vengeance on these villains who have despoiled the land! Musache de Streeses was the richest of all the land-owners on the coast of Adria, the soul of honor, a genuine patriot, with whom my father held confidential intercourse. His purse and sword were freely offered for service against the Turk. It was a favorite scheme of my father to some day unite our families. I hear that my nephew,Amesa, has become possessed of those estates, being also nephew to De Streeses, who was slain by the Turks. But my fairy, Mara, you said was married to De Streeses. It was she, then, who, with her infant child, was killed by the Turks during the raid?"
"Noble Castriot! De Streeses and the Lady Mara were murdered, foully, treacherously," said the old man, reining his horse, and speaking with terrible passion.
"Oh, to take vengeance!" exclaimed Scanderbeg. "By the fair face of Mara! this, with the thousand other murders of these years, shall be washed out, if my sword drains a myriad veins of Turkish blood to make sure of his who struck so brutal a blow!"
"Your sword need not search so wide as that," said Kabilovitsch. "The family of De Streeses were murdered by hands we both know but too well."
"How know you, Kabilovitsch?"
The man removed his cap as if inviting the inspection of his face, and, lowering his voice, replied,
"I am not Kabilovitsch, I am Arnaud."
"Arnaud, the forester of De Streeses? Arnaud, whose shoulders I bestrode before I ever mounted a steed?" exclaimed Scanderbeg, turning his horse and stopping, but at his companion's motion indicating caution, lowering his tone, and moving close beside him.
"The same, Sire. And the Turks who murdered the nobleman and his beautiful wife were not such Turks as you have been accustomed to command. Too white of skin and too black of heart were they. I would not say this, but that I give you also my reasonsfor so grave an accusation. Turks in raiding do not discriminate in their depredations; but these harmed not a leaf beyond the castle of De Streeses. Nor do Turks swear by St. John, as I heard one of them do as he cursed a fellow villain for some slip in the plan. Nor again would Turks, seeking only for plunder, have shown as much eagerness to kill the little babe as they did to slay its father; and this they did, searching even among the ashes for evidence that the tiny bones had been sufficiently charred to prevent their recognition. But the child was not in the castle at the time. My good wife was suckling it—the Lady Mara being of delicate condition—and that night the babe was at the lodge. As soon as the commotion was heard at the castle the child was hidden in the copse."
"But where is this child now?" asked Scanderbeg eagerly.
"You have gazed upon her by my camp-fire, sire; and your soul saw in her face that of the sainted Mara, though your eyes detected her not."
"And you know the perpetrator of this damnable deed?" asked Scanderbeg.
"I may not say I know, since your noble father refused to believe that any other than Turkish hands did it. But he who possesses the estate now knows too much of this affair to thank God in his prayers for his inheritance. I saved the child; yet Lord Amesa has sworn that once a Turk who fell beneath his sword in a private brawl confessed to him that his hands had strangled the infant on the night of the raid. Some one interested had suspicion of where the truth lay, for my own cot was raided, and my wifeslain one night during my absence. But the child was safe elsewhere. Since then, knowing that her life was secure only through her being secreted, I have been a wanderer. A price was secretly set upon my head by Amesa. In the mountains of Macedonia, in the pass of the Balkans, have I kept watch over my sacred charge. I want not to see Albania, but as I can see justice done in Albania. Therefore I said I would go only if the lass might go with me, and under the strong protection of a Castriot who knows the truth, whose very soul recognized the child of Mara."
"The child's life shall be as sacred to me as if Mara had become my wife as she vowed in her play, and the child were my own," said Scanderbeg. "But this perplexes our cause. Amesa is one of our bravest, wiliest voivodes. To antagonize him with this old charge would imperil my reception with the people and the liberty of our land. But I pledge you, my good Arnaud, that though vengeance waits, it shall not sleep. In the time when it shall be most severe upon the offender, and most honorable to the name of Albanian justice, the bolt shall fall."
It was readily foreseen by both that only at the peril of her life could Morsinia be allowed to accompany her foster father, Arnaud or Kabilovitsch, to the camp of Castriot. The former forester would be recognized and suspicion at once excited as to the person of his ward. It was, therefore, determined that she should be domiciled safely in a little hamlet on the borders of Albania, where her history was unknown; and that, to elude suspicion, Milosch and the boy, Constantine, should accompany her, as her father and brother,neither of whom knew her true history. The "Brotherhood in God" between Kabilovitsch and his old neighbor gave sufficient warrant for Milosch's claim to paternity.
But while these refugees from the little hamlet on the mountains were so favored of good Providence, what of the others? Our story must return to the day of the battle in the Pass of Slatiza. Mother Helena fell beneath the sword of a Turk while defending herself from his insults. The boy, Michael, with arms bound above the elbows and drawn back so that, while retaining the use of his hands, he could not free himself, was driven along with others under guard of several soldiers. As they descended the mountains the band of captives was steadily increased by contributions from the cottages and hiding places along the way. They were mostly boys and girls, the old men and women having been slain or left to perish in the utter desolation which marked the track of the army. Some of the captives were children too young to endure the tramp, and were carried upon the horses of the mounted soldiers. No one was treated unkindly. After the first day their bands were untied so that they moved without weariness. They shared the best of the soldiers' rations—sometimes feasting while their captors fasted—and were snugly wrapped in theblankets by the camp-fires at night. The daily march, after the Christian army had abandoned the pursuit, was of but a few miles, with long intervals for rest. Indeed, Michael thought that the troopers were more anxious about his being kept in good condition, even in fresh and comely appearance, than Mother Helena would have been. As they approached Philippopolis they were all made to wash at a stream. Their matted locks were combed:—a hard job with the mass of rebellious red bristles which stood about Michael's head, like a nimbus on the wooden image of some Romish saint. In some instances the captors went into the city and returned with pretty skirts of bright colored wool or silk, and caps made of shells and beads for the girls. Fantastic enough were the costumes and toilets which the rough old troopers forced upon the little maidens; but if they were pleasing to the captors they would prove, perhaps, as pleasing to the rough slave buyers in the market square of Philippopolis, who purchased the girls for disposal again at the harems of the capital. An officer of excise presided over these sales, and, before the property was delivered to the purchaser, retained one-fifth the price as the share of the Sultan. If any of the girls were, in the judgment of the officer, of peculiar beauty or promise, they were reserved for the royal harem; the value of them being paid to their captors out of the tax levied upon the others. This gave occasion for the extravagant and often ludicrous costumes in which the diverse tastes of the soldiers arrayed their captives for the contest of beauty.
The boys, however, were not sold. They were thespecial property of the Sultan, to be trained as Janizaries for military service, or employed in menial positions about the royal seraglio. The captors received rewards according to the number and goodly condition of the lads they brought in.
The band of boys to which Michael was attached was marched at once to Adrianople. Several hundreds were gathered in a great square court, which was surrounded by barracks on three sides, and on the fourth faced the river Marissa. A great soup kettle, the emblem of the Janizary corps, was mounted upon a pole in the centre of the square, and seemed to challenge the honors of the gilt star and crescent, the emblem of royalty, that gleamed from the tall staff in an adjacent court of the seraglio. There were scattered about utensils for domestic use; the tools of carpenters, blacksmiths, armorers, harness-makers and horse-shoers; old swords, battered helmets, broken wagons, bow-guns, the figure heads of veteran battering rams; indeed all the used and disused evidences that within these walls lived a self-sustaining community, able to provide for themselves in war or in peace.
For several days the new boys were fed with delicious milk and meats, prepared by skilful hands of old soldiers, who knew the art of nursing the sick almost as well as they knew that of making wounds. For a few nights the lads slept upon soft divans, until every trace of weariness from the journey had disappeared. They were then stripped naked and examined carefully by the surgeons. If one were deformed, or ill-proportioned, or failed to give promise of a strongconstitution, he was taken away to be trained as a woinak or drudge of the camps. Perhaps three-fourths of the entire number in Michael's company were thus branded for life with an adverse destiny.
The more favored lads were graded into ojaks, or messes; and among them were daily contests in running and wrestling, according to the results of which the ojaks were constantly changing their members; the strongest and most agile living together in honorary distinction from their fellows.
The officers in charge of these Janizary schools were old or crippled men, whom years or wounds had rendered unfit for service in the field, and who were assigned to the easier task in compensation for past fidelity. The spirit of the veterans was thus infused into the young recruits by constant contact and familiarity with them; and the rigid habits of the after service were acquired almost insensibly through the daily drill and discipline.
Michael's rugged health and mountain training enabled him to advance rapidly through the various grades. Though almost the youngest in his company, he was the first in the race, and no one could take him from his feet in the wrestling match.
"A sturdy little Giaour," said old Selim, a fat and gouty Janizary, the creases of whose double chin were good companions to the sabre-scar across his cheek.
"Ay, tough and handy!" responded Mustapha, an old captain of the corps, ogling Michael with his widowed eye, and stroking his beard with his equally bereaved hand, as he watched the boy wriggling from beneath to the top of a companion nearly double hissize. "If the little fellow is as agile in wit as he is in limb he will not long be among the Agiamoglans.[23]A splendid build! broad in the shoulders; deep-chested, but not flat; narrow loins; compact hips—just the make of a lion. As lithe a lad as you were once, my now elephantine Selim, when Bajazet stole you from your Hungarian home. Ah! you have changed somewhat since the old Padishah had you for his page. I remember when your waist was as trim as a squirrel's—but now—from the look of your paunch I would think you were the soldier who drank up the poor woman's supper of goat's milk, and had his belly ripped open by the Padishah to discover his guilt.[24]Only goat's milk swells like that. Let us see if some of the butter sticks not yet to your ribs," said the old soldier, making a pass at his comrade's middle.
"That's not a true soldier's pass, to strike so low," said Selim, laughing. "But you, Mustapha, were once a better runner than yon lad will ever be."
"I was as good with my legs as with my arms," replied the veteran, pleased with the compliment, and fondling his bare calves with his hand. "But at what match did you see me run?"
"I only saw you run once," said Selim, "and that was at Angora, when Timour the Lame[25]was after you to get your ugly head for the pyramid of skulls he left there as a monument. But see the lad! He tosses the big one as a panther topples an ox. We have not had his match in the school since Scanderbeg was a boy."
"Poor Scanderbeg!" said Mustapha.
"How now!" inquired Selim, "is there any news from him?"
"Yes. He has met his first defeat. He was in command at the last battle under the Balkans. Carambey got fast in a bog, in the first battle, and Scanderbeg was unable to redeem the defeat in the second. But he lived not to know it. He sent a host of gibbering Giaour ghosts to hell while on his way to heaven. 'In the crossing of the cimeters there is the gate of paradise,' says the Koran; and, though his body could not be found, he went through the gate, beyond a doubt."
"That is a loss, comrade, the Padishah can never make good with any man in the service. But have you not noted, Mustapha, that Scanderbeg never fought so well against Christians as against the Caramanians, the Kermians and rebellious Turks. In Anatolia I have seen his lips burst with blood,[26]through sheer rage of fight; but in Servia he seemed listless and without heart for the fray. The Grand Vizier has noted it, and twitted him with remembering too well that he was Christian born."
"And how did he take that?"
"Why, the color came to his face; his lips swelled; his whole body shook;—just as I have seen him when compelled to restrain himself from heading a charge, because the best moment for it had not arrived."
"Did the Vizier take note of his manner?"
"Yes, and spoke of it to the Padishah. Amurath looked troubled, and I overheard him say, 'I mustnot believe it, for I need him. No other general can match Hunyades.' And the Padishah said well; and he had done well if he had taken the Vizier's head from his shoulders for such an insinuation. For Scanderbeg only half loyal were better than all the rest of the generals licking the Padishah's feet. But, Mustapha, we must train the little devil yonder to forget that he ever heard the name of Jesu, Son of Mary, except from the Koran."
"Let us see if he has as much courage as he has cartilage," said Mustapha. "The day is one fit for the water test. Let us have the squad on the river's bank. If you will bring them, I will go and arrange the test."
"It is too cold, and besides I do not like it," said Selim. "I have known some of the best and hottest blood that ever boiled in a child's veins to be chilled forever by it. It is too severe, except for trout."
"But it is commanded. And to-day is as mild as we shall have for a whole moon yet," was the reply, as Mustapha moved toward the water.
The river Marissa was covered with thin ice, not strong enough to bear the weight of a person. A young woinak had attached a small red flag to a block of wood, and whirled it out over the slippery surface some three rods from the shore. The boys gathered naked and shivering at the barrack doors, and, at a signal were to dash after the flag. All hesitated at the strange and cruel command, until a whip, snapping close to their bare backs, started them. Some slipped and fell upon the rough and icy stones of the paving in the court. Others halted at the river's edge. Only a few ventured upon the brittle ice; and they, as itbroke beneath them, scrambled back to the shore. One or two fainted in the shock of the cold plunge, and were drawn in by the woinaks. But three pressed on, breaking the ice before them with their arms, or with the whole weight of their bodies, as they climbed upon its brittle edge. Soon they were beyond their depth; one dared to go no further, and, blue and bleeding, gave up the chase. The prize lay between Michael and his companion. This boy was larger and older than he; and finding that the ice would sustain his weight, stretched himself on it, and crawled forward until he grasped the flag. But the momentary pause, as he detached it from the wooden block and put it between his teeth, was sufficient to allow the crackling bridge to break beneath him; and he sunk out of sight. At the same instant Michael disappeared. Though several yards from his companion, he plunged beneath the ice, and reappeared carrying the flag in his teeth and holding his comrade's head above the water until the woinaks could reach and rescue them both.
"Bravo!" shouted the attendants. The boys were hurried into the barracks, and given a hot drink made from a decoction of strong mints; while the woinaks smeared their bodies with the same, and rubbed them until the shock of their exposure was counteracted by the generous return of the natural heat.
"I thought," said old Mustapha, "that we would have drowned some to-day. It is a cruel custom; but it is worth months of other practices to find out a lad's clear grit and power of endurance. The two boys who got the flag will some day become as valiant asourselves, eh, Selim?" and the living eye of the veteran nodded to the empty socket across his nose—the nearest approach to a wink he was capable of.
"As the boys were floundering in the water," said Selim, "I thought of a scene which I saw about at the same spot—now three score years have gone since it—for it was just after I was brought into the Janizary's school. Our Padishah's great grandfather, the first Amurath, had erected a high seat or throne on the river's bank yonder. You know that Saoudji, the Padishah's son, had joined the Greeks; but the young traitor was captured. Well! old Amurath bade the executioner pass the red hot iron before his son's eyes until the sight was dried up in them. Then, while the blind prince was groping about and begging for mercy, the Padishah, his father, commanded a circle of swordsmen to be formed about him, swinging their cimeters, so that his head would fall by the hand of him whom he chanced to approach. Thus it might be said, that since he was a king's son, he had used the princely privilege of selecting his own executioner. And having thus set them an example of paternal duty, Amurath commanded the fathers of the Greek youths, whom he had captured, to cut off the heads each of his own son. Those whose fathers were not known or could not be found, were tied together in groups and thrown into the stream; the Padishah betting heavily with the Grand Vizier upon those who should float the longest. So, cruel though our customs are, you see, Mustapha, we are not so barbaric as our ancestors."
"Nor so abominably vicious as the Greeks," saidMustapha. "With them the loving mothers put out the eyes of their children.[27]No, we are quite gentle nurses of the lads committed to our charge, though sometimes our tiger claws will prick through the velvet."
"Come, help me up! good Mustapha," said Selim, trying to rise from a bench in the sunshine of the court where they were sitting. "The cold stiffens my bones."
"Bah! comrade, you have no bones, only flesh and belly. How will you balance your fat hulk on the bridge that is finer than a hair and sharper than the edge of a sword that takes you over hell into paradise? I fear me, Selim, that I shall have to content myself with the company of the Prophet and the houris in heaven, for you will never get there, unless I give you a lift across Al Sirat,"[28]said Mustapha, giving his comrade a jerk which sent him far out into the court, where with difficulty he kept his feet upon the slippery stones.
The old fellow took the rough play good-naturedly, and replied,
"You will never see paradise, Mustapha. The houris will have nought to do with so ugly a face as yours. It will turn them all squint-eyed to look at you."
"Do you think I know not the art of love-making?" said Mustapha, striking the attitude of a fashionable young man of the day.
Selim roared with laughter. "Mustapha making love? The thing is impossible; since, if the houribe in the sunshine of your good eye, you have no arm on that side to embrace her; and if you embrace her with the arm you have got, you have no eye on that side to look upon her beauty. Trust me, you old moulted peacock, that I shall get over Al Sirat before Mustapha has found a houri——"
"Hist!" said Mustapha, pointing to the entrance of the square from the seraglio court adjoining, and assuming an attitude of the gravest dignity. In a moment more the two officers knelt, and resting their foreheads on the ground, remained in that position until a lad of some twelve years approached them and touched the head of each with his foot, bidding them rise.
"I have come, good Selim, to see what new hounds you have for me," said the young Prince Mahomet.[29]
"Ah! my little Hoonkeawr![30]the Prophet, your namesake, has sent you a fine one; as lithe as a greyhound and as strong as a mastiff; and, if I mistake not, already trained for the game; for he came from the Balkans, where foxes run wild when and where they will."
"That is capital. I shall like him," cried the prince, with delight. "I must see him."
"Not to-day, your highness; for the boys are under the leech's charge. They have been put to the water-test, and are all packed snugly in their beds."
"The water-test, Selim, and you called me not?" said the boy, looking furious in his rage. "You knew I wanted to see it; and you told me not forspite. You will pay for this one day, you fat villain! And I want the hunt now. I came for it; did I not, Yusef?" addressing a eunuch, an old man with ashen face and decrepit body, but gorgeously arrayed, who accompanied the prince as his constant attendant.
"We must wait, I suppose," said the man, with a supercilious tone and toss of his head, as if to even speak in the presence of the soldiers were a degradation to his dignity.
"To-morrow we will have the hunt in better style than we could arrange it now were the boys able," said Selim, endeavoring to appease the young tyrant.
The prince and his escort moved away without deigning a reply
"It is best not to insist," said the eunuch. "A wise maxim I will give thee, my prince:—Beware of demanding the impossible—check back even the desire of it. The rule of the Janizary school is that the boys have rest after the water-test, and the Padishah would not allow even his own son to break it. I would train thee to self-command; for the time may come when thou shalt command the empire. Your brother, Aladdin, is mortal."
"So you always interfere with me. You hate me, Yusef; I know you do. I wish the boys had all been drowned in the river, and old Selim, and you too," cried the royal lad, giving way to an outburst of childish rage.
"Wait until thou canst get the bit between thy teeth before attempting to run thine own gait," coolly replied the old eunuch.
Beyond the walls of the seraglio lay the royal hunting grounds. Many acres of the city were enclosed within high walls of clayey earth, packed into huge square blocks and dried in the sun; on the top and outside of which bristled a miniature abattis of prickly vines. Some parts of this park were adorned with every elegance that the art of landscape gardening could devise. In the summer season these portions were covered with floral beauties, interspersed with water-jets, which tossed the light silver balls like fairy jugglers; broad basins sparkling with gold fish; and walks leading to little kiosks and arbors. Even its winter shroud could not conceal from the imagination what must have been its living beauty in summer.
The greater part of this reserve was, however, left in its natural state. Gnarled old olive trees twisted themselves like huge serpents above the dense copses of elder and hazel bushes. Dusky balsams rose in pyramids, overtopped by the pines, which spread their branches like umbrellas. Here and there were open fields, encumbered with stinted underbrush, and either broken with out-cropping rocks, or smooth with strips of meadow land now white and glistening under the snow.
This section of the park presented a fascinating appearance on the day of the fox-hunt. Scores of lads from the Janizary school were there, dressed in all shades of bright-colored jackets, and short trousers bagged at the knees; the lower part of the limbs beingprotected with close-fitting stockings of leather, terminating in light, but strong, sandals. Each wore a skull cap or fez of red flannel, from the top of which and down the back hung a tassel, that, by its length and richness, indicated some prize won by its wearer in previous games. Old soldiers gathered here and there in groups; some, the Janizaries, wearing tall sugar-loaf-shaped hats of gray; others, white turbans, or green ones, indicating that their possessors had made a holy pilgrimage to Mecca. Elegant burnooses, or sleeveless cloaks, of white, black, orange and yellow silks, fluttered in the wind or were gathered at the waist by rich sashes, from which hung great cimeters.
Near an open spot was a stand, or running gallery, enclosed in lattice-work, from behind which the ladies of the harem could witness the sports, themselves unseen. The presence of these invisible beauties was indicated by the stiff, straight forms of the black eunuchs, whose faces appeared above their white cloaks like heads of ebony on statues of alabaster.
Prince Mahomet rode a horse, small but compactly built, with head and mane suggestive of the power of his well-rounded muscles; slim ankles, seemingly better adapted to carry the lighter form of a deer; jet black, in strongest contrast with the white tunic and gaily embroidered jacket of the little prince, as well as with the saddle-cloth of purple silk, in which the star and crescent were wrought with threads of gold. With merry shout the young tyrant chased the boys, who, carrying wands decorated with ribbons, ran ahead of him to clear the way.
"So it will be if he ever comes to the throne," saidSelim to a comrade. "Mahomet II. would follow no one. There would be no use of viziers and generals, and he would even attempt to drive the Janizaries like his sheep. It is well that Aladdin is the elder."
"But woe to Aladdin if Mahomet lives after his brother comes to the throne," said the man addressed. "With such fire-boxes about him one could justify the practice of a sovereign inaugurating his reign by the slaughter of his next of kin."[31]
The woinaks brought in several crates, with latticed sides, containing the foxes, which, one by one, were to be let loose for the chase; the boys to act the part of hounds, and drive the game from the thickets, in which they would naturally take refuge, out into the open space, and within arrow range of the prince. Mahomet, by constant practice, had acquired great dexterity in managing his steed, and almost unerring aim in using the bow from the horse's back.
A splendid red fox was thrust out of the crate. For a moment he remained crouching and trembling in his fright at the crowd; then darted suddenly for the underbrush. The boys, imitating the sharp cry or prolonged baying of a pack of hounds, scattered in different directions; some disappearing in the copse; others stationing themselves at the openings or run-ways where they thought the animal would appear. The bugle of the white eunuch, who was constantly near the prince, kept all informed of his position, so that reynard might be driven toward him. In a few moments the arrow of Mahomet laid him low.
A second fox was liberated—like many of the Sultan'snobler creatures—only to fly to his speedy execution. The third animal was an old one, who persisted in taking the direction opposite to that in which the chasers would drive him. Again and again, as the boys closed about him, he dashed through the thickest of their legs, leaving them tumbled together in a heap. At one time he sprang through the opening at which Michael, studying the tricks of the quick-witted brute, had stationed himself. Sudden as were his movements, the young mountaineer's were not less so; for, like a veritable hound, he threw himself bodily upon the prey. Passing his right hand beneath the entire length of the animal's body from the rear, he grasped his front leg and bent it back beneath him; at the same time using his whole weight to keep the animal's head close to the ground, so as to escape his fangs. He had taken more than one beast in a similar way from the holes in the old mountain pass. In the excitement of the sport he now forgot that he was merely to enable another to get the game without effort or danger.
Prince Mahomet rode to the spot toward which the fox had turned, and, in a sudden outburst of anger at this interference with his shot, drove the arrow at the two as they were struggling on the ground. The whirring barb cut the arm of Michael before it entered the heart of the prey. The sharp cry of pain uttered by the lad recalled Mahomet from his insane rage. The rushing attendants showed pity for Michael, but no one ventured a remonstrance against this act of imperial cowardice and cruelty. A moment's examination showed that the lad's wound was not serious, being only a cut through the flesh. But as the pallor of hisfright died away from his face, it was followed by a deep flush of anger. Tears of vexation filled his eyes. His glance of scorn was hardly swifter than his leap: for, with a bound, his arms were around the prince's body, while his weight dragged him from the saddle to the ground. Mahomet, rising, drew a jeweled dagger, and made several hasty passes at his assailant, who, however, dextrously avoided them. The posing of the lads would have done justice to the fame of professional gladiators. The prince pressed upon his antagonist with incessant thrusts, which, by skilful retreating and parries with his bare arm, Michael avoided; until, with a ringing blow upon Mahomet's wrist, he sent the weapon from his hand, and closed with him; the prince falling to the ground beneath the greater strength of Michael.
The spectators at this point interfered. As they rose the eunuch grasped the little victor, and shaking him, cried: "I will cut the throat of the Giaour cub of hell."
But the one hand of old Mustapha was upon the eunuch's throat, and his one eye flashed like a discharging culverin, as he cried, "Had I another hand to do it with, I would cut yours, you white-faced imbecile! Don't you know that the boy belongs to the Janizaries? and woe to him who is not a Janizary that lays a hand on him!"
"The prince's honor must be avenged," wheezed out the eunuch between the finger grips of the old soldier. "I care not for the Janizary, though you were the Aga[32]himself, instead of a mutilated slave."
The eunuch had drawn his dagger, and was working his hand into a position whence he could strike, when old Selim's hand grasped his.
"None of that treachery, or we will let out of your leprous skin what manhood is left in you, you blotch on your race! Touch one hair of Black Khalil's[33]children and you die like the dog you are. Let him go, Mustapha! His coward throat is no place for you to soil a brave hand. We will get a snake to strangle him; a buzzard to pick his grain of a soul out of his vile carcass;[34]an ass to kick him to death. We must observe the proprieties."
"Pardon my heat!" said the eunuch. "My zeal for my prince has led me too far."
"Not at all!" said Selim. "It is pleasant to see that you have some heat in your cold blooded toad nature."
"It is better for us to retire," said the eunuch to Mahomet. "I shall sound the signal for the close of the games."
Mahomet stood stubbornly for awhile; then turning to Michael said in a tone which was strangely without a shade of anger or petulance in it:
"Say, young Giaour, you and I must have this out some day."
Michael could not help a half-smiling recognition of the boyish challenge, and replied:
"I have seen more foxes than you have, and know some tricks I didn't show you to-day."