As they moved out of the park, Yusef delivered a brief lecture to his princely pupil. "Hark thee, my master. I warn thee, that thou have an eye always open and a hand always closed to the Janizaries. They have grown from being the heel to think that they are the head of the state. They dictate to thy father, the Padishah, and snub the very Vizier. I would have killed both those old imbeciles, but that it would not have been politic. I am glad, too, that thou didst not let thy dagger find the heart of the Balkan boy. That would not have been politic. For, Allah grant! thou mayest one day be Padishah. Then this day would be remembered against us."
"But, Yusef, I did not spare the boy. I think he spared me; and if I ever get to be Padishah, I will make him my vizier, for his cleverness. It would be a pity that so brave a man were elsewhere than at my right hand. Though he angered me awfully at the moment, I shall like that fellow. Did you see how he gripped the fox with his bare arms? He must teach me how to do that. Was it between the hind legs he thrust his hand, or across the beast's body? I could not see for my being so mad because he spoiled for me a fine running shot."
"Thou art a strange child, Mahomet. Thou seemest to have forgotten that the boy leaped at thy throat, and would have torn out thine eyes, but that thou wast more valiant than he."
"Well, I should despise him as white-livered and milk-galled if he had not sprung at me," said Mahomet. "Has not every noble fellow quick blood, as well as a prince, Yusef? That boy shall be mine.He shall teach me his tricks, and I shall give him all my sweetmeats; for they get none of such things in the school."
"Ah! my little prince, thy head is as full of wit as a fig is of seeds. Thou art gifted to know and use men. One that is born to rule must make his passion bend to policy. He must not allow himself the pleasure of hating those whom he can use. But take heed of this:—whom he cannot use he must not love."
"But I was not born to rule, Yusef. If so, I would have been born earlier, before my brother Aladdin cried in his nurse's arms, and would not be comforted until they had covered the soft spot on his bare head with a paper crown. Do you believe in omens, Yusef?"
"Not in such; only in dreams," said the eunuch.
"Well; I dreamed that our two heads—yours and mine, Yusef—were together on a pike-staff, grinning at Aladdin's coronation."
"Nonsense, child!" said the eunuch, his white face bleaching a shade whiter under the thought, as they passed through the gateway into the seraglio grounds.
The physical training of the young Janizaries consisted in such daily exercises as would develop strength and tirelessness of muscle, steadiness of nerve, keenness and accuracy of eye, as well as grace of mien. They were also taught by expert workmen all the artsof daily need; to make as well as to use the bow; to trim and balance the arrow; to forge, temper, and sharpen the sword; to shoe the horse; to make and mend their clothing and the entire trappings of their steeds; to build and manage the keelless kaiks[35]which darted like fishes through the surface of the river; to bind rafts into pontoons for the crossing of streams; to reap and grind the grain, and cook their food. Any special talent or adaptability was noted by the instructors, and the Janizaries encouraged to attain to rare expertness in single arts.
The training in arms was especially severe, and under masters in fencing, archery, riding, swimming, marching, deploying—the ablest tacticians, whose wounds or age permitted their absence from active campaigns, being found always at the head of the various departments. The Janizary, while a mere lad in years, was often more than a match in single combat for the most stalwart men in other corps, such as the Piadé and Azabs among footmen, the Ouloufedji and Akindji among troopers.
But, notwithstanding this individual prowess and ambition were stimulated to the highest degree, they were disciplined to abject obedience within the corps. Each one was as a part of some intricate mechanism, all moved by one spring, which was the will of the chief Aga. At a moment's notice they must start, in companies or alone; on military expeditions, or secret service as spies and scouts; it might be to the recesses of Asia or the upper Danube; to assail forts or to conduct intrigues; having always but one incentive,that of the common service and the common glory.
To develop in the same person these two seemingly antagonistic qualities—of intensest individuality and abject subserviency to their order—required the shrewdest manipulation of the mind and will of the cadet from his earliest enrollment in childhood. As certain expert horse-trainers control the spirit of noble steeds, without extinguishing any of their fiery ardor, and tell the secret of their power to those who come after them in the guild, so from the days of Black Khalil this marvellous system of discipline had been perpetuated among the corps, producing but rarely a weakling and as rarely a rebel.
Michael learned his first lesson in subordination upon the return from the hunt. While the Janizary officers were not displeased with the prowess the little fellow had shown, even against the prince, it was foreseen that such an impetuous nature needed the curb. For three days he was confined to a room in solitude and silence. No one spoke or listened to him. His only attendant was an old man, both deaf and dumb, who evidently knew nothing and cared nothing for Michael's offence or its punishment.
During this time the lad's suspense was terrible. Was he to be killed for having assaulted the prince? Would they take him to the torture? Perhaps this old man had been guilty of some such offence, and they had cut his tongue and bored out his ears! He had heard of the searing iron passed before the eyes, and then the life-long darkness. When he slept his overwrought imagination fabricated horrid dreams inwhich he was the victim of every species of cruelty. He fancied that he was being eaten by a kennel of foxes, to whom he is given every day until their hunger shall be satisfied; then taken away and reserved for their next meal. He tried to compute how many days he would last. Sometimes he imagined that he was exposed naked in the cold, and made to stand day and night on the ice of the Marissa, until he should be frozen: but his heart is so hot with his rebel spirit that it will not freeze. Once he thought that Prince Mahomet came each day and stabbed him with that pearl-set dagger he drew on him at the hunt.
His dreams were too frightful to allow him to sleep long at a time; yet, when awake, his fears were such that he longed to get back again among the terrible creatures of his fancy. Oh, that some one would speak to him, and tell him his fate! He would welcome the worst torture, if only he could be allowed to talk to the torturer.
After a while rage took the place of, or at least began to alternate with, fear. He regretted that he had not killed the impudent prince.
"There stands his horse," he would say to himself—marking a line on the wall—"now I leap; seize his dagger; strike him to the heart; and, before they can stop me, plunge it into my own heart, so! Ah! when I am out of this place I will kill him! I will! and go down to hell with him!" And the little frame would swell, and the eyes gleam with demoniacal light through the dusky chamber.
There are deep places even in a child's soul—ay, bottomless depths—which, when unfretted by temptation,are so tranquil and clear that the kindliness and joy of heaven are reflected in them, warranting the saying of the old Jewish Rabbis, "Every child is a prophet of the pure and loving God." But when disturbed by a sense of wrong and injury, these depths in a child's heart may rage as a caldron hot with the fires of hell; as a geyser pouring out the wrath and hatred which we conceive to be born only in the nether world.
After a time Michael's fury died away. Another feeling took its place—the crushing sense of his impotence. His will seemed to be broken by the violence of its own spasm. He was stunned by his realization of weakness. He fell with his face to the cold stones of the floor, moaning at first, but soon passing into a waking stupor in which only consciousness remained: hopeless, purposeless, without energy to strive, and without strength to cry—a perfectly passive spirit. The centipede that crawled from the dusty crevice of the walls, and raised half his body to look at the strange figure lying there, might have commanded him. The spider might have captured him, and spun about his soul a web of destiny, if only he could have conveyed a thought of it from his tiny eyes. For, as the body faints, so also does the spirit under the pressure of woe.
The old mute brought in the meal on the third day, placed it beside him, and retired. An hour later he returned and found the bread untasted; the child in the same attitude, but not asleep. He touched him with his foot, but evoked no sign that his presence was recognized. He gazed for a few moments; thenshook his head like an artisan who, upon inspecting some piece of work he has been making, is not satisfied with it.
He summoned Selim. The old soldier, finding that his entrance did not arouse the lad, crossed his legs upon the floor beside him, and waited. The light from the high window of the room fell upon Selim's wrinkled face. But it seemed as if another light, one from within, blended with it. His harsh features were permeated by a glow and softness, as he gazed upon the exhausted child. His eyes filled with tears; but they were speedily dried by the stare with which he turned and looked first at the blank walls, and then, following back the ray of light, to the window and beyond; his soul transported far away over lands, through years, to a cottage on the banks of the Grau. He saw there a face so beautiful! was it really of one he once called "Mother?" or a dim and hazy recollection of a painting of the Christian Madonna he had seen in his childhood? Happy groups of village children were playing down among the lilies by the water's edge, and over the hills gently sloping back from the river's bank. Their faces were as clear cut there against the blue sky beyond the window, as once—sixty years ago—they were against the green grass of the meadow. He heard again the sweet ring of the chapel bell echoing back from the ragged rocks of the opposite shore. And now the midnight alarm! A fight with strange looking turbaned men! Flames bursting from the houses of the hamlet! Men shrieking with wounds, and women struggling in the arms of captors! And a little child, ah, so lonely and tiredwith a long march! and that child—himself!—His eyes rested as fondly upon Michael as did ever a father's upon his boy.
But as the wind extinguishes a candle, a movement of Michael sent all the gleams gathered out of former days from old Selim's features. Severity, almost savageness, took the place of kindliness among the wrinkles of his countenance, as naturally as the waters of a rivulet, held back for a moment by a child's hand, fill again their channels.
The boy raised his head. His face was pale; the eyes sunken; their natural brilliance deepened, but as that of the flashing waters is deepened when it is frozen into the glistening icicle. Or shall we say that the dancing flames of the child's eyes had become the steady glow of embered coals;—their life gone out, but the hot core left there, not to cheer, only to burn. Those three days of silence, with their successive dramas of mystery, terror, rage and depression, had wrought more changes in him than many years of merely external discipline would have done.
The close searching glance of Selim detected all this; and also that the child was in a critical condition. The will was broken, but it was not certain that this had not been accomplished by the breaking of the entire spirit; instead of curbing, destroying it: not taming the tiger's daring, but converting it into the sluggishness and timidity of the cat.
"Michael!" cried he.
There was no response except the slight inclination of the head indicating that the word had been heard.
"Follow me!"
The lad rose mechanically, showing no interest or attention beyond that required for bodily obedience.
Pausing at the door-way the old man put his hand upon the boy's shoulder and said sternly, yet with a caution ready to change his tone—
"Do you know that we have power to more severely punish you?"
The words made no impression upon the child.
"The bastinado? The cage?" The boy raised his face, but upon it was no evidence of fear; perhaps of scorn. He had suffered so much that threats had no power over him.
Selim was alarmed at these symptoms. His experience with such cases taught him that this lethargic spell must be broken at whatever cost. Feeling must be excited; and if an appeal to the child's imagination failed, physical pain must be inflicted. Something must rouse him, or insanity might ensue.
A peculiar instrument of torture was a frame set with needles pointing inwards. Into this sometimes a culprit was placed, and the frame screwed so close about the person that he could not move from a fixed position without forcing the needles into his flesh. This frame was put about the boy. He stared stupidly at the approaching points, but did not shrink. Selim pressed one of the needles quickly. Instantly the boy uttered a cry of pain. His face blanched with fright. The tears sprang to his eyes, and through them came an agonizing look of entreaty.
Selim's whole manner changed as suddenly. Schooled as he was to harshness; to strike one's head from his shoulders at the command of the Aga withoutan instant's hesitation; to superintend the slow process of a "discipline" by torture, without a remorseful thought;—yet this was not his nature. And now that better, deeper, truer nature, hitherto unexercised for years, asserted itself. His heart went out to Michael the instant there was no further necessity for its restraint.
"Bravo! my little hero," cried he, catching him to his arms. "You are of the metal of the invincibles, and henceforth only valiant deeds, bright honors and endless pleasures are to be yours. You shall lodge with me to-night."
Selim's apartment was off from the common barracks of the Janizaries. It was luxuriantly furnished in its way. Elegant rugs lay upon the marble floor. A divan, with silken covering, filled one end of the room. The walls were hung with a variety of richly wrought weapons and armor:—short swords, long crescent-shaped cimeters, spears of polished wood headed with glistening steel, helmets, breastplates, greaves. Badges and honorary decorations shone among costly robes which had accumulated since the days when he had been a page to the Sultan Amurath I.
Upon a low table, reaching to the edge of the divan, had been placed salvers holding cups and opendishes of silver. A woinak entered with basins of scented water in which to wash the hands and bathe the face.
Selim placed his little guest by his side upon the divan. Mustapha also appeared, and, removing his shoes, made a profound and dignified salâm—quite in contrast with his usual rough and badgering manner when with Selim—then placed himself beside his comrade upon the cushions. An excellent repast was served. There was hare's flesh chopped and rolled with rice into balls, made more savory with curry sauce. Sweet cakes, pastry of figs and candied orange blossoms excited a thirst for the sweetened water, which was so strongly flavored with the juices of fruits that the more scrupulous Moslems refused to drink it, lest they should disobey the command of the Koran prohibiting the use of wine.
The two old men vied with each other in telling thrilling stories of adventure in battle and on secret service; of the romance of castles and courts; of how they won their honors and got their scars; of the favors of princes and princesses; and of exploits in which, though the rules of their order forbade their marrying, they retaliated the captivity of the maiden's eye by capturing her person. The burden of every story was the praise of the Janizary organization, which alone enabled them to attain such glories and joys. The close brotherhood, which gave to each the help of all the ten thousand, was commended by incidents illustrating it. They told of their Aga or chief, who was more powerful than the Grand Vizier—for sultans made these latter by a word, and unmadethem with equal caprice, often with the stroke of the sword; but to touch a hair of the Aga would be for the Sultan to lose the favor of the entire band, whom he regarded as the main support of his throne, as their hands had won it for his fathers. Did not the word of Mustapha and Selim, at the fox-hunt, cow the pride of Yusef, who was next to the Capee Aga or chief of the white eunuchs? Yet Selim and Mustapha were but captains in the Janizaries. No general in any other arm of the service would have dared to antagonize the eunuch as they did.
As Michael listened, his cheeks flushed and chilled by turns with the excitement of his martial ambition. The dreams he used to have in his mountain home, of being a soldier and coming back covered with badges of honor to claim Morsinia as his bride, seemed to be dissolving into the reality. Nor was his ardor damped when he learned from Selim that the first step toward all this was the total surrender of himself to the service of the brotherhood, in pledging and keeping obedience to its rules; as a part of the body, like the hand, must never be severed from the rest, but keep the contact perfect in every muscle and nerve, in order to have the strength which only the health of the whole body can give to it. Selim explained to him how wrong it had been for him to seize the fox, no matter how excited he was, or how much daring it showed to do so, since he had not been ordered to seize, but only to turn the beast toward the Prince. Besides, to raise a hand against the prince was treason—unless it were ordered by the chief of the Janizaries. Therefore he had been punished according to the Janizary discipline;though they would not have allowed any one else to touch him—no not even the Padishah himself.
Michael's spirit was fully healed with such words. His depression gave way to a hotter ambition and pride of expectation than he had ever felt before, when Selim put upon his head the whitish gray cap, like that worn by the dervishes, and differing from it only in having upon the back a strip of wool which the old man thus explained, as he told the story of the organization of the Janizary corps.
"The death angel, Azrael, has reaped the earth more than five times since the mighty Othman,[36]who founded our empire, entered paradise. His queen, Malkhatoon, the most beautiful of women, had given him two sons. Never since Khalif Omar followed the Prophet was nobler successor than would have been either Alaeddin or Orchan to Othman. The stars shone not with deeper lustre than did the wisdom of Alaeddin. The storm never burst more resistlessly on your Balkan mountains than did the bravery and strength of Orchan beat down the foe. To Orchan the empire came by will of Allah and Othman. But to Alaeddin the new king said, 'Thou art wise, my brother, above all men. Be thou the eyes of the throne, and I will be its arm!' So Alaeddin was the great minister of the mighty Orchan. To Prince Alaeddin we owe our best laws, our system of drilling and marching in all the Ottoman armies.
"But two lights are better known than one. Andin a dream the Angel Gabriel, who knows the secrets of Allah regarding men, said to Alaeddin, 'Go look into the eyes of Kara Khalil Tschendereli. We have given him a thought for thee and thy people.' And Kara Khalil said, 'Know, O wise and virtuous Prince Alaeddin, I have been permitted in my dreams to stand upon the wall Al Araf, that runs between paradise and hell. In the third story of the seven which divide perdition I saw the ghosts of the Giaours. But while I watched their torments the spirit of Othman, the Blessed, came to me, and, pointing to a gate in the wall, said, in a voice so sweet that all the birds in paradise echoed it, but so strong that it shook the mighty wall Al Araf as if it would fall, "I charge thee, as thou art a true believer in Mahomet, open that gate that some of the believers in Jesu, Son of Mary, may escape into paradise."
"'"What power have I for such a miracle, O Othman," I cried. But Othman said:
"'"Thou shalt save the souls of the boys among the captives Allah gives thee in battle. Is it not written in the Koran that all the children are at their birth gifted with the true faith. Believe this, and teach the captive boys to trust the Prophet, to breathe the holy Islam of Father Abraham, and to draw the sword for Allah. So shalt thou be a saviour of many souls. And such valor will Allah send these rescued ones, and such blessings shall follow them, that the Giaour children shall conquer for thee the Giaour nations."'
"And so, Michael," added Selim, "the wisdom of earth and heaven appointed our order. We are stillthe Yeni Tscheri,[37]though a century has gone by since we were founded; for the vigor of perpetual youth is ours.
"When Orchan, at such advice of Alaeddin and Kara Khalil enrolled the first of the new troop—bright Christian boys like yourself, Michael—they were led to the old dervish, Hadji Beytarch, whose sanctity was as the fragrance of paradise itself. The face of the holy man caught the lustre of the prophecy from heaven. As he drew the sleeve of his mantle over each bowed head—and the strip of wool on our cap is the sign of his sleeve—he uttered this benediction: 'Thy face shall be white and shining; thy right arm shall be strong; thy sabre shall be keen; and thine arrows sharp. Thou shalt be fortunate in fight, and thou shalt never leave the battle-field save as a conqueror.'"
"And have they never been conquered?" asked Michael with incredulity.
"Never!" cried Selim.
"Except," added Mustapha, "that they might prepare themselves for some greater victory. Allah sometimes makes known to us his will that we should retreat; then we take up our kismet as joyfully as we would shout the advance. That we may make sure of Allah's will, before retreating we always assault the enemy thrice. If at that sacred number we cannot conquer we know that the victory has been reserved, still held for us, but in the closed hand of Fate."
"But what of those who were killed? I certainly saw many Janizaries lying dead in the snows of theBalkans the day of the fight. Are they not conquered?" asked the boy.
"Nay, more than conquerors," said Mustapha. "If one falls in battle paradise flings wide its gates, and troops of angels and houris come to lead his soul in a triumphal procession into that beautiful land where the earth is like purest musk, and where the great Tuba tree grows—a branch of which shades the kiosk of every believer, and bends down to place its luscious fruit into his hand, if he so much as desires it; where are grapes and pomegranates, and such as for spicy sweetness have never been tasted on earth; where are streams of water and milk and wine and honey, whose bottoms are pebbled with pearls and emeralds and rubies; where the houris, the fairest of maidens, dwell close beside the believer in pavilions of hollow pearls, and serve every wish of the faithful even before he can utter it."[38]
But Michael's eyes were heavy; and as the old veterans diverted the conversation to some matter of business between them, his excited imagination reproduced the description of paradise in his dreams. Only, the pavilion of pearl was shaped like good Uncle Kabilovitsch's cot on the mountains, and the houris were all fair-haired Morsinias.
Weeks and months passed away, during which the physical exercises of the lads in the Janizary school were varied with lessons in the Turkish language; and, in the case of a select number, in the Arabic, mastering it at least sufficiently to read the Koran, large sections of which they were compelled to commit to memory.
The teachers in the Janizary schools were far from ordinary men. They were highly learned, and, like most Orientals of education, gifted with great eloquence. After the daily tasks had been accomplished the boys were gathered in a semicircle upon the floor about the instructor, who sat cross-legged among them, and narrated in glowing language the history of the Prophet and his successors in the khalifate; inflaming their young minds with the most heroic and romantic legends of Arabia and Egypt, Algiers and Granada, where the Koran had conquered the faith of the people whom the swords of the true Moslems had subdued. Wild stories of the early days of the Turks, before Ertoghral,[39]"The Right-hearted Man," led the tribes from the banks of the Euphrates; and earlier still when Seljuk[40]led his people from north of the Caspian; of the settlement of their remote ancestors in Afghanistan, where the great chief was first called Sultan;[41]of how they had once held the religious faithof Zoroaster. Indeed, myths from the very dawn of known history, when the Turkius did all sorts of valiant deeds in far-off China.[42]
The Christian books were made to appear to the young proselyte as but imperfect suggestions of the completed teaching of the book of Mahomet; while the peculiar dogmas of the Christians were restated with such shrewd perversion that to the child's judgment they seemed puerile or untrue.
"Behold the sky!" one would exclaim. "Is it not one dome, like the canopy of one mighty throne? Behold the light! Does it not pour from one sun and fill all space with one flood? Breathe the air! Is it not the same over all lands and in all lungs? Do not all birds fly with one mechanism of wings? and all men live by the same beating of the heart? How then can there be three Gods, Allah, and Jesu and Mary, as the Christians teach?[43]What does reason say? What does the universe testify? What says the true and wise believer?"
"There is one God and Mahomet is His Prophet," would be the response of the pupils, bowing their heads to the floor.
"Can the less contain or give out the greater? Can a stone bring forth the orange tree? Can a stick give birth to the eagle? A worm be the father of a man? How, then, can we say with the Christians, that Mary of Bethlehem is the mother of God? What says the faithful and wise believer?"
"There is one God, and Mahomet is His prophet," would be the choral response.
"Is God weak? Can men thwart His plans? Shall we then believe that the infidel Jews crucified the Son of God?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," would roll up from the lips of the scholars.
"Shall we, then, kiss the toe of the pope because he calls himself the grand vizier of Allah, when our Janizaries can cut the throats of his soldiers, as our brethren of Arabia destroyed the crusaders? Or shall we kiss the hand of the patriarch of the Greeks, who claims supremacy in the name of Allah, when already our arms have shut up the whole Greek empire within the walls of Constantinople? What says the faithful and wise believer?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," is the reply.
"Who would cringe and beg forgiveness at the feet of a dirty priest, when the sword of every Janizary may open for him who holds it the gate of paradise?"
Not only such arguments, but every event of the day that could emphasize or illustrate the superiority of the Moslem faith, was skilfully brought to bear upon the susceptible minds of the youths. And within the first year of Michael's cadetship one such significant event occurred.
In the year of the Hegira 822,[44]six months after the flight of Scanderbeg, it was solemnly agreed between Christian and Moslem that the sword should have rest for ten years. A stately ceremony was made to sealthe compact. Vladislaus of Hungary represented in his person the pledge of kingly honor. Hunyades gave the sanction of a soldier's word. And Cardinal Julian was supposed to have added to the treaty the confirmation of all that was sacred in the religion of which he was so exalted a representative. On behalf of the Christians, the concord was signalized by an oath upon the Gospels. On the other side, Sultan Amurath, in the presence of his generals and the holiest of the Moslem dervishes, swore upon the Koran. This compact, guarded by all that men hold to be honorable on earth and sacred in heaven, lulled the suspicions of the Turks. The rigid drill, the alert espionage, the raids along the border gave way to the indolence of the barracks and the pastimes of the camp. Thousands of horses and their riders were returned to till the fields in the Timars, Ziamets and Beyliks[45]scattered throughout distant provinces. The Sultan retired to meditate religion, or devise the things belonging to permanent peace, in his secluded palace at Magnesia in Asia Minor. The death of his eldest son, Prince Aladdin, led him to put the crown of associate Padishah upon the brow of the young Mahomet that in these quiet times the prince might learn the minor lessons of the art of ruling.
But this sense of security among the Turks offered too strong a temptation to the cupidity of the Christian leaders. King Vladislaus opposed conscientious objections to any breach of the compact. Hunyades maintained his personal honor by at first refusing to draw his sword. But Cardinal Julian stood sponsor toa breach of faith, and announced that principle which has, in the estimate of history, made his scarlet robe the symbol of his scarlet sin—that no faith need be kept with infidels; and, in the name of the Holy Father, granted absolution to the chief actors for what they were about to do.
Without warning, the tide of Christian conquest poured from Servia eastward until it was checked in that direction by the Black Sea. The hordes of Europe then turned southward, seized upon Varna, and pitched their camps amid the pennants of their ill-gotten victory near to its walls. To human sight no power could avert irrevocable disaster to the arms, if not the subversion of the entire empire of the Ottomans in Europe.
In their extremity the lands of the Moslem made their solemn appeal to Allah. Every mosque resounded with reiterated prayers. The camps echoed the pious invocations with loud curses and the rattle of the preparation of armor. Scurrying messengers flew from the centre to the circumference of the Ottoman domain, and hastily gathered legions concentrated for one supreme blow in retaliation for the grossness of the insult, and in vindication of what they believed to be the cause of honor and truth, which, in their minds, was one with that of Allah and the Prophet.
The Sultan hurried from his retreat, and with marvellous celerity marshalled the faithful against the invaders at Varna. Riding at the head of the Janizaries, he caused the document of the violated treaty to be held aloft on a lance-head in the gaze of the two armies, and with a loud voice uttered this prayer—a strange one for a Moslem's lips—
"O, Thou insulted Jesu, revenge the wrong done unto Thy good name, and show Thy power upon Thy perjured people!"
Victory hovered long between the contending hosts, but at last rested with the Moslems. To make the intervention of Allah more apparent, it was told everywhere, how, when Amurath believed that he was defeated, and had given the order for retreat, a soldier seized the bridle of the Sultan's horse and turned him back again toward the enemy. The very beast felt the inspiration of heaven, and led the assault upon the breaking columns of the Christians, until the victors returned, bearing upon spear-points the heads of Cardinal Julian and King Vladislaus; while Hunyades fled in disgrace from the field.
It is not to be wondered at that such an event, which led many whole communities to renounce their alliance with the Christian powers, and many of the chiefs of Bosnia and Servia to accept the Moslem faith, should have rooted that faith more deeply in the hearts of those who already held it. A flame of fanaticism ran throughout the Mohammedan world. The most rabid sects increased in the number and fury of their devotees. Many who were engaged in useful occupations left them to became Moslem monks, spending their lives in meditation, if perchance they might receive more fully the blessings which heaven seemed ready to pour upon every true believer; or to become preachers of the jehad—the holy war against the infidels.
In the schools of the Janizaries the fanaticism was fed and fanned to a flame of utmost intensity. Thesquare court within their barracks was transformed into a great prayer place of the dervishes. Here the Howlers formed their circles, and swaying backward and forward with flying hair and glaring eyes, grunted their talismanic words from the Koran, until they fell in convulsions on the pavement. And the Wheelers spun round and round in their mystic motions until, full of the spirit they sought, they dropped in the dizzying dance. Learned sheiks preached the gospel of the sword, and the imams watered the seed thus sown with fervent prayers, until the ardent souls of the youth seemed to have lost their human identity, and to be transformed into sparks and flashes of some celestial fire which was to destroy the lands of the Christians.
Michael's mind was not altogether unimpressed by the religious fanaticism that raged around him. While in quiet moments he was troubled with what he heard against the Christian faith which he had been taught in his mountain home, at other times he was caught in the tide of the general enthusiasm and felt himself borne along with it, swirled around in the rings of the mad maelstrom; not unwilling to yield himself to the excitement, and yet by no definite purpose committing himself to it. If it requires all the strength of an adult mind, with convictions long held and character well formed, to maintain its faith and principles against the attrition of daily temptation in a Christian land, we must not be surprised if the child gave way to the incessant appeal of the Moslem belief, accompanied as it was by extravagant promises of secular pleasure, and counteracted by no word of Christian counsel.
But the spiritual impulse in Michael was less active than the martial instinct; and this latter was stimulated to the utmost by the associations of every day and hour. The battles which were fought on the great fields were all refought in the vivid descriptions of the Janizary teachers, and sometimes in the mimic rencounters of the playground. Michael rebelled against his childish years which prevented his joining some of the great expeditions that were fitted out;—against the Greeks of the Peloponnesus, the Giaour lands to the north, and the Albanians on the west, who, under Scanderbeg, had become the chief menace against the Ottoman power.
The career of Scanderbeg, or Castriot, as the Albanians love to call their great national hero, makes one of the most illustrious pages in history, whether we look for the display of personal courage, astute generalship, or loftiest patriotism. His military renown, already so wide-spread as the commander of the Turks, became universal through the almost incredible skill with which, for many years, his handful of patriots held the mountains of Albania against the countless armies of the Sultan. His superlative devotion to his country, was maintained with such sacrifices as few men have ever rendered to the holiest cause. He resisted the bribes of riches, power andsplendor with which the Sultan, baffled by his arms, attempted to seduce his honor. These things went far to atone for the treachery of his defection from the Turkish service.
Upon his arrival in Albania, the citadel of Croia was given into his hands by the commandant, who was either unsuspicious of the false order that was sealed by the now dead hand of the Sultan's secretary, or who had found that the wily Albanians had already access to its gates. Sfetigrade and other prominent fortresses fell rapidly, won by strategy or by the valorous assault of the patriots. The Albanians had been almost instantaneously transformed into an invincible army by the electric thrill which the coming of Castriot had sent everywhere, from the borders of Macedonia to the western sea; and by the skill with which that great captain organized his bands of Epirots and Dibrians. An army of forty thousand Turks was at one time divided by his masterly movements, and slain in detail. A second army met a similar fate. The great Sultan himself attempted the capture of this Arnaout "wild beast," as he had learned to call him. One hundred and fifty thousand men, supplied from the far-reaches of Asia where the Ottoman made most of his levies, swarmed like a plague of locusts through the valleys of Epirus. By sheer momentum of numbers they pressed their way up to the fortress of Sfetigrade.
The defence of this place is one of the most heroic in the annals of war or patriotism. As the glacier melts at the touch of the warm earth in the Alpine valleys so the mighty army of Amurath dissolved in blood as it touched the beleaguered walls. At the same timeScanderbeg, adopting some new expedient in every attack, made his almost nightly raids through the centre of the Turkish host, like a panther through the folds of the sheep, until Amurath cried in sheer vexation among the generals, "Will none of you save us from the fury of that wild beast?" The incessant slaughter that broke the bewildered silence of the generals was the only response.
Thus passed some six years since the time when our story opens; years which, had they stood by themselves, and not been followed by fifteen years more of equal prowess, would have won for Scanderbeg the unstinted praise of that distinguished writer who enrolls him among the seven greatest uncrowned men of the world's history.[46]
During these years Castriot had studied with closest scrutiny the character of his nephew, Amesa. His natural discernment, aided by his long observation of human duplicity while among the Turks—and, indeed by his own experience, as for many years he had masked his own discontent and ultimate purpose—gave him a power of estimating men which may be called a moral clairvoyance. He discovered that in his nephew which led him to credit the story of Kabilovitsch—as the forester Arnaud was still called, although some more than suspected his identity. The chief saw clearly that Amesa's loyalty would be limited by his selfish interests. Those interests now led him to most faithful and apparently patriotic devotion. Besides, the loss or alienation of so influential a young voivode, involving a schism in the house of the Castriots,might be fatal to the Albanian cause. The general, therefore, fed the ambition of his relative, giving him honorable command, for which he was well fitted by reason of both courage and genius. Nor did Amesa disappoint this confidence. His sword was among the sharpest and his deeds most daring. The peasant soldiers often said that Amesa was not unworthy the blood of the Castriots. To Sultan Amurath's proposal of peace on condition of Scanderbeg's simple recognition of the Ottoman's nominal suzerainty, allowing him to retain the full actual possession of all his ancestral holdings, Amesa's voice joined with that of Moses Goleme and the other allied nobles in commending the refusal of their chief.
Amesa's courage and zeal seemed at times to pass the control of his judgment. Thus, in a sharp battle with the Turks, during the temporary absence of Castriot, who was resisting an encroachment of the Venetians on the neighboring country of Montenegro, the fiery young voivode was seized with such blind ferocity that he knew not where he was. He had engaged a group of his own countrymen, apparently not discerning his mistake until he had unhorsed one of them, whom he was on the point of sabering, when his arm was caught by a comrade. The endangered man was Kabilovitsch, who saw that there was a method in Amesa's madness which it behoved him to note.
It was evident to Kabilovitsch not only that he was recognized by Amesa, but also that the young voivode was more than suspicious of the former forester's knowledge of the affair by which the magnificentestate of De Streeses had passed into his hands. The good man's solicitude was intense through fear that Amesa had become aware of the escape of the child heir, and might discover some clue to her whereabouts. Several times Milosch had visited the camp inquiring for Kabilovitsch; and Constantine had made frequent journeys carrying tidings of Morsinia's welfare. Had neither of these been spied upon? Did no one ever pass the little hamlet where she was in covert who recognized in the now daily developing womanly features the likeness of her mother, Mara De Streeses?
A little after this assault of Amesa upon Kabilovitsch, came news which startled the latter. To understand this the reader must penetrate a wild mountainous district a double score of miles from the camp of Castriot.
Out of a broad valley, through which lies the chief highway leading to the north-west of Albania, there opens a narrow ravine which seems to end abruptly against the precipitous front of a mountain range. But, turning into this ravine, one is surprised to find that it winds sharply, following a swift stream, and climbing for many miles through the mountain, until it suddenly debouches into a picturesque valley, which affords grazing space for sheepand enough arable land to sustain the peasants who once dwelt there.
A hamlet nestled in this secluded vale. No road led beyond it, and it was approached only by the narrow and tortuous path we have described. A rude mill sentineled a line of three houses. These dwellings, though simple in their construction, were quite commodious. A room of ample dimensions was enclosed with walls of stone and loam, supporting a conical roof of thatch. On three sides of this room and opening into it were smaller chambers, having detached roofs of their own. The central apartment was the common gathering place for quite an extensive community, consisting of a family in three or four generations; for each son upon marrying brought his wife to the paternal homestead, and built a new chamber connecting with the central one. The three houses contained altogether nearly a hundred souls. The last of these dwellings was of ampler proportions than the others, and was occupied by a branch of an ancient family to which the inhabitants of the other houses were all of kin. By reason of its antiquity as well as the comparative wealth of its occupants, it was regarded as the konak, or village mansion; and the senior member of its little community was recognized as the stargeshina, or chief of the village.
It was the latter part of April; the day before that upon which from time immemorial the peasants among these mountains had observed the festival of Saint George, which they devoted to ceremonies commemorative of the awakening summer life of the world.
It was still early in the afternoon, though the highmountain wall on the west had shut out the sun, whose bright rays, however, still burning far overhead, dropped their benediction of roseate shadows into the valley they were not permitted to enter; loading the atmosphere with as many tints as there were in Buddha's bowl when the poor man threw in the bud of genuine charity, and it burst into a thousand flowers.
A group of maidens gathered at the little mill, each holding an earthen bowl to catch the glistening spray drops which danced from the edge of the clumsy water-wheel. When these were filled they cast into the "witching waters" the early spring flowers, anemones and violets and white coral arbutus, which they had picked during the day. It was a pleasing superstition that the water, having been beaten into spray, received life from the flowers which the renewed vitality of the awakening spring spirit had pressed up through the earth; and that, if one should bathe in this on St. George's day, health and happiness would attend him during the year.
"What is it?" cried one as a crackling in the bushes far above their heads on a steep crag was followed in a moment by the beat of a pebble, as it glanced from ledge to ledge almost to their feet.
"The sheep are not up there!" said another.
"Perhaps the Vili!"[47]suggested a third, "for I am sure that I have seen one this very day."
"What was he like?" exclaimed several at once, while all kept their eyes upon the cliff above.
"There! there! Did you see it?" Several avowed that they saw it stealing along the very brow of thehill; but all agreed that it passed so swiftly that they could not tell just what they saw.
"It was just so with the one I saw to-day," said the former speaker. "I was on the ledge by the old eagle's nest, gathering my flowers. A tall being passed below me on the path, dressed so beautifully that I know it was none of us, and had dealings with none of us. It seemed anxious not to be seen; for my little cry of surprise caused it to vanish as if it melted into the foam of the stream as it plunges into the pool."
"That was just like the Vili," interposed one. "They live under the river's bank. They talk in the murmur of the streams. Old Mirko, who used to work much in the mill, learned to understand what they said. Did this one you saw have long hair? The Vili, Mirko said, always did."
"I cannot say," replied the girl, "for its head was hidden in a blossoming laurel bush between it and me."
"It was one," cried another, "for there are no blossoming laurels yet. It was its long white hair waving in the wind, that you saw."
"Let us go down to the pool!" proposed one, "maybe we can see it again."
"No! No!" cried the others, in a chorus of tremulous voices.
"No, indeed," said one of the larger girls, "for it might be they are eating, or they are dancing the Kolo—which they always do as the sun goes down, and if any body sees them then they get angry, and will come to your house and look at you with the evil eye."
Hasting home with their bowls of water crowned with flowers, they told their story to the stargeshina.
The old man laughed at their credulity:—
"Girls always see strange things on the eve of Saint George."
At the evening meal in the great room of the first house, the patriarch, taking his cue from the story the girls belonging to that household had told of their imagined vision, repeated legend after legend about those strange beings that people the unknown caverns in the mountains, and rise from the brooks, leaving the water-spiders to mark the spot where they emerged so that they may find their way back again, and of the wjeshtiges, who throw off their bodies as easily as others lay aside their clothes, flit through the fire, ride upon the sparks as horses, float on the threads of white smoke—all the time watching the persons gathered about the blazing logs, that they may mark the one who is first to die. "This doomed person," the old man said, "they visit when he has gone to sleep, and, with a magic rod, open his breast; utter in mystic words the day of his death; take out his heart and feast upon it. Then they carefully close up the side, and, though the victim lives on, having no heart, no spring of life in him, sickens and droops until the fatal day; as the streams vanish when cut off from the fountains whence they start."
These stories were followed by songs, the music of which was within a narrow range of notes, and sung to the accompaniment of the gusle—a rude sort of guitar with a single string. The subjects of these songs and the ideas they contained were as limited in theirrange as the notes by which they were rendered; such as the impossible exploits of heroes, and improbable romances of love. The merit of the singing generally consisted in the additions or variations with which the genius of the performer enabled him to adorn the hackneyed music or original narrative.
"Let Constantine take the gusle, and sing us the song about the peasant maid who conquered the heart of the king," said the stargeshina.
"Constantine is not here," replied a clear and sweet, but commanding sort of voice. "He went out as it began to darken, and has not returned."
The speaker rose as she said it, and went toward the large door of the room to look out. She was a young woman of slender, but superb form, which the costume of the country did not altogether conceal. She was tall and straight, but moved with the graceful freedom of a child, for her straightness was not that of an arrow—rather of the unstrung bow, whose beauty is revealed by its flexibility. Her limbs were rounded perfectly to the feminine model, but were evidently possessed of muscular strength developed by daily exercise incident to her mountain life. A glance at her would disprove that western theory which associates the ideal of female beauty only with softness of fleshly texture and lack of sinew. Her face was commanding, brow high, eyes rather deep-set and blue, mouth small—perhaps too straight for the best expression of amiability—chin full, and suggestive of firmness and courage. As she gazed through the doorway into the night a troubled look knit her features—just enough, however, to make one notice ratherthe strong, steady and heroic purpose which conquered it. When she turned again to the company the firelight revealed only a girlish sweetness and gentleness of face and manner. She took the gusle and sang a pretty song about the dancing of the witches; her merry voice starting a score of other voices in the simple chorus. Then followed a war song, in which the daughter of a murdered chieftain calls upon the clan to avenge her father, and save their land from an insulting foe. It was largely recitative, and rendered with so much of the realistic in her tones and manner as to draw even the old men to their feet, while, with waving hands and marching stamp, they started the company in the refrain.
Milosch set the example of retiring when the evening was well advanced. Though Constantine was still absent, it gave his father no anxiety, for the boy was accustomed to have his own private business with coons in the forest, and the eels in the pool, and, indeed, with the stars too—for often he would lie for hours looking at them, only Morsinia being allowed to interrupt his conference with the bright-eyed watchers above.
Constantine, who was now a manly fellow of nearly eighteen years, had left the house when it grew dark. The night was thick, for heavy clouds had spread their pall over the sky. A little space from the house was the kennel. A deep growl greeted his approach to it.
"Still, Balk!" muttered he, as he loosed an enormous mastiff, and led the brute toward the side of the house on which the clijet, or chamber, occupied by Morsinia was located.
"Down, Balk!" he said, as again and again the huge beast rose and placed his paws upon his master's shoulders. Balk was tied within a clump of elder-bushes a little way from the house, and at the opening of a foot-path ascending the mountain. The young man lay down with his head upon the mastiff. Nearly an hour passed; the silence unbroken except by a querulous whine of the dog as his comrade refused to indulge his playful spirit. Suddenly Balk threw up his head and sniffed the air nervously. Yet no sound was heard, but the soughing of the winds through the budding trees, and the murmur of the brook. The animal became restless and would not lie down except at the sternly whispered command.
Leaving him, Constantine opened the shutter of the clijet occupied by his father and himself, and quietly entered. Though in the dark, he strung a strong bow, balanced several arrows in his hand to determine the best, saying to himself as he did so, "I can send thesestraight in the direction of a sound, thanks to my night hunting!" A dagger was thrust into the top of his leather hose. He wound his head in the strooka—the cloth which answers for both cap and pillow to those who are journeying among those mountains and liable to exposure without bed or roof at night.
The noise though slight awakened Milosch, who had fallen into a light sleep.
"Where now, my boy? No coon will come to you such a night as this."
"Father, I did not tell you, because you laugh at my fears," said Constantine in a low tone. "But the anxiety of Uncle Kabilovitsch and the great captain, too, when I went to camp last week, makes me more cautious about Morsinia. The Vili are about, as the girls said."
"Nonsense, you child! It's a shame that a boy of your years should believe such stuff. Besides what have the Vili to do with our daughter?"
"Look here, father; when I was searching for a rabbit's burrow this afternoon I saw the footprint of one of them, and it wore a soldier's shoe too. That is the sort of Vili I believe in."
"Why, boy!" said Milosch, "your head is so full of soldiering that rabbits' burrows look like soldiers' feet. Or your head is so turned with love for our girl, that you must imitate the Latin knights, and go watch beneath the shutter of your lady's castle. Go, along, then, and let the night dews take the folly out of you. Foolish boy!" added he, as he turned toward the wall.
Constantine went back to the dog. The huge beasthad thrust himself as far as the cord would allow him in the direction away from the house, and stood trembling with excitement as he peered into the black shadows which lay against the mountain. Constantine could detect no unusual sound save the creaking of the gigantic limbs of the trees as they rubbed against each other in the rising wind, the sharpening whistle of the breeze, and the crackle of the dead brushwood. Yet the mastiff's excitement increased. He strained the rope with his utmost strength, but the hand of his master upon his neck checked the whining growl.
A branch snapped on the hillside in the direction of the path.
"No wind did that," muttered he. A stone rolled down the declivity.
"No foot familiar with that path did that. You are right, Balk!" and by main strength he pressed the mastiff's head to the ground, and, with his arm about his neck, kept him crouching and silent.
Stealthy steps were heard.
"One! Two!" counted the boy. "You and I are enough for them, eh, Balk?"
The dog licked the face of his master in token that he understood, and would take his man if Constantine would do equally well.
"Three! Four! Five! A large band! Too many for us, Balk! We must rouse the village——"
But at the moment he would have started, his attention was arrested by low voices almost at his side.
"The clijet nearest. When she is taken I will sound the bugle call—the Turkish call, so that yourdash through the village will be thought to be one of their dashes. Do as little real damage as you can, keeping the appearance of a genuine raid; but no matter if you have to cut the throats of a half-dozen or more; especially the red-headed fellow you have seen in camp, and the old devil with the paralyzed arm. I and Waldy will carry the girl, and wait for you by the horses on the open road. Let's inspect!"
Two dusky outlines moved toward the house. Constantine cut the rope, and, at a push of his hand the dog crawled a few feet until he was clear of the copse; then sprang into the air. There was a hardly audible exclamation of surprise and terror; a low growl of satisfied rage, as when a tiger seizes the food thrown to him in his cage. One man is down in death grapple with his strange assailant whose teeth are at his throat. A sharp whiz and a cry of pain tell that the arrow of Constantine has not missed its mark.
A second whiz, and the form topples!
The boy stood stupefied with the reaction of the moment. But the multiplying footfalls along the ledge aroused him. He darted into the house, swinging the great bar that turned on a peg in the door post across the entrance, and thus securing it behind him. To arouse the household was the work of a moment. A word explained all. Arms were seized, not only by the men, but also by the women: for even to this day a marauder will meet no more skilful and brave defenders of the villages of Albania than the wives and daughters who encourage the men by their example as well as by their words. Their hands are trained to use the sword, the axe, the dagger; andthe cry of danger transforms the most domestic scene into an exhibition of Amazons.
The expected attack was delayed. Fears were excited lest the raiders were about to set fire to the house. If such were the case, the policy of the inmates was to sally forth and cut their way through the assailants, at whatever cost. Some one must go out. It might be to meet death at the door. Standing in a circle they hastily repeated the Pater Noster, each one giving a word in turn; the one to whom the "Amen" came accepting the appointment as directly from God. With drawn weapons they gathered at the door, which was opened suddenly. No enemy appearing, it was closed, leaving the new sentinel without.
After going a few paces the guard stumbled over the dead body of the dog, by the side of which a man was vainly struggling to rise. Drawing his dagger he would have completed the work of the mastiff's fangs,—when he checked the impulse by better judgment—
"No, it's better to have him along with us. He'll come handy before we get through this job!"
So, grasping the two arms of the wounded man in such a way as to prevent his using a weapon, if strength enough should remain, he swung the helpless hulk upon his back, as he had often carried the carcass of a wolf down the mountain; and, giving the preconcerted signal at the door, was instantly re-admitted.
The wounded man wore the Turkish uniform, and was evidently the officer in charge of the raiding party. This fact sufficiently explained the delay infollowing up the attack, for doubtless his men were still waiting for the order which he would never give.
"We must rouse our neighbors," said the old man, who was recognized as the commandant of the dwelling, and obeyed as such with that reverence for seniority which is to this day a beautiful characteristic of the Albanian people.
Constantine held a hurried, but confidential talk with Milosch, who proposed that Constantine and his sister should undertake the hazardous venture of alarming the next house. All remonstrated against Morsinia's venturing, the patriarch refusing to allow it. Milosch persuaded him with these words, which were not overheard by the others—
"She is the chief object of attack; this I have discovered. If she remains in the house she will be captured. Her only safety is to leave it, and disappear in the darkness. Once out there she can hide near by, or can thread her way up among the crags, where no stranger's foot will ever come. She knows every stone and tree in the dark as well as a mole knows the twists and turns of his burrow."
Morsinia caught at once the spirit of the adventure, and in her eagerness preceded Constantine to the doorway. The thrill of fear on her account gave way to a thrill of applause for her as she stood in readiness. She had donned a helmet of thick half-tanned hides, and a corsage of light iron links, looped together and tied with leathern thongs, about her person. Her arms were left free for the use of the bow and stock which swung from her shoulder, and the klaptigan,or short dagger, which hung in the plaits of her kilt.
"The Holy Virgin protect her!" was the prayer which came from all sides as she flung her arms about the neck of Milosch, and as she afterward bowed her head to receive the kiss of the patriarch upon her forehead. The light in the room was extinguished that their exit might not be noted by any without when the door should open.
For a moment Constantine and Morsinia stood close to the door which had closed behind them. Their keen hearing detected the fact that the house was surrounded, though by persons stationed at a distance, chiefly upon the higher slopes of the hills. The road to the next house was evidently guarded.
Constantine insisted upon Morsinia's concealing herself rather than attempting to go with him to the neighbors; but only after remonstrance with him did she consent to his plan. Silently crossing the road, and without so much as breaking a stick or rustling a dead leaf beneath her feet—a dexterity acquired in approaching the timid game with which the mountains abounded, and which she had often hunted—she disappeared in the dense copse.
Constantine moved cautiously by the wayside, easily eluding the notice of the men whose dark outlines were discerned by him as they stood on guard at intervals along the road. He had nearly approached the neighboring house when the still night air was rent with the shrill note of a Turkish bugle call from the direction of the dwelling they had left.
"Could it be that the captured officer had recoveredsufficient reason and strength to break from his captors and give the signal?" thought Constantine. The call sounded again—it was evidently from a distance, beyond the village. A score or more dim forms at the sound gathered in the road; some emerging from the bushes near, others descending from points high up the slopes on either side—their hurried but muffled conversation showed that they were about to make the appointed dash upon the doomed dwelling. But a second blare of trumpets sounded far down toward the entrance of the valley, followed by a clanging of armor and clatter of horses' feet. Torches glared far away. A party was evidently just winding out of the defile into the open space where the hamlet stood. Rescuers doubtless! for the first party of raiders scattered to right and left, and were heard climbing again up the wooded slopes. Morsinia hastened to Constantine, and together they hurried to meet the new comers. But they were not rescuers. They attacked the house with shouts of "Allah! Allah!" They fired it with their torches. Some poured along the road toward the next house.
They were genuine Turks. Unable to conquer Scanderbeg in battle, the great army had spread everywhere to lay waste the country. In fertile meadows, along every stream, wherever a castle or chalet was known to be, raged the numberless soldiers, who, beaten in nobler fight, sought vengeance by becoming murderers of the more helpless, and kidnappers of women and children to fill their harems.
With flying feet Constantine and Morsinia outstripped the riders, alarmed the second house, andran to the third. Behind them the crackling flames told that it was too late to return. All who could escape gathered at the great konak. Since a similar raid, some years before, this building had been converted into a rude fortification. The wall which surrounded it, as an enclosure for sheep and cattle, had been built up high and strong enough to prevent any approach to the main structure by an anticipated foe, except as the scalers of the wall should be exposed to the missiles of those within. The konak proper was pierced with loop-holes, through which a shower of arrows could be poured by unseen archers.
The court was already filled with the fugitives, while some had entered the building, when it was surrounded by the Turks. Constantine had gained from Morsinia a promise to avoid exposure; and had agreed upon a place of meeting on the mountain, in the event of their both surviving the conflict. But the eagerness of Constantine overcame his discretion, and, heading a group of peasants who had not been able to enter the konak, he mingled in a hand-to-hand fight with the assailants. Morsinia's interest led her to closely watch the fray from the bordering thicket, changing her position from time to time that she might not lose sight of the well-known form of her foster-brother. Seeing him endangered, she could not resist the vain impulse to fly to his assistance; as if her arms could stay those of the stout troopers who surrounded him; or as if a Turk could have respect for a woman's presence. Scarcely had she moved from her covert when strong hands seized her, and, by a quick movement, pinioned her arms behind her back.
"Ho! man, guard this girl! If my houri escapes, your head shall be forfeit," cried her captor, an officer, to a common soldier who was holding his horse. In a moment he was lost to sight in the struggling throng.
The wall was carried, and, though many a turban had rolled from the lifeless head of its wearer, the building was finally fired—life being promised to the women who should surrender. Some of these, who were young, were thrust from the door by their kindred, who preferred for them the chances of miserable existence as Turkish prey, to seeing them perish with themselves. Most, however, fought to the last by the side of their husbands and fathers, and were slain in the desperate attempt to make their way from the flames which drove them out.
Constantine, by strange strength and skill, extricated himself from the mêlée. A sharp flesh wound cooled his blind rage; and, realizing that another's life, as dear to him as his own, was involved in his safety, he withdrew from the danger, and sought Morsinia.
Not finding her during the night, he returned in the earliest dawn to the konak. The building was in ruins; the ground strewn with dead and wounded. With broken hearts the few who had escaped were bewailing their loved ones killed or missing. But there was no tidings of Morsinia. In vain the woods were searched; every old trysting place sacred to some happy memory of the years they had spent together—the eagle's crag, the cave in the ravine, the dense copse. But only memories were there. Imagination supplied the rest—a horrid imagination!The poor boy was maddened and crushed; at one moment a fiend; at the next almost lifeless with grief.
An examination at the lower house discovered the body of his father, Milosch. He had been killed outside the house; for his body, though terribly gashed, was not burned, as were those found within the walls of the building.
Constantine had, up to this time, regarded himself as a boy; now he felt that he was a man, with more of life in its desirableness behind than ahead of him: a desperate man, with but a single object to live for, vengeance upon the Turk, and upon those who, worse than Turks, of Albanian blood, had first attempted Morsinia's capture.
Yet there was another thing to live for. Perhaps she might be recaptured. Improbable, but not impossible! That, then, should be his waking dream. Such a hope—hope against hope—was all that could make life endurable, except it were to drain the blood of her captors.
He was driven by the poignancy of his grief and the hot fury of his rage, to make this double object an immediate pursuit. He felt that he could not sleep again until he had tasted some of the vengeance for which he thirsted.