The Sultan gazed upon the partly conscious woman, and commanded,——
"Let her be veiled! Seek out a goodly house. Find the Eunuch Tamlich." Ballaban shuddered at this command, and was about to reply, when his judgment suggested that he was impotent to dispute the royal will except by endangering the life or the welfare of his captive.
The safest place for her was, after all, with the maidens who were known to be the choice of the Sultan, and thus beyond insult by any except the imperial debauchee.
Mahomet II. gave orders for the immediate transformation of the Christian temple of St. Sophia into a Mosque. In a few hours desolation reigned in those "Courts of the Lord's House," which, when first completed, ages ago, drew from the imperial founder, the remark: "Oh, Solomon! I have surpassed thee!" and which, though the poverty of later monarchs had allowed it to become sadly impaired, was yet regarded by the Greek Christians as worthy of being the vestibule of heaven.
The command of the Sultan: "Take away every trace of the idolatry of the infidel!" was obeyed indemolishing the rarest gems of Christian art to which attached the least symbolism of the now abolished worship. The arms were chiseled off the marble crosses which stood out in relief from the side walls, and from the bases of the gigantic pillars. The rare mosaics which lined the church as if it were a vast casket—the fitting gift of the princes of the earth to the King of Kings—were plastered or painted over. The altar, that marvellous combination of gold and silver and bronze, conglomerate with a thousand precious stones, was torn away, that the red slab of the Mihrab might point the prayers of the new devotees toward Mecca. The furniture, from that upon the grand altar to the banners and mementoes of a thousand years, the donations of Greek emperors and sovereigns of other lands, was broken or torn into pieces. There remained only the grand proportions of the building—its chief glory—enriched by polished surfaces of marble and porphyry slabs; the superb pillars brought by the reverent cupidity of earlier ages from the ruined temple of Diana at Ephesus, the temple of the Sun at Palmyra, the temple on the Acro-Corinthus, and the mythologic urn from Pergamus, which latter, having been used as a baptismal font by the followers of Jesus, was now devoted to the ablutions of the Moslems.
From St. Sophia the Sultan passed to the palace of the Greek Cæsars.
"Truly! truly!" said he "The spider's web is the royal curtain; the owl sounds the watch cry on the towers of Afrasiab," quoting from the Persian poet Firdusi, as he gazed about the deserted halls.He issued his mandate which should summon architects and decorators, not only from his dominions, but from Christian nations, to adorn the splendid headland with the palatial motley of walls and kiosks which were to constitute his new seraglio.
The considerateness of Ballaban led him to select the house of Phranza as the place to which Morsinia was taken. The noble site and substantial structure of the mansion of the late chamberlain commended it to the Sultan for the temporary haremlik; and the familiar rooms alleviated, like the faces of mute friends, the wildness of the grief of their only familiar captive.
Constantine, after his escape from the Sultan's tent, where he had been taken for the demented Ballaban, was unable to enter Constantinople before it fell. His heart was torn with agonizing solicitude for the fate of Morsinia. He knew too well the determination of the dauntless girl in the event of her falling into the hands of the Turks. Filling his dreams at night, and rising before him as a terrible apparition by day, was that loved form, a suicide empurpled with its own gore. Yet love and duty led him to seek her, or at least to seek the certainty of her fate. He therefore disguised himself as a Moslem and mingled with the throng of soldiers and adventurers who entered the city under its new possessors. He wandered for hours about the familiar streets, that, perchance, he mightcome upon some memorial of her. The secrets of the royal harem he could not explore, even if suspicion led his thought thither. The proximity of the residence of Phranza was guarded by the immediate servants of the Sultan, so that he was deprived of even the fond misery of visiting the scenes so associated with his former joy.
In passing through one of the narrowest and foulest streets—the only ones that had been left undisturbed by the Vandalism of the conquerors—he came upon an old woman, hideous in face and decrepit, whom he remembered as a beggar at the gate of Phranza. From her he learned many stories of the last hours of the siege.
According to her story she had gone among the first to St. Sophia. When the Moslems entered they tied her by a silken girdle to the person of the Grand Chamberlain, and, amid the jeers of the soldiers, marched them together to the Hippodrome. She remembered the Sultan as he rode on his horse,—how he struck with his battle hammer one of the silver heads of the bronze serpents, and cried: "So I smite the heads of the kingdoms!" Just as he did so he turned, and saw her in her rags tied to the courtly-robed lord, and in an angry voice commanded that the princely man be loosed from contact with the filthy hag. Phranza was taken away: but nobody cared to take her away. She was trampled by the crowd, but lived. And nobody thought of turning her out of her hovel home. She was as safe as is a rat when the robbers have killed the nobler inmates of a house.
The woman said that she had heard that thedaughter of Phranza was sent away somewhere to an island home. But the Albanian Princess,—Yes, she knew her well; for no hand used to drop so bountifully the alms she asked, or said so kindly "Jesu pity you, my good woman!" as did that beautiful lady. The beggar declared that she stood near her by the altar in St. Sophia. "She looked so saintly there! There was a real aureole about her head as she prayed, so she was a saint indeed. Then she raised her dagger!" But the wretched watcher could watch no longer, though she heard her cry, so wild that she would never cease to hear it.
The beggar ceased her story; all her words had cut through her listener's heart as if they had been daggers.
"It is well!" he said, "I will go to Albania. Among those who loved her I will worship her memory; and, under Castriot, I will seek my revenge."
Morsinia's fears, and her horror at the anticipated life in the harem, were not confirmed by its actual scenes. Except for the constant surveillance of the Nubian eunuchs and female attendants, there was no restriction upon her liberty. She passed through the familiar corridors, and rested upon the divan in what had been her own chamber in better days. Other female captives became her companions; but among them were none of those belonging toConstantinople. Suburban villages were represented; but most of the odalisks[84]were Circassian beauties, whose conduct did not indicate that they felt any shame in their condition. They indulged in jealous rivalry, estimating their own worth by the sums which the agents of the Sultan had paid their parents for their possession; or bantering one another as to who of their number would first meet the fancy of their royal master. There were several Greeks, who, with more modesty of speech, spared none of the arts of the toilet to prepare themselves to better their condition in the only way that was now open to them. A Coptic girl had been sent by Eenal, the Borghite Khalif of Egypt, as a present to the Sultan. Her form was slight, and without the fullness of development which other races associate with female beauty, but of wonderful grace of pose and motion; her face was broad; eyes wide and expressionless; mouth straight. Yet her features had that symmetry and balance which gave to them a strange fascination. The Turcoman Emir who had already given his daughter to Mahomet—the nuptials with whom he was celebrating when called to the throne—exercised still further his fatherly office in presenting to his son-in-law as fine a pair of black eyes as ever flashed their cruel commands to an amative heart. To study this physiognomical museum afforded Morsinia an entertaining relief from the otherwise constant torture of her thoughts.
To her further diversion one was introduced into the harem who spoke her own Albanian tongue. Thisnew comer was of undoubted beauty, so far as that quality could be the product of merely physical elements. It was of the kind that might bind a god on earth, but could never help a soul to heaven. Her lower face, with full red lips arching the pearliest teeth, and complexion ruddy with the glow of health, shading into the snowy bosom, might perhaps serve to make a Venus; but her upper features, the low forehead and dilated nostrils, could never have been made to bespeak the thoughtful Minerva in this retreat of those, who, to the Moslem imagination, are the types of heavenly perfection. Her eyes were bright, but only with surface lustre. Her nature evidently contained no depths which could hold either noble resentment or self sacrificing love; either grand earthly passion or heavenly faith.
This woman's vanity did not long keep back the story of her life. She told of her conquest of the village swains who fought for the possession of her charms; of the devotion of an Albanian prince who took her dowerless in preference to the ladies of great family and fortune, and would have bestowed upon her the heirship to his estates: of how she was stolen away from the great castle by a company of Turkish officers, who afterward fought among themselves for the privilege of presenting her to the Validé Sultana;[85]for it was about the time of the Ramedan feast when the Sultan's mother made an annual gift to her son of the most beautiful woman she could secure. The vain captive declared that the jealousy of the odalisks atAdrianople had led the Kislar Aga to send her here to Constantinople.
"And who was the Albanian nobleman whose bride you had become?" asked Morsinia.
"Oh, one who is to be king of Albania one day, the Voivode Amesa."
"Ah!" said Morsinia, "this is news from my country. When was it determined that Amesa should be king?"
"Oh! every one speaks of it at the castle as if it were well understood. And when he becomes king then he will claim me again from Mahomet, though he must ransom me with half his kingdom. Yes, I am to be a queen; and indeed I may be one already, for perhaps Lord Amesa is now on the throne. And that is the reason I wear the cord of gold in my hair; for one day my royal lover will put the crown here."
The bedizened beauty rose and paced to and fro through the great salôn. The pride which gave the majestic toss to her head, however it would have marred that ethereal form which the inner eye of the moralist or the Christian always sees, and which is called character, only gave an additional charm to her;—as the delicate yet stately comb of the peacock adds to the fascination of that bird. Her carriage combined the gracefulness of perfect anatomy and health with the dignity which conceit, thoroughly diffused in muscle and nerve, lent to all her movements. With that step upon it no carpet beneath a throne would have been dishonored. Her dress was in exquisite keeping with her person. The close fitting zone or girdle about her waist left the bust uncontorted;a model which needed no device to supplement the perfection of nature. A robe of purple velvet trailed luxuriantly behind; but in front was looped so as to display the loose trousers of white silk which were gathered below the knee and fell in full ruffles about the unstockinged ankles, but not so low as to conceal the rings of silver which clasped them, and the slippers of yellow satin, ending in long and curved points, which protruded from beneath.
As the other women gazed at this self-assumed queen of the harem the green fire of jealousy flashed alike from black eyes and blue. The straight thin noses of the Greeks for the moment forgot their classic models, and dilated as if in rivalry of that flattened feature of the Egyptian; while the straight mouth of the daughter of the Nile writhed in indescribable curves, indicative of commingled wrath, hatred, pique and scorn.
This parade would have produced in Morsinia the feeling of contempt, were it not for that sisterly interest which was awakened by the fact that she was her own country-woman. Morsinia's face, usually calm in its great dignity and reserve, now flushed with the struggle between indignation and pity for the girl.
At this moment the purple hangings which separated the salôn from the open court were held aside by the silver staff of the eunuch in charge; and the young Padishah stood as a spectator of the scene.
"Ah! Tamlich," cried he, addressing the black eunuch, "you were right in saying that the great haremlik at Adrianople, with its thousand goddesses, could not rival this temporary one for the fairness of the birds you have caged in it."
The women made the temineh—a salutation with the right hand just sweeping the floor, and then pressed consecutively to the heart, the lips and the forehead; a movement denoting reverence, and, at the same time, giving field for the display of the utmost grace of motion.
The Padishah passed among these his slaves with the license which betokened his absolute ownership; stroking their hair and toying with their persons according to his amiable or insolent caprice. Morsinia, however, was spared this familiarity. The Sultan himself colored slightly as he addressed her a few words in Greek, of which language, in common with several others, he knew enough to act as his own interpreter. His questions were respectful, all limited to her comfort in her new home. With Elissa, the queenly Albanian, he was at once on terms of intimacy. Her manner betokened that she gave to him only too willingly whatever he might be disposed to take.
As the Sultan withdrew, the eunuch Tamlich remarked to him:
"My surmise of your Excellency's judgment was verified. Said I not that the two Arnaouts were the fairest? And did I not behold your Majesty gaze longest upon them?"
"I commend your taste, Tamlich," replied Mahomet. "But those two are as unlike as a ruby and a pearl."
"But as fair as either, are they not? The chief hamamjina[86]declares that the blue-eyed one has the most perfect form she ever saw; and that it is a formwhich will improve with years. Morsinia Hanoum[87]will be more fit for Paradise, while Elissa Hanoum may lose the grace of the maiden as a matron. But the cherry is ripe for the plucking now."
"I like the ruby better than the pearl," said the Sultan. "I cannot quite fathom the deep eye of the latter. She thinks too much. I would not have women think. They are to make us stop thinking. The problems of state are sufficiently perplexing: I want no human problem in my arms."
"But one who thinks may have some skill in affording amusement. Have I not heard thee say, Sire, 'Blessed is the one who can invent a new recreation?' That requires thinking."
"Right, Tamlich! can she sing?"
"Ay! your Majesty, to the Greek cythera; and such songs that, though they know not a word of them—for the songs are in her own Arnaout tongue—the odalisks all fall to weeping."
"I like not such singing," said Mahomet. "To make people think with her thoughtful eyes is bad enough in a woman. To make them weep with her voice is wicked, is Christian. I will give her away to some one who wants a wife that thinks. There is Hamed Bey, one of the muderris[88]who is to be put at the head of my new chain of Ulemas.[89]He will want a wife who thinks; and his eyes are that blind with dry study that it will do him good to weep. But who is the woman?I think I saw her face in St. Sophia the day of our entry."
"She belonged to the house-hold of Phranza, the Chamberlain, who possessed this very house," replied the eunuch. "And I think, from its goodly size and decoration, he must have used the treasury of the empire freely."
"To Phranza! Why, I have a daughter of his in the nursery at Adrianople. His wife I have given to the Master of the Horse.[90]His son I have this day sent to hell for his insolence. But she is an Arnaout; therefore not of kin to Phranza. Search out her story, Tamlich! For a member of the family of Phranza, and not of his blood, may be of some political consequence. I will keep her. But get her story, Tamlich, get her story!"
"I have it already, Sire," replied the eunuch.
"Ah!"
"She is a ward of Scanderbeg, the Arnaout traitor, sent to Constantinople to escape the danger of capture by thine all-conquering arms. But the bird fled from the fowler into the snare."
"Perhaps a child of Scanderbeg! Eh, Tamlich? One at least whose life is of great value to him, and was to the Greek empire. I will inform Scanderbeg that she is in my possession. By the dread of what may happen to her I shall the easier force that ravening brute to make terms; for I am tired of battering my sword against his rocks, trying to prick his skin. Keep her close, Tamlich, keep her close!"
Late in the day the Sultan retired to a neighboring mansion, once possessed by the Greek Grand Duke, Lucas Notaras, and there sought relaxation from the incessant cares of the empire. The day had been wearisome. Architects had submitted plans for the detailed ornamentation of the new seraglio which was rising on the Byzantine Point. One of the plans led to dispute between the Padishah and the chief Mufti, the expounder of the Moslem law. It was occasioned thus. The porphyry column[91]which stood hard by the palace of the Greek emperors, had once served to hold aloft the bronze statue of Apollo, a precious relic of ancient Greek mythology. This was afterward reverenced by the people as the figure of the Emperor Constantine the Great, or worshipped by them as that of Christ. An architect proposed that the time-glorious shaft should now be surmounted by the colossal statue of Mahomet II. The Mufti declared the project to be impious, as tempting to idolatry, against which the Koran was so clear and denunciatory, and also the Sounna or traditional sayings of the Prophet. The Sultan's pride rebelled against this assumption of an authority above his own. But the Sultan's superstitious regard for the faith among the people, which led him to wash his hands and face openly whenever he spoke with the architect, who was a Christian engaged at great cost from Italy, also led him to fearto break with the prescriptions and customs of his religion in this matter. He contented himself with an oath that he had sooner lost the honor of a campaign than the privilege of seeing himself represented as the conqueror of both Constantine and Christ. Generals, too, had been in council with him that day regarding the conduct of intrigues for the possession of the Peloponnesus, and about the wars in Servia, Boznia and Trebizond. Ill tidings had come from Albania, where Scanderbeg was consuming the Turkish armies, as a great spider entraps in his webs and at his leisure devours a swarm of hornets, which, could they have free access to him, would instantly sting him to death. The messenger who brought this news was rewarded by having hurled at his head an immense vase of malachite, in the exertion of lifting which the imperial wrath was sufficiently eased to allow of his turning to other business. A plan for the reception of the inmates of the grand harem at Adrianople, when they should be transported to the spacious buildings being constructed for them in the seraglio, was also a pleasing diversion, and led the Sultan to make the brief visit to the fair ones at the house of Phranza, which has been described. But the nettled spirit of the Padishah was far from subdued. He had during the day given an order, the sequel to which we must relate, and which, while it disturbed his conscience and flooded him at moments with the sense of self-contempt, also inflamed his natural passion for cruelty. He determined to drown the noble, and to satiate the the vicious, craving by an hour or two of unrestrained debauch.
In the court of the house of the Grand Duke Notaras was spread the royal banquet. Rarest viands were flanked by flagons of costliest wines. Upon the momentary surprise of the steward when he received the order to provide the wines, the monarch cried in a contemptuous tone:
"Ah! I know your thoughts. It is not according to the Koran that wine should be drunk. But by the staff of Moses,[92]which they found in the palace of the Cæsars yonder, I swear that Mahomet the Emperor shall not yield to Mahomet the Prophet in everything. The Prophet made laws to suit his own taste, so will I[93]. He can have Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem; but I shall reign without him in my own palace in Stamboul, which I have captured with my own hand. Bring the wine, or I'll spill your black blood as a beverage to those in hell! It will be sweet enough for your kin who are black with roasting. I will have wine to-day! Cool it in all the snows from Mount Olympus yonder; for my blood is as hot as if I were shod with fire; and my skull boils like a pot."[94]
About the table were divans cushioned with down and covered with yellow silk. The Padishah took his seat upon the highest cushion. By his side stood the chief of the black eunuchs, splendidly[95]attired in the waistcoat of flower embroidered brocade, tunic of scarlet,flowing trousers, red turban, and half boots of bronzed leather. He held a wand of silver covered with elegant tracery and topped in filagree. As he waved this symbol of his office, there came from the various doors opening into the court groups of the harem women. They were draped in gauze, in the folds of which sparkled diamonds and glowed the hues of precious stones selected by the taste of the chief eunuch to set off the complexion and hair of their various wearers, and at the same time to facilitate their grouping into sets of dancers. The court was made radiant with these beautiful forms, which moved in circles or in spirals about the fountains and under the orange trees, whose white blossoms and golden fruit in simultaneous fulness completed the picture for the eye, while their fragrance loaded the air with its delicate delight.
The Kislar Aga had arranged a scene which especially pleased the monarch, whose head was already swimming with the combined effect of the mazy dance and the fumes of the wine. An attendant led into the court, held partly by a strong leash and partly by the voice of his trainer, a magnificent leopard. With utmost grace the beast leaped over the ribboned wand, falling so softly to the ground that, though of enormous weight, he would not seemingly have broken a twig had it lain beneath his feet. In imitation of this, a eunuch led into the court by a leash of roses a Circassian dancer, the gift of a Caramanian prince. Her form was as free from the hindrances of dress as that of her spotted competitor; except that a bright gem burned upon her forehead, in the node which gathereda part of her hair; while the abundance of her tresses was either held out on her snowy arms, or fell about her as a veil almost to her feet. With a hundred variations the girl repeated the motions of the leopard, leaping the wands with equal grace as she came to them in the measures of the dance.
The great brute had laid his head in the lap of his trainer, and was watching his beautiful rival with apparent enjoyment; only now and then uttering a low growl as if in jealousy, when the Bravo! of the Sultan rewarded some especially fascinating movement. The girl came to the side of the magnificent monster and dropped her long hair over his head. The brute closed his eyes as if soothed by the wooing of the maiden. Cautiously, but encouraged by the low voice of the trainer, she placed her head upon the mottled and living pillow. A great paw was thrown about her shoulder.
The Sultan was in ecstasy of applause, and shouted:
"A collar of gold for each of them!"
The girl attempted to rise, but her splendid lover seemed to have become really enamored of the beautiful form he held. Her slightest motion was answered by a growl; while the swaying of his tail indicated that, as among human kind, so with the brutes, the softest sentiments were to be guarded by those of a severer nature; that baffled love must meet the avenging of cruel wrath. Like the affection of some men, that of the leopard was limited to its own gratification, and utterly regardless of the comfort of its object; for the fondness of the brute was not such as to prevent his long nails protruding throughtheir velvet covering, and entering the bare flesh of the girl. She quivered with pain, yet, at the quick warning of the trainer, she made no outcry. The man drew from his pocket a small bit of raw flesh, and diverted the eyes of the brute from the blood streaming at each claw-puncture on the neck and bosom of his victim. The leopard savagely snapped at the morsel, and, at the same instant struck it with his paw, and leaped to seize it as it was hurled many feet away. The girl as quickly darted to a safe distance. Attendants instantly appeared and surrounded the beast with their spear points. He crouched at the feet of the trainer, and whined in fear until he was led out.
The girls then encircled the seat of the Sultan, and vied with one another in the simulated attempt to throw over him a spell. Nor was the attempt merely simulated, as each one displayed the utmost art of beauty and manner to win from the half-drunken tyrant some token of his favor.
When Elissa came near the Sultan, he bade her play with him as the Circassian did with the leopard. He held her and exclaimed to the others:
"Beware your leopard when he growls! but where is the other Arnaout? I will have the pearl with the ruby of the harem! where is she, I say? Did I not order you to bring all the odalisks to my feast?"
"From your Majesty's orders but lately, Sire, I supposed—" began the eunuch.
"Supposed? You are to obey, not to suppose," cried the demented man, slashing at him with the cimeter that lay at his feet.
"But she is not robed for the feast."
"Bring her as she is, and robe her here. You said that she was fairer than this one. If she is not fairer than this one, the leopard's claws will grip her, and the beast shall have your black body for his next supper. Bring her!"
The eunuch soon returned with Morsinia. She wore a sombre feridjé, or cloak completely enveloping the person. This she had on at the moment she was summoned, and the eunuch obeyed literally the mandate of the monarch to bring her as she was.
As she stood before the Sultan she appeared, in contrast with her half naked and bejeweled sisters, like a prophetess; some female Elijah before Ahab surrounded by his household of Jezebels. Throwing back the yashmak, or long veil—the one Moslem costume she had very willingly assumed after her captivity—she gazed upon the tyrant with a look of amazed inquiry of his meaning in summoning her to such a place. The sovereignty of her soul asserted and expressed itself in her noble brow, her clear and steady eye, her dauntless bearing.
"Sire, I have obeyed," said she, making the obeisance which in form was obsequious, but which she executed with such dignity that even the dull wit of the reveller felt that she had not really humbled herself before him by so much as the shadow of a thought.
"Disrobe her!" cried the monarch.
The woman stepped back, as if to avoid the contact of her person with the black eunuch; but as suddenlythrew off the feridjé herself. If she had seemed a gloomy prophetess before, her appearance now would have suggested to an ancient Greek the apparition of Pudicitia, the goddess of modesty. Her gown of rich pearl-tinted cloth covered her shoulders; and, though opened upon the bosom, it was to show only the thick folds of white lace which embraced the throat in a ruffle, and was clasped with a single gem—a cameo presented to her by the Greek Emperor.
The bearing of the woman gave a temporary check to the abominable rage of the royal wretch, and recalled him to his better judgment. For it was a peculiarity of Mahomet that no passion or debauch could completely divert him from carrying out any plan he had devised pertaining to his imperial ambition. As certain musicians perform without the sacrifice of a note the most difficult pieces, when too drunk to hold a goblet steadily to their lips, and as certain noted generals have staggered through the battle without the slightest strategic mistake, so Mahomet never lost sight of a political or military purpose he had formed. While sleeping and waking, in the wildest revelry and in the privacy of his unspeakable sensuality, that project blazed before him like a strong fire-light through the haze.
"Take her away! Take her away!" said he to the eunuch, recollecting his purpose of using her in his negotiations with Scanderbeg; and covering his retreat from his original command by the remark, "She is the woman who thinks, I want none such to put her head against my heart. She might discovermy thoughts; and by the secrets of Allah! if a hair of my beard knew one of my thoughts I would pluck it out and burn it."[96]
As Morsinia withdrew, a eunuch approached and whispered to the Sultan.
"Ah! it is good! good!" cried the Monarch. "My Lord, the Grand Duke Notaras, will revisit his mansion. For him we have provided a feast such as his master Palæologus never gave him. Ah! my lovely Arnaout shall sit at my right hand—for the queen of beauty has precedence to-day," said he, addressing Elissa. "And the Egyptian shall make me merry with the music of her voice, which I doubt not is sweeter than the strains of her native Memnon. And, Tamlich, you shall do me the honor of representing the king of Nubia, and lie there opposite."
The eunuch stood bewildered; for never before had a Moslem proposed to introduce into his harem the person of any man, as now the Duke of Notaras was to look upon the beauties who should be reserved solely for the feasting of the Padishah's eyes.
Mahomet, knowing his thoughts, bade him obey, and cried,
"Let the fair houris veil their faces with their blushes. Bring in Notaras!"
Three blacks entered, each bearing a great salver, on which was a covered dish of gold.
"To Tamlich I demit the honors of the board," said he, waving the foremost waiter toward the eunuch, whose face almost blanched at the strange turn affairswere taking, or perhaps with the suspicion that to-morrow his head would fall from his shoulders as the penalty of having witnessed the Padishah disgrace himself.
The attendants placed the dishes before the eunuch and the two favored beauties. The covers removed revealed the ghastly sight of three human heads, their unclosed eyes staring upward from their distorted faces and gory locks. The eunuch leaped from the divan. The women fell back shrieking and fainting. They were the heads of the Grand Duke Notaras and his two children.
Well did the Sultan need the strong diversion of the drunken revelry to drown the thoughts of what he knew to be transpiring at the hour. In spite of his royal word to the distinguished captive who had made his submission absolute, except to the extent of seeing his children dishonored to the vilest purposes, Mahomet had ordered that Notaras should be beheaded at the Hippodrome, having been first compelled to witness the decapitation of his family.
Even Mahomet was sobered by the horrid ghoulism he had devised, and dismissed the terror-stricken revelers with a volley of curses.
The courage of Morsinia when she appeared before Mahomet had been stimulated by an event which occurred a little before her summons.
She was sitting by the latticed window in the house of Phranza. It overlooked the wall surrounding the garden, which on that side was a narrow enclosure. This had been her favorite resort in brighter days. From it she could see what passed in the broad highway beyond, while the close latticed woodwork prevented her being seen by those without. While musing there she was strangely attracted by an officer who frequently passed. His shape and stature reminded her strongly of Constantine. As he turned his face toward the mansion the features seemed identical with those of her foster brother. Recovering from the stroke of surprise this apparition gave her, Morsinia rubbed her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming, and looked again. He was in conversation with another. It could not be Constantine, for, aside from the general belief in Constantine's death before the termination of the siege, this person was saluted with great reverence by the soldiers who passed by, and approached with familiarity by other officers of rank.
The sight brought into vivid conviction what had long been her day dream, namely, that Michael, her childhood playmate, might be living, and if so, would probably be among the Turkish soldiers; for his goodly physique and talent, displayed as a lad, wouldcertainly have been cultivated by his captors. She now felt certain of her theory. So strong was the impression, and so active and exciting her thoughts as she endeavored to devise a way by which the discovery might be utilized to the advantage of both, that even the loathsome splendor of the Sultan's garden party, had not impressed her as it otherwise would have done.
For several days after she was almost oblivious to the monotony of the harem life; so busy was she with her new problem. She determined that, at any cost, she would bring herself into communication with the officer, and, if her theory should be confirmed, declare herself, and boldly propose that he should rescue her. For she could not conceive that, however much he had become accustomed to Turkish life, he had lost all yearning for his liberty and all impression of his Christian faith.
But how could she convey any intelligence to him? Except through the eunuchs, the inmates of the harem had little communication with the outer world. The customs of life there were as inflexible as the walls.
To her natural ingenuity, now so quickened by necessity and hope, there at length appeared an end thread of the tangle. The women of the harem relieved the tedium of their existence by making various articles, the construction of which might not mar the delicacy of their fingers; such as needlework upon their own clothing, coverings for cushions, curtains, tapestried hangings, spreads for couches, cases in which the Koran could be kept so that even when being read itneed not be touched by the fingers, bags of scented powders, and the like. Many of these articles were disposed of at the bazaars of the city, and the proceeds spent by the odalisks at their own caprice; generally for confections and gew-gaws. At the time there was quite a demand for articles made in the harem. Many thousands of Moslems had been imported from Asia Minor to take the place of the rapidly disappearing Greek population. Large stores of articles were sent from the great harem at Adrianople, and sold for fabulous prices in the bazaars of Stamboul, as the new capital was called by the Turks. The agents for the sale of these things were generally the female attendants at the harem, who had free association with the bazaar keepers. Sometimes these women sold directly to the individual purchasers without going to the trade places. An officer or young citizen was often inveigled into buying, and paying exorbitant prices too, on hearing that some odalisk had set longing eyes upon him, and wrought the purse or belt, the dagger-sheath or embroidered jacket, as a special evidence of her favor. Many were the stories which the gallants of the city and garrison were accustomed to tell, as they displayed their purchases, about nocturnal adventures, in which they were guided only by a pair of bright eyes, and of favors received from beauties whose names, of course, prudence forbade them to mention. All the traditions of lovers, romances of moon-shadowed grottoes, and all the stories of castles with the thread at the window, that have been told from the beginning of the world, had their counterpart in those the swains of Stamboul told aboutthe Sultan's earthly paradise at Adrianople, or those which, in their amatory bantering, they had made to cluster about the villa of the late Phranza at the new capital.
An old woman, who, formerly a servant in the harem, had been given by the Validé Sultana, the mother of Amurath, to a subaltern officer as wife, but had long been a widow, was permitted freely to enter the haremlik, and engaged as a convenient broker between those within and those without. One day Morsinia, in giving her some of her handiwork for sale, held up an elegant case of silk containing several little crystals, or phials, of atar of roses.
"Kala-Hanoum, do you know the young Captain Ballaban?"
"Ay, the Knight of the Golden Horn?" asked the woman.
"And why do they call him that?"
"Because," she replied, "his head glows like one, I suppose."
"Yes, he is the man—Well! find him—Tell him any story you please about my beauty."
"I need not invent one; I must only tell the truth to bewitch him," replied the old dame, with real fondness and admiration. "But that will be difficult. I can invent a lie better than describe the truth, unless you help me."
"Well," said Morsinia, "tell him as much truth about my appearance as you can, and invent the rest. Tell him—let me see—that my eyes are as bright as the stars that shine above the Balkans."
"Do they shine there more brilliantly than herewhere they make their toilet in the Bosphorus?" asked the woman.
"Oh! yes," said Morsinia, "for the air is clearest there of any place on the earth. Tell him, too, that my teeth are as white as the snows that lie in the pass of Slatiza."
"Where is that?" queried the messenger.
"Oh! it is a grotto I have heard of, that lies very high up toward the sky, where the snows are unsoiled by passing through the clouds, which, you know, always tints them. And then tell him that altogether I am as queenly as—as—well! as the wonderful Elizabeth Morsiney, the bride of the Christian king Sigismund."
"Elizabeth Morsiney? yes, I will remember that name, if some day you will tell me her story."
"That I will," said Morsinia. "And tell the young officer that the odalisk who made this lovely case has dreamed of him ever since she was a child."
"He cannot resist that," said the woman.
"But you must sell it to no one else. And see this elegant sash of cashmere! I will give it to you to sell on your own account, Hanoum, if you bring me some sure evidence that he has bought the case of perfume. And be sure to tell him that just when the sun is setting he must go somewhere alone, and look at the sun through each of the little phials, and he may see the face of her who sent them; for you know that a true lover can always see the one who sends a phial of atar of roses in the sun glints from its sides. And when you bring me evidence that he has bought it, then, good Kala, you shall have the sash of cashmere."The old woman's cupidity hastened her feet upon her errand.
"Peace be with thee!" said the old woman, dropping a low courtesy to the officer, as he walked near the new buildings of the seraglio.
"Peace be untothee, and the mercy of God and His blessing,[97]good woman!" replied the soldier; but waving his hand, added kindly, "I have no need of your harem trumpery."
"But see this!" said she, showing the elegant case of perfumery. "This holds the essence of the flowers of paradise."
"Go along, old mother! I would have no taste for it if it contained the sweat of the houris."[98]
"But this case was made especially for you, Captain Ballaban."
"Or for any other man whose purse will buy it," replied he, moving away.
The woman followed closely, chattering into his deaf ears.
"But, could you see her that made it, you would not decline to buy, though you gave for it half the gold you found in the coffers of the rich Greeks the dayyour valor won the city, brave Captain; and the cost of it is but a lira;[99]and the maiden is dying of love for you."
"Then why does she not give it to me as a present? Love asks no price," said he, just turning his head.
"That she would, but for fear of offending your honor by slighting your purse," said the quick-witted woman.
"Well said, mother! I warrant that the Beyler Bey, or the noble Kaikji,[100]who made love to you never got you for nothing."
"Indeed, no! He paid the Validé Sultana ten provinces, and a brass buckle besides, to prevent her giving me to Timour; who took it so hard that he would have broken his heart, but that the grief went the wrong way and cracked his legs, and so they call him Timour-lenk. That was the reason he made war on the Ottomans. It was all out of jealousy for me," said she, making a low and mock courtesy. "But if you could see the beautiful odalisk who made this! Her form is as stately as the dome of St. Sophia."
"She's too big and squatty, if she's like that," laughed the officer.
"Her face glows in complexion like the mother of pearl," went on the enthusiastic saleswoman.
"Too hard of cheek!" sneered the other. "Even yours, Hanoum, is not so hard as mother of pearl."
"A neck like alabaster——"
"Cold! too cold! I would as soon think of making love to a gravestone," was the officer's comment.
"And such melting lips——"
"Yes, with blisters! I tell you, old Hanoum, I'm woman proof. Go away!"
"And her eyes shine through her long lashes like the stars through the fir trees on the Balkans."
"Tut! Woman, you never saw the stars shine on the Balkans. They do shine there, though, like the very eyes of Allah. A woman with such eyes would frighten the Padishah himself."
Kala Hanoum took courage at this first evidence of interest on the part of the officer, and plied her advantage.
"And her teeth are as white as the snows in the grotto of Slatiza—"
"The grotto of Slatiza? You mean some bear's cave. But the snows are white there, whiter and purer than anywhere else on earth, except as I once saw them, so red with blood, there in the Pass of Slatiza. But how know you of Slatiza, my good woman?"
"And altogether she is as fair as the bride of Sigismund of Hungary," said Kala, without regarding his question.
"And who was she, Hanoum?" asked the man, with curiosity fully aroused.
"Why, Elizabeth Morsiney, of course."
The officer turned fully toward the woman, and scanned closely her features as if to discover something familiar. Was there not some hint to be picked from these words?
"Hanoum, who told you to say that?"
The woman in turn studied his face before shereplied. She would learn whether the allusions had excited a pleasant interest, or roused antagonism in him. It required but a moment for her to discover that Morsinia had given her some clue that the man would willingly follow, so she boldly replied:
"The odalisk herself has talked to me of these things."
"The odalisk! What is she like?" said he eagerly. "Describe her to me."
"Why, I have been describing her for this half-hour; but you would not listen. So I will go off and do my next errand."
The woman turned away, but, as she intended it should be, the officer was now in the attitude of the beggar.
"Hold, Hanoum, I will buy your perfume—But tell me what she is like in plain words. Is she of light hair?"
"Ay, as if she washed it in the sunshine and dried it in the moonlight, and as glossy as the beams of both."
"Think you she belonged to Stamboul before the siege?"
"Ay, and to the great Scanderbeg before that."
The officer was bewildered and stood thinking, until Kala interrupted him.
"But you said you would buy it, Captain."
"Did I? Well, take your lira."
As the woman took the piece of money she added: "And don't forget that the odalisk said she had dreamed of you since she was a child, and that atsunset if you looked through the phials you would see her face."
"Nonsense, woman!"
"But try it, Sire, and maybe the noble Captain would send something to the beautiful odalisk?"
"Yes, when I see her in the phial I will send her myself as her slave."
The man thrust the silken case into the deep pocket of his flowing vest and went away.
Then began a struggle in Captain Ballaban. Since the capture of the fair girl by the altar of St. Sophia, he had been unable to efface the remembrance of her. She stood before him in his dreams: sometimes just falling beneath the dagger; sometimes in the splendor which he imagined to surround her in the harem; often in mute appeal to him to save her from the nameless horrors which her cry indicated that she dreaded. When waking, his mind was often distracted by thoughts of her. The presence of the Sultan lost its charm, for he had come to look upon him as her owner, and to feel himself in some way despoiled. He was losing his ambition for distant service, and found himself often loitering in the vicinity of the Phranza palace.
This feeling which, perhaps, is experienced by most men, at least once in life, as the spell of a fair face is thrown over them, was associated with a deeper and more serious one in Captain Ballaban.
From the day of her capture until now he had felt almost confident of her identity with his little playmate in the mountain home. She thus linked together his earliest and later life; and, as he thought of her,he thought of the contrast in himself then and now. The things he used to muse about when a child, his feelings then, his purposes, his religious faith, all came back to him, and with a strange strength and fascination. He began to realize that, though he was an enthusiast for both the Moslem belief and the service of the Ottoman, yet he had become such, not in his own free choice, but by the overpowering will of others. At heart he rebelled, while he could not say that he had come to disbelieve a word of the Koran, and was not willing to harbor a purpose against the sovereignty of the Padishah. Still he was compelled to confess to himself that, if the fair woman were indeed his old play-mate, and there was open a way by which he could release her from her captivity, he would risk so much of disloyalty to the Sultan as the attempt should require. Indeed, he argued to himself that, except in the mere form of it, it would not be disloyalty; for what did Mahomet care for one woman more or less in his harem? And was this woman not, after all, more his property than she was that of the Padishah? He had captured her; perhaps twice; and had saved her life in St. Sophia, for only his hand caught her dagger. She was his!
Then he became fond of indulging a day dream. The Sultan sometimes gave the odalisks to his favorite pashas and servants. What if this one should be given to him?
He had gone so far as once to say in response to the Sultan, who twitted him for being in love, that he imagined such to be the case, and only needed the choice of His Majesty to locate the passion. Buthe did not dare to be more specific, lest he might run across some caprice of the Sultan; for he felt sure that so beautiful an odalisk as his captive would not long be without the royal attention.
Old Kala Hanoum's information regarding the fair odalisk allayed the turmoil in Ballaban's breast, in that it gave certainty to his former suspicions. For her words about the stars above the Balkans, the snows of Slatiza, and Elizabeth Morsiney, were not accidental. He had no doubt that the Albanian odalisk was the little lady to whom he once made love in the bowers of blackberry bushes, and vowed to defend like a true knight, waving his wooden sword over the head of the goat he rode as a steed. In the midst of such thoughts and emotions, Captain Ballaban awoke to full self-consciousness, and said to himself——
"I am in love! But I am a fool! For a man with ambition must never be in love, except with himself. Besides, this woman I love is perhaps half in my imagination; for I never yet caught a full view of her face. As for her being my little Morsinia—Illusion! No! this is no illusion! But what if she be the same! Captain Ballaban, are you going to be a soldier, or a lover? Take your choice; for you can't be both, at least not an Ottoman soldier and a lover of a Christian girl."
Rubbing his hand through his red hair, as if to pull out these fantasies, he strode down to the water's edge, and, tossing a Kaikji a few piasters, was in a moment darting like an arrow across the harbor;—a customary way the captain had of getting rid of any vexation. The cool evening breeze wooed the over-thoughtfulnessfrom his brain, or he spurted it out through his muscles into the oar blades, which dropped it into the water of oblivion.
He was scarcely aware that he was becoming more tranquil, when a quick cry of a boat keeper showed that he had almost run down the old tower of white marble which rises from a rocky islet, just away from the mainland on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.
"Kiss-Koulessi, the Maiden's Tower, this," he muttered. "Well, I have fled from the fortress of one maiden to run against that of another. Fate is against me. Perhaps I had better submit. Why not? Wasn't Charis a valiant general of the old Greeks, who sent him here, once on a time, to help the Byzantines? Well! He had a wife, the fair Boiidion, the 'heifer-eyed maiden.' And here she lies beneath this tower. The world would have forgotten General Charis, but for his wife Damalis, whom they have remembered these two thousand years. A wifemaybe the making of a man's fame. If the Sultan would give me my pick of the odalisks I think I would venture."
These thoughts were not interrupted, only supplemented, by the sun's rays, now nearly horizontal, as striking the water far up the harbor of Stamboul, they poured over it and made it seem indeed a Golden Horn, the open end of which extended into the Bosphorus. The ruddy glow tipped the dome of St. Sophia as with fire; transformed the gray walls of the Genoese tower at Galata into a huge porphyry column, sparkling with a million crystals; and made the white marble of the Maiden's Tower blush like the neck ofa living maiden, when kissed for the first time by the hot lips of her lover.
So the Captain thought: and was reminded to inspect the silken treasure he had purchased. He would look through the phials, as—who knows—he might see the face of her who sent them. If looking at the red orb of the sun, just for an instant, made his eyes see a hundred sombre suns dancing along the sky, it would not be strange if his long meditation upon a certain radiant maiden should enable him to see her, at least in one shadowy reproduction of his inner vision.
He drew the silken case from his pocket. It was wrought with real skill, and worth the lira, even if it had contained nothing, and meant nothing. The little phials were held up one by one, and divided the sun's beams into prismatic hues as they passed through the twisted glass. In each was a drop or two of sweet essence, like an imprisoned soul, waiting to be released, that it might fly far and wide and distill its perfume as a secret blessing.
"But this one is imperfect," muttered the Captain, as he held up a phial that was nearly opaque. It was larger than the others, and contained a tightly wrapped piece of paper. "The clue!" said he, and, after a moment's hesitation, broke the phial. Unwinding the paper, he read:
"You are Michael, son of Milosch. I am Morsinia, child of Kabilovitsch. For the love of Jesu! save me from this hell. We can communicate by this means."
It was a long row that Captain Ballaban took that night upon the Bosphorus. Yet he went not far, butback and forth around the new seraglio point, scarcely out of sight of the clear-cut outline of the Phranza Palace, as it stood out against the sky above the ordinary dwellings of the city. The dawn began to peer over the hills back of Chalcedon, and to send its scouts of ruddy light down the side of Mt. Olympus, when he landed. But the length of the night to him could not be measured by hours. He had lived over again ten years. He had gone through a battle which tired his soul as it had never been tired under the flashing of steel and the roar of culverin. Only once before, when, as a mere child he was conquered by the terrors of the Janizaries' discipline, had he suffered so intensely. Yet the battle was an undecided one. He staggered up the hill from the landing to the barracks with the cry of conflict ringing through his soul. "What shall I do?" On the one side were the habit of loyalty, his oath of devotion to the Padishah, all his earthly ambition which blazed with splendors just before him—for he was the favorite of both the Sultan and the soldiers—and all that the education of his riper years had led him to hope for in another world. On the other side were this new passion of love which he could no longer laugh down, and the appeal of a helpless fellow creature for rescue from what he knew was injustice, cruelty and degradation;—the first personal appeal a human being had ever made to him, and he the only human being to whom she could appeal. To heed this cry of Morsinia he knew would be treason to his outward and sworn loyalty. To refuse to heed it he felt would be treason to his manhood. What could he do? Neither force was preponderating.
The battle wavered.
What did he do? What most people do in such circumstances—he temporized: said, "I will do nothing to-day." Like a genuine Turk he grunted to himself, "Bacaloum!" "We shall see!"
But though he arranged and ordered an armistice between his contending thoughts, there was no real cessation of hostilities. Arguments battered against arguments. Feelings of the gentler sort mined incessantly beneath those which he would have called the braver and more manly. And the latter counter-mined: loyalty against love: ambition against pity.
But all the time the gentler ones were gaining strength. On their side was the advantage of a definite picture—a lovely face; of an immediate and tangible project—the rescue of an individual. The danger of the enterprise weighed nothing with him, or, at least, it was counter-balanced by the inspiriting anticipation of an adventure, an exploit:—the very hazard rather fascinating than repelling. Yet he had not decided.
Captain Ballaban was summoned by the Sultan.
"Well, comrade," said Mahomet, familiarly throwing his arm about his friend, much to the disgust of the Capee Aga, the master of ceremonies, throughwhom alone it was the custom of the Sultans to be approached.
"Well! comrade, I gave a necklace worth a thousand liras to a girl who pleased me in the harem."
"Happy girl, to have pleased your Majesty. That was better than the necklace," replied Ballaban.
"Think you so? Let me look you through and through. Think you there is nothing better in this world than to please the Padishah? Ah! it is worth a kingdom to hear that from a man like you, Ballaban. Women say it; but they can do nothing for me. They dissipate my thoughts with their pleasuring me. They make me weak. I have a mind to abolish the whole harem. But to have a man, a strong man, a man with a head to plot for empire and to marshal armies, a man with an arm like thine to make love to me! Ah, that is glorious, comrade. But let me make no mistake about it. You love me? Do you really think no gold, no honors, could give you so much pleasure as pleasing me? Swear it! and by the throne of Allah! I will swear that you shall share my empire. But to business!" dropping his voice, and in the instant becoming apparently forgetful of his enthusiasm for his friend.
"We make a campaign against Belgrade. I must go in person. Yet Scanderbeg holds out in Albania. It is useless meeting him in his stronghold. You cannot fight a lion by crawling into his den. He must be trapped. Work out a plan."
"I have one which may be fruitful," instantly replied Captain Ballaban.
"Ah! so quick?"
"No, of long hatching, Sire. I made it in my first campaign in Albania with your royal father. The young Voivode Amesa is nephew to Scanderbeg. He is restless under the authority of the great general: has committed some crime which, if known, would bring him to ruin: is popular with the people of the north."
"Capital!" said Mahomet eagerly. "I see it all. Work it out! Work it out! He may have anything, if only Scanderbeg can be put out of the way, and the country be under our suzerainty. Work it out! And the suzerain revenues shall all be yours; for by the bones of Othman! there is not a province too great for you if only you can settle affairs among the Arnaouts.
"And now a gift! I will send you the very queen of the harem."
"My thanks, Padishah, but I——" began Ballaban, when he was cut short by the Sultan.
"Not a word! not a word! I know you decline to practice the softer virtues, and prefer to live like a Greek monk. But you must take her. If you like her not, drown her. But you shall like her. By the dimple in the chin of Ayesha! she is the most perfect woman in the empire."
"But," interposed Ballaban, "I am a Janizary, and it is not permitted a Janizary to marry."
"A fig for what is permitted! When the Padishah gives, he grants permission to enjoy his gifts. Besides, you need not marry. You can own her; sell her if you don't like her. But you must take her."
"Of what nation is she? Perhaps I could not understand her tongue," objected Ballaban.
"So much the better," said Mahomet. "Women are not made to talk. But this woman is an Arnaout, from Scanderbeg's country."
Captain Ballaban could scarcely believe his ears.
This then is Morsinia! To have her, to save her without breach of loyalty! This was too much. With strangely fluttering heart he acquiesced, and his thanks were drawn from the bottom of his soul.
The next day he sought Kala Hanoum, and sent by her to Morsinia a gem enclosed in a pretty casket, with which was a note, reading,—
"It shall be so. Patience for a few days, and our hearts shall be made glad."
How strangely Fate had planned for him! It must have been Fate; for only powers supernal could have made the gift of the Padishah so fitting to his heart. No chance this! His secret passion, unbreathed to any ear on earth, had been a prayer heard in heaven!
Ballaban was now an undoubting Moslem that he found Kismet on the side of his inclinations. He belonged to Islâm, the Holy Resignation; resigned to the will of Providence, since Providence seemed just now to have resigned itself to his will. He was surprised at the ecstatic character his piety was taking on. He could have become a dervish: indeed his head was already whirling with the intoxication of his prospects.
Captain Ballaban, like a good Moslem, went to the Mosque. He made his prayer toward the Mihrab;but his eyes and thoughts wandered to the spot at the side of it, where he had saved the life of Morsinia; and he thanked Allah with full soul that he had been allowed to save her for himself.
The Padishah, the following day, bade Ballaban repair to a house in the city, and be in readiness to receive the gift of heaven and of his own imperial grace. On reaching the place an elderly woman—the Koulavous, an inevitable attendant upon marriages—conducted him through the selamlik and mabeyn to the haremlik of the house. The bride or slave, as he pleased to take her, rose from the divan to meet him. Though her thick veil completely enveloped her person, it could not conceal her superb form and marvellous grace. His hand trembled with the agitation of his delight as he exercised the authority of a husband or master, and reverently raised the veil.
He stood as one paralyzed in amazement. She was not Morsinia. She was Elissa!
He dropped the veil.
Strange spirits seemed to breathe themselves in succession through his frame.
First came the demon of disappointment, checking his blood, stifling him. Not that any other mortal knew of his shattered hopes; but it was enough that he knew them. And with the consciousness of defeat, a horrible chagrin bit and tore his heart, as if it had been some dragon with teeth and claws.
Then came the demon of rage; wild rage; wanting to howl out its fury. He might have smitten the veiled form, had not the latter, overcome by herbewilderment and the scorn of him she supposed to have been a lover, already fallen fainting at his feet.
Then rose in Ballaban's breast the demon of vengeance against the Sultan. Had Mahomet been present he surely had felt the steel of the outraged man. Only the habit of self-control and quiet review of his own passions prevented his seeking the Padishah, and taking instant vengeance in his blood.
Then there came into him a great demon of impiety, and breathed a curse against Allah himself through his lips.
But finally a new spirit hissed into his ears. It was Nemesis. He felt that this was the moment when a just retribution had returned upon himself. For he well knew the face that lay weeping beneath the heap of bejewelled lace and silk. It was that of the Dodola, whom he had flung into the arms of the Albanian Voivode Amesa when he was awaiting the embrace of some more princely maiden. And now the sarcasm of fate had thrown her into his arms.
"Allah! Thou wast even with me this time," he confessed back of his clenched teeth.
"But doubtless," he thought, "it was through the information I gave to the Aga that this girl has been stolen away from Amesa."
"Would that heaven rid me of her so easily!" he muttered. "Yet that is easy; thanks to our Moslem law, which says, 'Thou mayest either retain thy wife with humanity or dismiss her with kindness.'[101]Yet I cannot dismiss her with kindness. She can not go back to the royal harem. If I dismiss her I harmher, and Allah's curse will be fatal if I wrong this creature again—to say nothing of the Padishah's if I throw away his gift. I must keep her. Well! Bacaloum! Bacaloum! It is not so bad a thing after all to have a woman like that for one's slave; for a wife without one's heart is but a slave. Well!" He raised the veil again from the now sitting woman.
The mutually stupid gaze carried them both through several years which had passed since they had parted at Amesa's castle.
Elissa was easily induced to tell her story. Assuming that it might be already known to her new lord, she gave it correctly; and therefore it differed substantially from that she had told to Morsinia. She had been but a few days in Amesa's home when he discovered that she was not the person he had presumed her to be. In an outburst of rage he would have taken her life, but was led by an old priest to adopt a more merciful method of ridding himself of her. To have returned her to the village above the Skadar would have filled the country with the scandal, and made Amesa the laughing stock of all. She was therefore sent within the Turkish lines, with the certainty of finding her way to some far-distant country. Her beauty saved her from a common fate, and she was sent as a gift to the young Padishah by an old general, into whose hands she had fallen.
Ballaban assured the woman of his protection, and also that the time would come when he would compensate her for any grief she had endured through his fault. In the meantime she was retained in the luxurious comfort of her new abode.