But how could he accomplish it? He must lay his plan, for it were worse than useless to start single-handed without one. He must plot his tragedy before he began to execute it.
He sat down amid the ruins of the hamlet—amid the ruins of his happiness and hopes—to plot. But he could devise nothing. His attempts were likewriting on the air. He sat in half stupor; his power to think crushed by the dead weight of mingled grief and the sense of impotency.
But suddenly he started——
"Fool! fool, that I am, to waste the moments! This very night it may be done."
He hastily stripped the body of a dead Turkish soldier, and, rolling the uniform into a compact bundle, plunged with it through the thicket and up the steep mountain side.
The valley in which the little hamlet lay, as well as the ravine by which it was approached, was exceedingly tortuous. The stream which seemed to have made these in its ceaseless windings, sometimes almost doubled upon itself, as if the spirit of the waters were the prey of the spirit of the hills that closed in upon its path, and thus it sought to elude its pursuer. Though it was fully twenty miles from the demolished konak to where the narrow valley debouched into the open plain, it was not more than a quarter of this distance in a straight line between those points. The interjacent space was, however, impassable to any except those familiar with its trackless rocks. From a distance the mountain lying between seemed a sheer precipice. But Constantine knew every crevice up which a man could climb; thevarious ledges that were connected, if not by balconies broad enough for the foot, at least by contiguous trunks of trees, balustrades of tough mountain laurel, or ropes of wild vine. He could cross this wall of rock in an hour or two, but the Turkish raiders would occupy the bulk of the day in making the circuit of the road. Indeed they would in all probability not leave the security of the great ravine, and strike the highway, until night-fall; for the terror of Scanderbeg's ubiquity was always before the Turks. It was this thought that had prompted Constantine's sudden action when he started up from his despairing reverie amid the embers of his home.
It was still early in the afternoon when, having passed with the celerity of a goat among the crags, he looked down from the further side of the great barrier upon the Turkish company. He stood upon a ledge almost above their heads; and never did an eagle's eye take in a brood upon which he was about to swoop, more sharply than did Constantine's observe the details of the camp below him.
There were the horses tethered. Yonder was a group of officers playing at dice. In a circle of guards beyond, a few women and children; and among them—could he mistake that form?
The soldiers were preparing their mess. Some were picking the feathers from fowls; others building fires. Then his surmise had been correct, that they would not leave the valley until night.
Constantine donned the Turkish uniform he had brought with him, and climbed down the mountain. Sentinels were posted here and there upon bold pointsfrom which they might get a view of the great plain beyond. Toward this they kept a constant watch, as one of them remarked to his comrade upon a neighboring pinnacle of rock: "Lest some of Scanderbeg's lightning might be lying about loose." Posing like a sentinel whenever he was likely to be observed, Constantine passed through their lines, the guards being too far apart to detect one another's faces. Hailed by a sentinel, he gave back the playful salute with a wave of his hand.
Emboldened by the success of his disguise, he descended to a ledge so near the group of officers that he could easily hear their conversation. They did not use the pure Turkish speech, but sometimes interspersed it with Servian, for many of the officers, as well as the men, in the Sultan's armies were from the provinces where the Turkish tongue was hardly known. The common soldiers in this group Constantine observed used the Servian altogether.
"Good!" said he to himself, "point number one in my plot."
"The highest throw wins the choice of the captives," cried one of the officers. "What say you, Oski?"
"Agreed," replied the one addressed, "but she will never be your houri in paradise, Lovitsch?"
"Why not?"
"Because the Koran forbids casting lots?"
"Well," replied his comrade. "I will take my beauty now, in this world, rather than wait for the next. So here goes!"
"By Khalif Omar's big toe! You have won, Oski. Which will you take?"
"The little one with the bright black eyes," replied Oski; "unless you can prevail upon Captain Ballaban to give me his. The man who owns that girl will never have any houris in paradise. They would all die for jealousy."
"Captain Ballaban is his name," murmured Constantine to himself. "Good! Point number two in my plot."
"I would not have her for a gift," said Lovitsch, "for she has a strange eye—the evil eye perhaps—at least there is something in it I cannot fathom. She looks straight through a man. I touched her under the chin, when those gentle blue orbs burst with fire. There was as much of a change in her as there is in one of our new-fashioned cannon when it is touched off; quiet one moment, and sending a bullet through you the next. She's the daughter of the devil, sure."
"You are a bold soldier, Lovitsch, to be afraid of a girl," laughed his comrade. "I would like the chance of owning that beauty. If I could not manage her I could sell her. She would bring a bag of gold at Adrianople. Captain Ballaban will probably give her as a present to Prince Mahomet. He can afford to do so, for the prince has shown him wonderful favors. Think of a young Janizary, who has not seen nineteen summers, with a captain's rank, and commanding such greybeards as we!"
"No doubt the prince favors him," replied Lovitsch, "but that will not account for his advance in the Janizary's corps. Nothing but real grit and genius gets ahead among those fellows. The prince can give his jewels and gold, but he could not secure a Janizary'spromotion to a soldier any more than he could bring him to disgrace without the consent of the Aga. No, comrade, Ballaban was born a soldier, and has won every thread in his captain's badge by some exploit or sage counsel. But I wish he was back with us. I like not being left in charge of such a motley troop as this. If Scanderbeg should close up the mouth of this ravine with a few score of his spavined cavalry, we would be like so many eggs in a bag, to be smashed together, without Ballaban's wit to get us out."
"I think the captain has returned, for, if I mistake not, I saw his red head a little while ago glowing like a sunset on the crag yonder," replied Oski, looking up toward the spot where Constantine was sitting.
——"Good! said Constantine, holding his council of war with his own thoughts. "The captain looks like me before sunset. Perhaps I can look like him after sunset. One advantage of having a head tiled in red! But I will not show it again. Point number three in my plot."——
"Quite likely the captain has returned, and is prowling about, inspecting everything, from the horses'-tails to our very faces, that he may read our thoughts. That is his way," said Lovitsch, glancing around.
"Which way did he go?"
"You might as well ask which track the Prophet's horse took through the air when he carried his rider on the night journey to heaven. A messenger from the chief Aga met him just as we were finishing the fight last night, and, with a word turning over the command to me, he mounted his horse and was off.Perhaps he heads some other raid to-night; or, for aught I know, may be conferring with Scanderbeg in the disguise of a Frankish general; for that Ballaban's brain is as prolific of schemes and tricks as this ant's nest is full of eggs"—turning over a stone as he spoke.
The afternoon waned, and, as the night fell, preparations were made for the march. When it was dark a light bugle note called in the sentinels, and the company moved forward.
In the gathering gloom Constantine approached the extreme edge of the camp, where those who were to bring up the rear had just mounted. A soldier, somewhat separated from the others, was leading several horses; either a relay in case of accident to the others, or those animals whose saddles had been emptied during the fight at the konak. Constantine's appearance was evidently a surprise to the soldier, who eyed him closely, but made no movement indicating suspicion beyond that of a rather pleased curiosity. The man made a low salâm, bowing his turban to the saddle bow, and addressed him—
"Will you not mount, Sire?" Without responding Constantine leaped into a saddle.
"You will pardon me, Captain," continued thesoldier. "You are welcome back, for we are in better heart when you are with us."
"Thanks, good fellow," said Constantine, "but I have not returned yet—at least my return must not be known to the troops until the morning. We will take your tongue out if you tell any one I am back without bidding."
The man gave a quick glance as if perplexed. Constantine's hand was upon his dagger. But the soldier's doubt was relieved as he seemed to be confident of the familiar form of his captain; and he explained his apparent suspicion by quickly adding—
"You speak the Servian excellent well, Captain."
"One must get used to it, and every other tongue, in commanding such a mixed crew as the Sultan gathers into his army," said Constantine.
"You Janizaries are wonderful men," replied the soldier. "You know all languages. There was the little Aga I once"—
"No matter about that now," said Constantine, interrupting him. "I want you for a special duty. Can I trust you to do me an errand? If you do it well you will be glad of it hereafter."
"Ay, ay, Sire! with my life; and my lips as mute as the horse's."
"I captured a girl last night. She knows something I would find out by close questioning. I must have her brought to the rear."
"Ay! the girl Koremi holds?"
"Yes, tell Koremi to loiter a little with her until I come up. We must not go far from this defile before I find out what she knows, if I have to discover itwith my dagger in her heart; for there are traitors among us. Last night there were Arnaouts dressed as Moslems in the fight."
"That I know," said the soldier, "for I tripped over a fellow myself, hiding in the bushes, who swore at me in as good round Arnaout tongue as they speak in hell. I ran him through and found a Giaour corslet under his jacket. If there are traitors among us we will broil them over our first camp-fire, that they may scent hell before they get there."
"You see then why I must find out what I can at once," said the assumed captain. "Some of our men are in league with the Arnaouts. I can find out from that girl every one of them. Impress this upon Koremi; and if he hesitates to let the girl drift to the rear, you can tell him that he will be suspected of being in league with the rascals."
Constantine took the ropes which held the horses the man was leading; and, bidding him to haste, but be cautious that no one but Koremi should know the message, followed slowly behind.
It was nearly an hour later when the form of the soldier appeared in the road just before him.
"Right!" said Constantine.
"Right!" was the response, first to the assumed captain, then repeated to some one behind him. Two other forms appeared; one of them a woman.
Anticipating his orders, the second trooper untied a rope from about his own waist, and handed it, together with the rein of the horse the woman rode, to Constantine. Then, making a low obeisance, the two troopers withdrew a little distance to the rear.
The other end of the rope which Constantine held was about the waist of the captive. Drawing the led horse close to his own, and dropping his turban more over his face, Constantine closely scrutinized the features of the woman. She was Morsinia. It was difficult for him to repress the excitement and delay the revelation of his true person, but the hazard of the least cry of surprise or recognition on her part nerved him to coolness.
"Where are you taking me? If you have the courage, kill me," said the girl.
Constantine replied only by whistling a snatch of an Albanian air.
"Are you an Albanian renegade?" continued the girl. "Could you not be content to sell yourself to fight for the Turk against other enemies, but must be a double traitor, and kill and kidnap your own kind?"
The whistling continued. But as the soldiers were a little removed, he said in a low voice, disguising his natural tones:
"I am an Albanian, and if you will not speak, but only obey, I can save you."
"Jesu grant you are true!" was the tremulous response.
"This will prove it," muttered he, reaching toward her, and with his knife cutting a broad strap which bound her limbs to the saddle. "If tied elsewhere, here is the knife."
The way, which had been narrowed by the projection of the mountains on either side, now widened a little. Constantine knew the spot well. There hadonce been a mill and peasant's hut there, and now quite a plat of grass was growing from the soft soil. The eye could not discern it, for the darkness was rayless. But Constantine remembered the grassy stretch was just round the point of rock they were passing. The horses were walking slowly, being allowed by their riders to pick their way along the stony road. As they turned the rock a strong wind rushed through the ravine, wailing a requiem over the now deserted settlement and the dead leaves of last year, which it whirled in eddies; and singing a lullaby through the trees to the new-born leaves of the spring time, which were rocked on the cradling branches. This, together with the clatter of the horses' feet before and behind them, enabled Constantine to draw the captive's horse and his own upon the soft turf without being heard. Halting them at a few yards' distance, they allowed the men who had followed them to pass by, and sat in silence until the lessening sound told them that the soldiers had made another turn in the road. Then, wheeling the horses, Constantine gave loose rein back over the track they had come. After a short ride he dismounted, and closely examining the way, led the horses to one side, up a path, and down again to a little plateau, perhaps a furlong from the main road, where a grazing patch would keep them from being betrayed by the neighing. He dreaded the fatigue of further journey to his comrade; for even his own ordinarily tireless frame was beginning to feel the drain of the terrible night and day they had passed through.
Constantine threw off his turban and stretched hisstrong arms to lift the captive from her horse, exclaiming with delight in his own familiar tones,—
"I am no Albanian, dear Morsinia, but—"
"Constantine!" she cried.
He laid an almost lifeless form upon the turf, for the shock of the revelation had been too much for her jaded nerves and excited brain. Unrolling the cloth of his turban he spread it over her person, while his own breast was her pillow. Slowly she recovered strength and self-command.
In a few words the mutual stories of the hours of their separation were told. Morsinia had been treated with exceeding kindness and respect, as the captive of the chief officer of the expedition, who seemed to be a person of some distinction, though she had not seen him. Constantine insisted upon his companion's seeking sleep, but by his inquiries, did as much as her own thoughts to keep her awake; so that at the dawn they confessed that the eyes of neither had been closed. The necessity of procuring food led them to start at daybreak for the nearest settlement. They descended to the road and retraced the course of the preceding night; for it was useless to return to the wrecked hamlet. They had gone but a short distance when they heard the sound of a body of cavalry directly in front of them, riding rapidly up the valley. There was no time to avoid the approaching riders either by flight or concealment. Constantine said hastily,
"Remember, if they are Turks, I too am a Turk, and you are my captive. If they are friends, all is well. Stay where you are, and I will ride forward to meet them."
The newcomers proved to be a detachment of Albanians. Constantine was instantly captured notwithstanding his declaration that his dress was only assumed.
"Aha! you are a Christian now in a Turk's skin, are you? But yesterday you were a Turk in a Christian's feathers," was the taunt with which he was greeted by one of the foremost riders, who continued his bantering. "Your face is honest, if your heart is not, you Moslem devil; for your ugly features will not lie though your tongue does. I would know that square jaw and red head equally well now, were it under the tiara of the pope instead of under the turban; and I would cut your throat if you carried St. Peter's key in your girdle; you change-skinned lizard!"
"Who is he?" cried the horsemen, gathering about.
"Why! the very knave who escaped us about sundown yesterday, after spying our camp; and he has the impudence to ask us to take him prisoner that he may spy us again."
"Let us hamstring him!" cried another, "and, unless St. Christopher has turned Moslem in paradise and helps the rascal, he will find no legs to run away with again."
"Set him up for a mark when we halt," proposed a third. "A ducat to him whose arrow can split his ear without tearing the cheek at forty paces!"
Constantine was helpless as they adjusted a halter about his neck, with which to lead him at the side of a horseman, the butt of the scurrilous wit and sharper spear-points of his half mad and half merry captors.
They had gone but a few paces when the colonel commanding the detachment made his way through the troopers to the front. He was a venerable man with long flowing white beard. His bodily strength seemed to come solely from the vitality of nerve and the dominance of his spirit; for he was well worn with years.
"What is this noise about?" he asked sternly.
Before any could reply he stared with a moment's incredulity and wonder at Constantine, who relieved his doubts by recognizing him.
"Colonel Kabilovitsch!" cried he, doffing his turban as if it had been a Christian cap.[48]"Your men are playful fellows, as frolicksome as a cat with a mole."
"But why are you here, my boy? and why this disguise?" interrupted Kabilovitsch.
The explanation was given in a few words;—on the one side the story of the slaughter at the village, and the adventures of Morsinia and Constantine; on the other of how the news of the Turkish raid reached the camp at Sfetigrade about noon, and the rescuing party had started at once under Kabilovitsch's command, and ridden at breakneck speed during the entire night in the hope of meeting the Turks before they emerged from the narrow valley.
Learning now that they were too late for this, Kabilovitsch halted his command, and with Constantinesought the place where Morsinia was in waiting. When the old man heard that the first assailants of the hamlet had been Albanians in disguise his rage was furious; and through his incautious words Morsinia learned more of her relation to the voivode Amesa than her reputed father had ever told her; for the mystery of her family had never been fully explained in her hearing. It had heretofore been deemed best that the girl should not be made the custodian of her own secret, lest her childish prattle might reveal it to others. Yet she had guessed the greater part of the problem of her identity. But Kabilovitsch was now led by the new curiosity which his inadvertent expressions had awakened in her, as well as by the remarkably discreet and cautious judgment she had displayed, to tell her the entire story of her own life. This was not, however, until orders had been passed through the troop for rest, and the fires hastily kindled along the roadside had prepared their refreshing breakfasts.
Removed from the hearing of all others, Kabilovitsch rehearsed to Morsinia and Constantine what the reader already knows of her extraction and early residence in Albania. He advised her to extreme caution against the slightest reference to herself as the young Mara de Streeses, and that she should insist upon her identity as the daughter of the Servian peasant Milosch and the sister of Constantine.
Morsinia buried her fair face in the gray beard of the old man, as years ago she had done when they sat upon the door-stone of their Balkan home, and sobbed as if his words had orphaned her. In a few moments she looked up into his fine but wrinkledface, and drawing it down to hers, kissed him as she used to do, and said lovingly,
"I must believe your words; but my heart holds you as my father: for father you have been to me, and child I shall be to you so long as God gives us to one another."
The old man pressed her temples between his rough hands, and looked long into her deep blue eyes, as he said slowly,
"Ay, father and mother both was I to thee, my child, from that terrible night, sixteen years ago. My rough arms have often cradled thee. But now you have a nobler and stronger protector in our country's father, the great Castriot. To him you must go; for it is no longer safe in these lonely valleys. Under his strong arm and all-watchful eye you will be amply protected. There are nameless enemies of the old house of De Streeses whom we must avoid as vigilantly as we avoid the Turks."
It was determined that Constantine should make a detour with her, and approach Sfetigrade from the south, giving out that they were fugitives from the lower country, which the enemy had also been raiding.
The colonel stated to his under officers, in hearing of the men, that the young Turk was really one of Castriot's scouts, and that the young woman was an accomplice. Borrowing from one and another sufficient Albanian costumes to substitute for Constantine's disguise, Kabilovitsch dismissed the couple.
There was no end to the badgering the officious soldier who had first arrested the scout received at thehands of his comrades. They jeered at his double mistake in taking the fellow yesterday as a Turkish spy in Albanian uniform, because he had slipped away so shrewdly, and now again being duped by him a real Albanian in Turkish disguise. Some threw the halter over the fellow's neck; others made mimic preparation for hamstringing him; while one presented him with an immense scroll of bark purporting to be his commission as chief of the department of secret service, finishing the mock presentation by shivering the bark over the fellow's head. The unhappy man contented himself philosophically:—
"No wonder General Castriot baffles the enemy when his own men cannot understand him. You were all as badly twisted by that fellow's tricks as I was. But I will never interfere with that red head again, though he wears a turban and is cutting the throat of the general himself."
Two days later a beautiful girl accompanied by her brother—who was as unlike her as the thorn bush is unlike the graceful flowering clematis that festoons its limbs, both of them in apparent destitution, refugees from near the Greek border—entered the town of Sfetigrade. By order of the general, to whom their piteous story was told by Kabilovitsch—for he had chanced, so he said, to come upon them as they were inquiring their way to the town—they were quartered with a family whose house was not far from the citadel. For some weeks the girl was an invalid. A raging fever had been induced by over excitement and the subsequent fatigue of the long journey. Colonel Kabilovitsch could not refrain from expressing hisinterest in the young woman by almost daily calls at the cottage where she lay. One day, when it was supposed by the surgeon that she might not live, the old man was observed to stand long at the cot upon which the sick girl was lying. A look of agony overspread his features when the surgeon, who had been feeling her pulse, laid her almost nerveless hand beneath the blanket.
"Dear, good old man," said the housewife. "I warrant he has laid some pretty one of his own in the ground. Maybe a child, or a lover, sometime back in the years. These things do come to us over and over again."
The brother of the sick girl scarcely noticed the visits of Colonel Kabilovitsch, except to respond to his questions when no one but himself could give the exact information about the patient's condition; for none watched with her so incessantly.
But her marvellous natural vitality enabled the sufferer to outlive the fever; and, as she became convalescent, the old colonel seemed to forget her. His interest was apparently in her suffering rather than in herself.
The battlements of Sfetigrade lay, like a ruffled collar, upon enormous shoulders of rock rising high above the surrounding country. Over them rose, like a massive head, the citadel with its bartizans projecting as a crown about the brow. The rock upon which the fortification stood was scarped toward the valley, so that it could be climbed only with the help of ladders, even though the assailants were unresisted by its defenders. The few spots which nature had left unguarded were now choked with abattis, or overlooked by bastions so skilfully constructed as to need far less courage and strength for their defence than were possessed by the bands of Dibrian and Epirot patriots who fought from behind them.
The assaults which Sultan Amurath launched against the place had been as frequent as the early summer showers, and his armies were beaten to pieces as the rain rebounded in spray and ran in streams from the rocks. The chagrin of the baffled Sultan reflected itself in the discouragement of his generals and the demoralization of their men. The presence of his majesty could not silence the mutual recriminations, the loud and rancorous strife with which brave officers sought to lay upon one another the responsibility for their defeat, rather than confess that the daily disasters were due to the superior genius commanding among their foes. Especially was the envy of the leaders of the other corps and branches of the service excited against the Janizaries, to whose unrivalledtraining and daring were due whatever minor victories had been won, and whatever exploits worthy of mention had been performed.
A lofty tent, whose projecting centre-pole bore the glittering brass crescent and star, and before the entrance to which a single horse-tail hung from the long spear, denoted the headquarters of a Sanjak Bey. In front of the tent walked two men in eager, and not altogether amiable, conversation. The one was the Bey, whose huge turban of white, inwound with green, indicated that his martial zeal was supplemented by equal enthusiasm for his faith; and that he had added to the fatigue of many campaigns against the infidels the toil of a more monotonous, though more satisfactory, pilgrimage to Mecca. His companion was an Aga of the Janizaries, second only in rank to the chief Aga.
The latter was speaking with a wrath which his courteous words but ill concealed—
"I do not impugn your honor or the sincerity of your motives, Caraza-Bey, in making your accusation against our Captain Ballaban; but the well-known jealousy which is everywhere manifested against our corps compels me to believe not a single word to the discredit of him or any of the Yeni-Tscheri without indubitable proof. I would allow the word of Captain Ballaban—knowing him so well as I do—to outweigh the oaths on the Koran of a score of those who, like yourself, have reason to be jealous of his superior courage."
"But your upstart captain's guilt can be proved, if not to your personal satisfaction, at least before thosewho will not care to ask your assent to their judgment," replied the other, not attempting to veil his hatred of the Aga, any more than his purpose of crushing the one of whom they were speaking.
"What will the lies of a whole sanjak of your hirelings avail against the honor of a Janizary?" replied the Aga. "If two horse-tails[49]hung from the standard yonder, I would not publicly disgrace Captain Ballaban by so much as ordering an inquiry at your demand. The Janizaries will take no suggestion from any but the Padishah."
"A curse on the brag of the Janizaries! The arrogancy of the Christian renegades needs better warrant than Ballaban can give it," sneered the Bey. "If you like, let the matter rest as it is. The whole army believes that one of your dervish-capped heroes—the best of the brood, I imagine—deserted his comrades in battle, and all for the sake of a captive girl."
"It is a lie!" shouted the Aga, drawing his sword upon him.
The attitude of the two officers drew a crowd, who rushed from all sides to witness the duel. Both were masters of sword play, so that neither obtained any sanguinary advantage before they were separated by the arrival of the chief Aga, who forbade his subaltern to continue the conflict. Upon hearing the occasion of the affray, the chief said:
"The trial of Captain Ballaban shall be had, with the publication of the fact that Caraza-Bey has assumed the position of his accuser; and, in the eventof his charge proving false, he shall atone for his malice by submitting to any punishment the captain may indicate; and the force of the Janizaries shall execute it, though they cut the throats of his entire command in order to do it. We must first vindicate the honor of the corps, and then take vengeance upon its detractors. I demand that Caraza-Bey make good his charge to-morrow at the sixth hour, or accept the judgment of coward and vilifier, which our court shall then proclaim to the army."
At the appointed time on the day following, the tent of the chief Aga was the gathering place of the notable officers of the corps. Without, it differed from hundreds of other tents only in its size, and in the pennant indicating the rank of its occupant. Within, it was lined with a canopy of finest silk and woollen tapestries, on the blue background of which crescents and stars, cimeters and lance-heads, battle-axes, shields, turbans and dervish caps were artistically grouped with texts from the Koran, and skilfully wrought in braids and threads of gold. The canvas sides of the tent were now removed, making it an open pavilion, and inviting inspection and audience from any who desired to approach. A divan was at one side, and made a semicircle of about half the tent. Upon this sat the chief Aga, his cushion slightly raised above those at his side, which were occupied by the agas of lower rank. A group of officers filled the space beneath the tent; and soldiers of all grades made a dense crowd for several rods beyond into the open air.
The chief Aga waved his hand to an attendant, andthe military court was formally opened. Several cases were disposed of before that of Captain Ballaban was called.
There was led in a stalwart soldier of middle age. Two witnesses deposed that, in a recent assault upon the enemy's works at Sfetigrade, when there was poured upon the assailants a shower of arrows and stones from the battlements above, this man, without orders from his officer, had cried, "Give way! Give way!" and that to this cry and his example were due the confusion of ranks and the retreat which followed.
The chief Aga turned and looked silently upon the man, awaiting his reply to the accusation. The accused was speechless. The chief then turned to the Aga to whose division the culprit belonged, that he might hear any plea that he should be pleased to offer for the soldier; but the Aga's face was stolid with indifference. The chief, without raising his head, sat in silence for a moment, as in solemn act of weighing the case. He then muttered an invocation of Allah as the Supreme Judge. He paused. A gleam of light circled above the man; a hissing sound of the cimeter and a thud were heard. The culprit's head rolled to the ground. His trunk swayed for an instant and fell.
This scene was apparently of little interest to the spectators. A second case only tested their patience. One was charged with having failed to deliver an order from the colonel of his orta, or regiment, to a captain of one of the odas, or companies. Both these officers testified, the one to having sent the order, the other to not having received it, and on this account tohave failed to occupy a certain position with his men in a recent engagement with the enemy. The culprit alleged that it was impossible to deliver the order because of the enemy's movements at the time. The Aga of the division, being appealed to by the silent gaze of the judge, simply said:
"The man is brave;" when, by a motion of the hand, the judge dismissed the soldier together with the case.
The expectation not only of common soldiers, but also of officials, led them to crane their necks to look at the next comer. Even the ordinarily immobile features of the chief relaxed into an expression of anxiety as a young man walked down the aisle made by the reverent receding of the crowd to either side. He was not graceful in form. His body was beyond the proportion of his legs; though his arms compensated for any lack in the length of his lower limbs. His neck was thick, the head round, with full development of forehead, though that portion of his face was somewhat concealed by the short, bushy masses of red hair which protruded beneath his rimless Janizary cap. His face was homely, but strongly marked, evincing force of character as clearly as the convolutions of his muscles evinced animal strength and endurance. The brightness of his eye atoned for any lack of beauty in his features; as did his free and manly bearing make ample amends for deficiency in grace of form. Altogether he was a man to attract one's attention and hold it pleasantly.
Though he bent low to the earth in his obeisance to the chief officer of his troop, it was without the suggestionof obsequiousness, with that dignity which betokens real reverence and crowns itself with the honor it would give to another.
The chief Aga announced that, although the witnesses in this case were not of the order of the Yeni-Tscheri, and, therefore, had no claim to the consideration of the court, yet it pleased him in this peculiar case to waive the right to try the matter exclusively among themselves, that the good name of the Yeni-Tscheri might suffer no reproach. "Caraza-Bey," added the chief, "for some reason best known to himself does not accept the privilege we have extended him, to speak in our official presence what he has freely spoken elsewhere. We shall, therefore, hear any witnesses he may have sent."
One Lovitsch, belonging to the irregular auxiliary troops, testified that Captain Ballaban had organized a raid upon an Albanian village, and engaged himself and company for the venture; but had left them in the heat of the fight, not rejoining them until the second day. A common soldier deposed that the captain returned to the company early in the second evening, and induced him, the witness, and Koremi, to whom the captain had entrusted a beautiful captive, to bring the girl to the rear, under plea of getting from her information regarding the enemy; and had then mysteriously disappeared with her. Koremi corroborated this testimony.
Captain Ballaban gave a look of puzzled curiosity as he heard this; but otherwise evinced not the slightest emotion.
The crowd gazed upon the young captain with disappointmentwhile testimony was being given. The agas present being unable to conceal the deep anxiety depicted upon their countenances, as they leaned forward with impatience to hear from his lips some exonerating statement, which, however, they feared could not be given. A few faces wore a look of contemptuous triumph. But two persons maintained composure. It might be expected that the chief Aga, from his familiarity with such scenes, if not from the propriety of his being the formal embodiment of the rigid and remorseless court of the Janizaries, whose decrees he was to announce, would show no emotion, however strong his sympathy with the prisoner.
The endangered man answered his gaze with equal stolidity when the judge turned to him for his defence; but he remained speechless. A shudder of horror ran through the crowd. The executioner stepped forward to the side of the apparently convicted person. A slight ringing sound, as the long curve of the well-tempered blade grazed the ground, sent to every heart the chilling announcement of his readiness. The chief Aga turned to the others, but sought in vain any palliatory suggestion or appeal for mercy, except in the mute agony of their looks. The chief then raised his eyes as if for the invocation of Allah's confirmation of the sentence as just. But his prayer was a strange one:—"Oh, Allah! thou hast given a wondrous spirit to this man; a courage worthy of the soul of Othman himself!" Then rising with excitement he addressed the throng in rapid speech.
"Look upon this man, my brothers of the shining face![50]
"Did he quail at the ring of the executioner's sword? Did he even change color when he heard the damning testimony? A true son of Kara Khalif is he. A word from his lips would have exonerated him, yet he would not speak it lest it should reveal the secrets of our service, which he would keep with dead lips rather than live to tell them. But I shall be his witness; and you, my brothers, shall be his judges. Captain Ballaban was recalled from the raid by our brother Sinam, aga of the division to which the captain belongs. But, alas! the sword of Scanderbeg has loosed Sinam's soul for flight to paradise, and he could not testify to this man's fidelity. But I know the order of Sinam; in this very tent it was written. And though the faithful messenger who carried it was slain in after conflict, the order was executed by Captain Ballaban to every letter: every moment of his absence from the raid is accounted for on my tablets"—tapping his forehead as he spoke.
A loud shout burst from the crowd which made the tent shake as if filled with a rising wind.
"Ballaban! Ballaban!" cried the multitude, lifting the brave fellow upon their shoulders.
"Take that for your grin when you thought he was guilty!" shouted one, as he delivered a tremendous blow upon the face of another.
"Death to Caraza-Bey! Down with the lying villain!" rose the cry, the crowd beginning to move,as if animated by a common spirit, to seek the envious commandant of the neighboring corps. But they halted at the tent side waiting for the sign of permission from their chief, who, by the motion of his hand forbade the assault which would have brought on a terrific battle between the Janizaries and their rivals throughout the army.
"We shall deal with Caraza-Bey hereafter, if his shame does not send him skulking from the camps," said the chief, resuming his sitting posture, and restoring order about him.
"Summon the witnesses again," he proceeded.
"You Lovitsch testified truly as to Captain Ballaban's absence, and may go. But you twin rascals who swore to his escape with the girl, your heads shall go to Caraza-Bey, and your black souls to the seventh hell.[51]Executioner, do your office!"
"Hold!" cried Ballaban, as the man drew his cimeter. "Upon my return to the company I found my fair captive gone, and under such strange circumstances that I can see that these good fellows may be honest in what they have stated. I bespeak thy mercy, Sire, for them."
"Captain Ballaban's will shall be ours," replied the chief, with a wave of his hand dismissing the assemblage. As the crowd withdrew, he said, "My brothers, the agas, will remain, and Captain Ballaban."
The sides of the tent were put up. The guard patrolled without at a distance of sixty paces, that no one might overhear the conversation in the council.
"Has Captain Ballaban any explanation of this conspiracy against him?" asked one.
"None!" was the laconic reply. But after a moment's pause he added: "Perhaps there was no conspiracy, except as our jealous neighbors are willing to take advantage of every unseemly circumstance that can be twisted to point against any of the Yeni-Tscheri. This may explain something. The girl that I captured at the Giaour village was no common peasant, by the cheek of Ayesha! Her face, as lit by the blazing konak, was of such beauty as I have never seen except in some dreams of my childhood. Her voice and manner in commanding me to liberate her were those of one well-born or used to authority. It was well that I bethought me to give her into the keeping of that dull-headed Koremi, or she might have bewitched me into obeying her and letting her go. My belief is that the girl was rescued. It may be that our men were heavily bribed to give her up, or that some one personated myself and demanded her, and that the story of my return may be thus accounted for, but I cannot see any treachery in Koremi's manner. If she was of any special value to Scanderbeg he would find some way of running her off, though he had to make a league with the devil and assume my shape to do it. The Arnaouts, you know, believe that the Vili are in collusion with Scanderbeg, and that one of them, a he-vili, Radisha, or some such sprite, is his body servant. That willaccount for it all," added he, laughing at the conceit.
"But," said the second Aga, "Caraza-Bey's insult was none the less, if your surmise be true. We must wash it out in the blood of a hundred or so of his hirelings to-morrow."
The chief shook his head.
"But," continued the second Aga, "the jealousy of our corps must be punished. You see how near it came to losing for us the life of one of our bravest. Caraza-Bey must fight me to-morrow."
"Bravo!" cried all; while one added, "And let the challenge be public, that the entire force of the Yeni-Tscheri be on hand and all the troops of the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, and—" lowering his voice— "we can manage it so that the fight become general, and teach these reptiles of Asiatics that the Yeni-Tscheri are the right hand and the brain of the empire."
"Ay,arethe empire!" said another. "Let us have a scrimmage that will be interesting. The war with Scanderbeg is getting monotonous. One day he comes into our camp, like a butcher into a slaughter pen, and the next day we are marched out to him, to be slaughtered elsewhere. It requires one to be full of Islam, the Holy Resignation, to stand this sort of life. Yes! let's do a little fighting in our own way and get rid of some of this soldier spawn which the Padishah has brought with him from across the Bosphorus!"
"But you forget, my brothers," said Ballaban, "that this fight with the Sanjak Bey does not belongto any one beside myself. His lie was about me. I then am the man to take off his head; and I think I can do it with as good grace as the executioner was nigh to taking off mine just now."
"No, Captain!" said the chief. "Your rank is as yet below the Bey's, and he would make that an excuse for declining the gage. Besides," said he, lowering his voice, "I have special service for you elsewhere, which cannot be delayed."
When the agas, making the low courtesy, retired, the chief walked with Ballaban.
"Captain, I have heard no report of the errand upon which you were sent."
"No, Sire, I was arrested the moment I returned to camp."
"You succeeded, I know, from the movements of the enemy: although the slowness of the Padishah in ordering an advance, when Scanderbeg was diverted by your ruse, prevented our taking advantage of it."
"Yes," said Ballaban, "I succeeded as well as any one could, not being seconded from headquarters. But I did some service incidentally, and picked up some helpful information. The night after leaving the hamlet we fired, I fell in with a company of Arnaouts who were coming to the rescue. They would have got into the narrow valley before our men got out, had I not managed to trick them. I was in disguise and readily passed for an Arnaout lout, giving them false information about the direction our party had taken, and so lost them an hour or two, and saved the throats of Lovitsch's fellows, a mere rabble, good enough for a raid, but not to be depended upon for a square fight.But we must have no more raids. Scanderbeg has means of communication as quick and subtle as if the clouds were his signals and the stars were his beacons.
"I then came upon a Dibrian settlement, pretending to be a fugitive from the valleys to the north; and entertained the villagers with bug-a-boo stories about the hosts of men with turbans on their heads and little devils on their shoulders who had destroyed all that country, and were now pouring down toward the south.
"By the way," continued Ballaban laughing, "there was an old fellow there, very lame, with a patch over one eye, who could hardly stand leaning on his staff, he was so palsied with age. But the one eye that was open was altogether too bright for his years; and his legs didn't shake enough for one who rattled his staff so much. So I put him down as one of Scanderbeg's lynxes—they are everywhere. I described to him the Moslem movements in such a way as to let a trained soldier believe that we had entirely changed front, with the prospective raising of the siege of Sfetigrade and alliance with the Venetians for carrying the war farther to the north. The old codger took the bait, and asked fifty questions in the tone of a fellow whose head had been used for a mush-pot instead of a brain-holder; but every question was in its meaning as keen as a dagger-thrust into the very ribs of the military situation. Well! I helped him to all the information he wanted; when with a twinkle in his eye, he hobbled away, as wise as an owl when a fresh streak of day-light has struck him: and before nightthe whole country to the borders of Sternogovia was alive with Scanderbeg's scouts; and every cross-path was a rendezvous of his broken-winded cavalry.
"I saw one thing which gave me a hint I may use some day. At a village the women were carrying water from a spring far down in a ravine, though there was a fine flowing fountain quite near them. It seems that a dog had got into the fountain about a month before, and was drowned. These Dibrians believe that, if any one should drink the water of such a spring before as many days have passed as the dog has hairs on his tail, the water will make his bowels rot, and his soul go into a dog's body when he dies.
"The next night I spent inside the walls of Sfetigrade."
"No!" cried the chief. "Why, man, you must fly the air with the witches!"
"Not at all, I have some acquaintances in that snug little place; and when they go to bed they hang the key of the town on a moonbeam for me. If it is not there, I have only to vault over the walls, or sail over them on the clouds, or burrow under them with the moles, or hold my breath until I turn into a sprite, like the wizards on the Ganges, and lo! I am in. Well! that night I lodged with a worthy family of Sfetigrade, pretending that I was a poor fugitive from the very town we had raided a few nights before. And, by the hair of the beautiful Malkhatoon![52]I saw there the very captive I had taken. She lay asleep ona cot just within a doorway—unless I was asleep myself and dreaming, as I half believe I was."
"Yes, it was a dream of yours, no doubt, Captain," said the chief, "for when a young fellow like you once gets a fair woman in his arms, as you say you had her in yours the night of the raid, she never gets out of the embrace of his imagination. He will see her everywhere, and go about trying to hug her shadow. Beware illusions, Captain! They use up a fellow's thoughts, make him too meek-eyed to see things as a soldier should. The love passion will take the energy out of the best of us, as quickly as the fire takes the temper out of the best Damascene blade."
"I thank you for your counsel, Aga," replied Ballaban, his face coloring as deep as his hair. "But there was one thing I saw with a waking eye."
"And what was that?"
"That there was but one well of water in the town of Sfetigrade; the one in the citadel court. But another thing I didn't see, though I searched the place for it;—and that was a dog to throw into the well; or I would have thirsted the superstitious garrison out. They have eaten up the last cur."
"Then the surrender must come soon," said the Aga.
"No," replied Ballaban, "for the voivode Moses Goleme came into the town as I was leaving, driving a flock of sheep which he had stolen from us; for he had cut off an entire train of provisions which had been sent to our camp from Adrianople."
"Then I must have you off at once on another errand, Captain. You see yonder line of mountains off to thenorthwest. It may be necessary to shift the war to that region for a while. Ivan Beg,[53]the brother-in-law of Scanderbeg, has raised a pack of wild fiends among those hills of his, and is driving out all our friends. Nothing can stand against him unless it be the breasts of the Yeni-Tscheri. Scanderbeg may compel us to raise the siege of Sfetigrade, for he bleeds us daily like a leech. A diversion after Ivan Beg will at least be more honorable than a return to Adrianople. Now I would know exactly the passes and best places for fortification in Ivan's country; and you, Captain, are the man to find them out. You should be off at once. Take your time and spy thoroughly, making a map and transmitting to me your notes. And while there feel the people. It is rumored that the young voivode, Amesa, is restless under the leadership of Scanderbeg. If a dissension could be created among these Arnaouts, it would be well. Amesa has a large personal following in that north country; for his castle is just on the border of it."
"But," replied Ballaban, "I must first pluck the beard of that cowardly Caraza-Bey!"
"No! I forbid it. Your blood is worth more in your own veins than anywhere else. I should not consent to your risking a drop of it in personal combat with any one except Scanderbeg himself."
The fight between the second Aga and Caraza-Bey did not take place. That worthy was conveniently sentby Sultan Amurath, who had learned of the feud, to look after certain turbulent Caramanians; and leaving behind him a wake of curses upon all Janizaries from the chief to the pot-scourers, he took his departure for the Asiatic provinces.
Had he remained, the Turks would have had enough to occupy them without this gratuitous mêlée. For during the night scouts brought word that Scanderbeg had massed all his forces, that were not behind the walls of Sfetigrade, at a point to the right of the Turkish lines. Hardly had the army been faced to meet this attack, when scouts came from the left, reporting serious depredations on that flank. Amurath, in the uncertainty of the enemy's movement, divided his host. The Asiatics were given the northern and the Janizaries the southern defence; either of them outnumbering any force Scanderbeg could send against them. But, as a tornado cuts its broad swath through a forest, uprooting or snapping the gigantic trees, showing its direction only by the after track of desolation, which it cuts in almost unvarying width, while beyond its well defined lines scarcely a branch is broken or a nest overturned among the swaying foliage—so Scanderbeg swooped from east to west through the very centre of the Turkish encampment, gathering up arms and provisions, and strewing his track with the bodies of the slain. By the time that the Moslems were sufficiently concentrated to offer effective resistance the assailants were gone.
At the head of the victorious band Scanderbeg rode a small and ungainly, but tough and tireless animal—like most of the Albanian horses, which were betteradapted to threading their way down the pathless mountain sides, than to curveting in military parade—their lack of natural ballast being made up by the enormous burdens they were trained to carry.
The figure and bearing of Scanderbeg, however, amply compensated the lack of martial picturesqueness in his steed. He was in full armor, except that his sword arm was bared. His beard of commingled yellow and gray fell far down upon the steel plates of his corselet. A helmet stuck far back upon his head, showed the massive brow which seemed of ampler height, from the Albanian custom of clipping short, or shaving the hair off from the upper forehead.
Wheeling his horse, he engaged in conversation with a stout, but awkward soldier.
"You and your beast are well matched, Constantine. You both need better training before you are fit to parade as prisoners of Amurath. You sit your horse as a cat rides a dog, though you do hold on as well with your heel as she with her claws. Your short legs would do better to clamp the belly of a crocodile."
"Yes, we are both accustomed to marching and fighting in our own way, rather than in company," replied Constantine. "But the beast has not failed me by a false step; not when we leaped the fallen oak and landed in the gulch back yonder. The beast came down as safely and softly as on the training lawn."
"And you have done as well yourself," replied the general. "That was a bad play though you had with the Turk as we cut our way through the last knot of them. But for a side thrust which I had time to giveat your antagonist, while waiting for the slow motions of my own, I fear that your animal would be lighter now by just your weight. You strike powerfully, but you do not recover yourself skilfully. A good swordsman would get a response into your ribs before you could deal him a second. Here, I will show you! Now thrust! Strike! No, not so; but hard, villainously, at me, as if I were the Turk who stole your girl! So! Again! Again!—Now learn this movement"—pressing his own sword steadily against his companion's, and bending him back until he was almost off his horse. "And this," dealing so tremendous a slash with the back of the sword that Constantine's arm was almost numbed by the effort to resist it.—"And this!" transmitting a twisting motion from his own to his opponent's weapon, so that for one instant they seemed like two serpents writhing together; but at the next Constantine's sword was twirled out his hand.
"You will make a capital swordsman with practice, my boy. And the girl? Keep a sharpened eye for her; and tell me if so much as a new spider's web be woven at her door."
A peasant woman stood by the path as they proceeded, holding out her hand for alms, as she ran beside the general's horse. He leaned toward her to give something; but, as his hand touched hers, she slipped a bit of white rag into it:
"The map of the roads, Sire, twixt this and Monastir!"
"And your son, my good woman?" inquired the general kindly.
"Ah! the Virgin pity me, Sire, for he died. Wecould not stop the bleeding, for the lance's point had cut a vein. But I have a daughter who can take his place. She knows the signals—for he taught them to her—and can make the beacon as well as he; and is as nimble of foot to climb the crag. But please, Sire, the child did not remember if the enemy going west was to be signalled by lighting the beacon before or after the bright star's setting."
"Just after, good mother. If they go to the east and cross the mountain, fire the beacon just before the star sets. And the brightest of all stars be for your own hope and comfort!"
"And for dear Albania's and thine own!" replied the woman, disappearing in the crowd, as a man dashed close to Scanderbeg on a well-jaded steed.
"The Turkish auxiliaries will be at the entrance to the defile in thirty hours."
"Your estimate of their number, neighbor Stephen?"
"From three to five thousand."
"Not more?"
"Not more in the first detachment. A second of equal size follows, but a day in the rear."
"Good! Take with you our nephew, Musache de Angeline, and five hundred Epirots each. This will be sufficient to prevent the first detachment getting out of the pass. I will strike the second from the rear as soon as they enter the pass. They can not manœuvre in that crooked and narrow defile, and we will destroy them at our leisure. Strike promptly. Farewell!"
"Miserable sheep!" he muttered, "why will these Turks so tempt me to slaughter them?"
Upon the southern slope of the Black Mountain—that is, on the rising uplands which lead from Albania to Montenegro—lay the ancient and princely estates of the De Streeses. A dense forest of pines spread for miles, like a myriad gigantic pillars in some vast temple. They seemed to support, as it were, some Titanic dome surrounded with pinnacles and turrets, a huge cluster of jagged rocks, which was called by those who gazed upon it from leagues away "The Eyrie." In the midst of these great monoliths, and hardly distinguishable from them, rose the walls of the new castle which the voivode Amesa had built upon the ruins of that destroyed at the time of the massacre of its former possessor.
The horse of the voivode stood within the court, his head drooping, and the white sweat-foam drying upon his heated flanks. His master paced up and down the enclosure, engaged in low but excited conversation with a soldier.
The voivode was of princely mien; tall, but compactly built; face full in its lower development, and somewhat sensual; eyes gray and restless, which gave one at first a sharp, penetrating glance, and then seemed to hide behind the half-closed lids, like some wild animal that inspects the hunter hastily, then takes to covert.
"You are sure, Drakul, that the party which drove you from the hamlet were Turks, and not Arnaouts in disguise, like yourselves?"
"I could not mistake," said Drakul, a hard-faced man, one of whose eyebrows was arched higher than the other, and whose entire countenance was distorted from the symmetrical balance of its two sides, giving an expression of duplicity and cruelty. "I could not mistake, noble Amesa, for I have too often eyed those rascals over the point of my sword not to know a Turk in the dark. But all the fiends combined against us that night. We left our two best men dead, and the two we wanted, the boy and the girl, escaped us. The she-witch did not come back to the village the next day; but the red-headed imp did, and raved like a hyena when he found the girl missing. I watched him as he suddenly went off, doubtless, to some spot they both knew of. The young thief stole the clothes off a dead Turk. The next day we spied him again; this time with that Arnaud-Kabilovitsch, Albanian-Servian, forester-colonel, or whatever he may be, who came back when Castriot did. The fellow escaped us a second time."
"Track him! track him!" cried Amesa spitefully. "I will make you rich, Drakul, the day you bring me that fox's brush of red hair from his head."
"I have tracked him and could take you to the very spot where he and the girl are to-day," said the man. "Come this way, my noble Amesa,"—leading him to the side of the court commanding a far stretch of country to the north-west. "Now let your eye follow Skadar[54]along the left shore: then up the great river.[55]Not two leagues from the mountain spur that bends the stream out of your sight, at the hamlet just off the road into your Uncle Ivan's country—"
"The stargeshina has a red goitre like a turkey cock? I know every hut in the hamlet," interrupted Amesa. "But why think you she is there?"
"Why? I have seen her, and him with her. I followed the fellow day after day. Once I saw him yonder on the spur. He clipped the bark of a tree, and in the smoothed spot cut a line. A little beyond he did the same thing again. He spied this way and that way with all the pains one would take to pick a way for an army. Then he took a roll of paper from his bosom, and marked down something for every mark he had made upon the trees. And when he was out of sight I took the range of his marks, and by St. Theckla! they pointed straight to a path which led down the mountain to the ford in the great river that is opposite the old turkey cock's konak."
"But you may have mistaken the man," suggested Amesa.
"Not I, Sire. I know his head as well as a bull knows a red rag; and his duck legs, and his walk like an ambling horse."
"It is he," submitted Amesa. "But how know you that the girl was there in the hamlet?"
"Did I not see her, my noble Amesa? And could I not know her from the look of her father? If I could forget him living, I have never passed a night without seeing his face as it was dead, when we dragged him to the burning beams of the old house that stood on this——"
"Silence!" cried Amesa in a sudden burst of rage. "How dare you allude to my uncle's death without my bidding?"
There was a pause for a few moments, during which Amesa stamped heavily upon the stone pavement of the court as he walked, like one endeavoring to shake off from his person some noisome thing that troubled him. The man resumed—
"Besides, the children of the village said she was a stray kid there, and not of kin to anybody. And while I was there the same stump-headed fellow who marked the direction came to the hamlet."
"Be ready to accompany me to-morrow, Drakul. You can say that we are scouting."
The lake of Skadar lay like an immenselapis lazuliwithin its setting of mountains, which, on the east, were golden with the rays of the declining sun, and on the west, enameled in emerald with the dense shadows their summits dropped upon them. The surface of the water was unbroken, save here and there by black spots where a pair of loons shrieked their marital unhappiness, or a flock of wild ducks floated, like a miniature fleet, about the reed-fringed shores of some little island. Had there been watchers on the fortress of Obod, which lay on the cliff just above where the Tsernoyevitcha enters Skadar, they wouldhave espied a light shallop gliding along the eastern bank of the lake. This contained the voivode Amesa and his attendant. Just at night-fall they reached the cavern, whose hidden recesses begot a hundred legends which the weird shadows of the cave clothed in forms as fantastic as their own, and which still flit among the hamlets of Montenegro. It was said that whoever should sleep within the cave would rest his head on the bosoms of the nymphs:—only let him take care that their love does not prevent his ever waking. Amesa and his companion were courageous, but discretion led them to wind the strooka about their heads, and seek without a couch of pine needles between the enormous roots of the trees which had dropped them.
The dawn had just silvered the east, and the coming sun transformed the cold blue tints of Skadar into amber, when they entered the river. The great stream wound through the broad lowlands of Tsetinie, girdled with rocky hills. Then it dashed in impetuous floods between more straightened banks, or lingered, as if the river spirit would bathe himself in the deep pools that were cooled by the springs at their bottoms. Though familiar with the phenomenon, they loitered that they might watch the schools of fish which were so dense in places as to impede the stroke of the oar blade, and tint the entire stream with their dull silvery gleam.[56]Emerging from a tortuous channel, through which the river twisted itself like a vast shining serpent, they came to a cluster of houses that nestled in a gorge. These houses were made of stone, and so covered with vines as to be hardly distinguishablefrom the dense shrubbery that clambered over the rocks about them.
Amesa was warmly greeted by the stargeshina who occupied the konak, or principal house. The older people remembered the visitor as the comely lad who, before the return of George Castriot, was almost the only male representative of that noble family left in the land. The voivode was honored with every evidence that the villagers felt themselves complimented by the visit of their guest, whatever business or caprice might have brought him thither.
A simple repast was provided, in which the courtesy of the service on the part of the stargeshina more than compensated any poverty in the display of viands;—though there were set forth meats dried in strips in the smoke of an open fire; eggs; sweet, though black bread; and wine pressed from various mountain berries, and allowed to ferment in skins. As they sat beside a low table at the doorway of the konak, the stargeshina offered a formal salâm, the zdravitsa, which was half a toast and half a prayer, and extended his hand to Amesa in the protestation of personal friendship. At the meal the glories of Castriot and Ivan Beg—or Ivo, as the peasants called him—were duly recited.
"But why," said the old man, rising to his feet with the enthusiasm of the sentiment—"Why should the country sing the praises of George Castriot, who for thirty years was willing to be a Turk and fight for an alien faith? Your shoulders, noble Amesa—Prince Amesa, my loyal heart would call you—could as well have borne the burden of the people's defence. Your armcould strike as good a blow as his for Albania. Your blood is that of the Castriots, and untainted by Moslem touch. Your estates, since you have become heir to the lands of De Streeses, make you our richest and most influential voivode."
These words made the eyes of Amesa flash, not with any novel pleasure, rather with an ambition to which he was no stranger. But the flash was smothered at once by the half-closed eyelids, and he responded—
"I ought not to hear such words, my good friend. My Uncle George is the hero of the hour. The people need a hero in whom they believe; and the very mystery of his life for the thirty years among the Turks, and the romance of his return, make him a convenient hero."