To better understand the events just recited, we must trace some scenes which had been enacted elsewhere.
During the sojourn of Constantine and Morsinia in Constantinople, the Turks had made no progress toward the conquest of Albania. The walls of Croia, upon which they turned their thousands of men, and exhaustless resources of siege apparatus, served only to display the valor and skill of the assailants, the superior genius of Castriot, and the endurance of his bands of patriots.
The haughty Sultan Amurath, broken in health, more by the chagrin of his ill success than by exposures or casual disease, retired to Adrianople, in company with his son, Prince Mahomet, who was satisfied with a few lessons in the science of military manœuvering as taught by the dripping sword of Castriot; and preferred to practice his acquirements upon other and less dangerous antagonists. Prince Mahomet had scarcely withdrawn to Magnesia in Asia Minor, and celebrated his nuptials with the daughter of the Turkoman Emir, when news was brought of the death of his father.
The prince was hardly twenty-one years of age; but his first act was ominous of the promptitude, self-assertion and diligence of the whole subsequent career of this man, whose success on the field and in the divan made him the foremost monarch of his age.
On hearing the news he turned to Captain Ballaban, for whom the young Padishah entertained the fondest affection, and who had accompanied him to Magnesia in the capacity of kavass.—
"I shall leave to you, Captain, the duty of representing me at the burial of my royal father at Brusa, after which meet me at Adrianople."
Leaping into the saddle, he cried to the company about him, "Let those who love me, follow me!" and spurred his Arab steed to the Hellespont.
The magnificent cortege of the dead Sultan moved rapidly from the European capital of the Turks to their ancient one in Asia Minor. The thoughts of the attendants were more toward the new hand which would distribute the favors or terrors of empire, than toward the hand which was now cold.
Captain Ballaban was in time to join the reverent circle which committed the royal body to its ancestral resting place. They buried it with simple sepulchral rites, in the open field, unshadowed by minaret or costly mosque or memorial column; that, as the dying Padishah had said, "the mercy and blessing of God might come unto him by the shining of the sun and moon, and the falling of the rain and dew of heaven upon his grave."
Sultan Mahomet II. was scarcely within the seraglio at Adrianople when Captain Ballaban reported for duty. Passing through the outer or common court, he entered by the second gate into the square surrounded by the barracks of the Janizaries, who, as the body guard of the monarch, occupied quarters abutting on those of the Sultan.
Near the third gate was gathered a crowd of Janizaries, in angry debate; for as soon as they realized that the firm and experienced hand of Amurath was no longer on the helm, the pride and audacity of this corps inaugurated rebellion.
"The Janizaries have saved the empire, let them enjoy it," cried one.
"Our swords extended the Moslem power, so will we have extension of privilege," cried another.
"Why should Kalil Pasha be Grand Vizier instead of our chief Aga? Kalil is one of the Giaour Ortachi.[70]
"Down with the Vizier!" rang among the barracks.
"A mere child is Padishah! one of no judgment the Hunkiar!"
"My brothers," said Captain Ballaban. "You know not the new Padishah. Well might Amurath have said to him what Othman said to Orchan: 'My son, I am dying: and I die without regret, because I leave such a successor as thou art.' Believe me, my brothers, if Mahomet is young, he is strong. If he is inexperienced in the methods of government, it is because heaven wills that he shall invent better ones."
"Your head is turned by the Padishah's favors," muttered an old guardsman.
"But am I not a Janizary?" cried the captain, "and it is as a Janizary that the Padishah loves me, as he loves us all. I once heard him say that the white wool on a Janizary's cap was more honorable than the horse tail on the tent spear of another. Old Selim here can tell you that, as a child, Mahometwas fonder of the Janizary's mess than of the feast in the harem."
"Yes," said old Selim, with voice trembling through age, but loud with the enthusiasm excited by the captain's appeal. "My hands taught Mahomet his first parries and thrusts; and he would sit by our fire to listen to the stories of the valor of our corps, and clap his hands, and cry 'good Selim, I would rather be a Janizary than be a prince.'" The old man's eyes filled with tears as he added, "And all the four thousand prophets bless the Padishah!"
While this scene was being enacted without, the young Sultan was reclining, with the full sense of his new dignity, upon the sofa which had never been pressed except by the person of royalty. It was covered with a cloth of gold and crimson velvet, relieved by fringes of pearls. Before it was spread a carpet of silk, an inch thick, whose softness, both of texture and tints, made a luxuriant contrast with its border, which was crocheted with cords of silver and gold. The walls of his chamber were enriched with tiles of alabaster, agate, and turquoise. The ceiling was plated with beaten silver, hatched at intervals with mouldings of gold; near to which were windows of stained glass made of hundreds of pieces closely joined to form transparent mosaic pictures, through which the variegated light flooded the apartment.
Mahomet was himself in striking contrast with his surroundings. He was dressed in négligé, with loose gown, large slippers, and white skull cap.
Before the Sultan stood the Grand Vizier, Kalil, bedizened in the costume of his office:—an enormousturban in whose twisted folds was a band of gold; a bournous of brocade, enlivened by flowers wrought upon it in green and red; and a cashmere sash gleaming with the jewelled handle of his yataghan.
"They are even now in revolt, your Majesty," said the Vizier. "Your safety will be best served by severe measures. They say the iron has not grown into your nerves yet."
The Sultan colored. After a moment's pause he replied. "When Captain Ballaban comes we will think of that matter."
"The captain had just arrived as I entered, Sire."
"Then announce to the Janizaries that the seven thousand falconers and game keepers which my father allowed to eat up our revenue, as the bugs infest the trees, are abolished; and their income appropriated to the better equipment of the Janizaries."
"But, Sire, would you sharpen the fangs of——"
"Silence! I have said it," said Mahomet, striking his hand on his knee. "But what is this demand from Constantinople?"
"That the pay for the detention of your Cousin Orkran at Constantinople shall be doubled, or the Greeks will let him loose to contest the throne with your Majesty."
"Assent to the demand," said the Sultan. "The time will the sooner come to avenge the insult, if we seem not to see it."
The Vizier continued looking at his tablets. "Maria Sultana[71]asks, through the Kislar Aga, that she maybe allowed, since the death of her lord, to return to her kindred."
"Let her go! She is a Giaour whose cursed blood was not bettered by six and twenty years' habitation with my father. She is fair enough in her wrinkles for some Christian prince, and George Brankovitch needs to make new alliances."
"Hunyades"—said the Vizier.
"Ay, make peace with him, and with Scanderbeg, too, if that wild beast can be tamed, which I much doubt."
The Sultan rose from his cushion, his form animated with strong excitement, and, putting his hand upon the shoulders of the Vizier—who drew back at the strange familiarity—and looking him fixedly in the face, he whispered: "Everything must wait,"—and the words hissed in the hot eagerness with which he said them—"until—I have Constantinople."
Turning upon his heel, he withdrew toward his private chamber.
The Sultan threw himself upon his bed. The Capee Aga, or chief of the white eunuchs, whose duty it was to act as valet-de-chambre, as well as to stand at the right hand of the Sultan on state occasions, began to draw the curtains around the silver posts upon which the bed rested.
"You may leave me," said his majesty. "Nay, hold! Send Captain Ballaban of the Janizaries."
As the young officer entered, the face of the Sultan relaxed.
"You make me a man again, comrade," said he, grasping his hand. "These few days playing Sultanmake me feel as old as the empire. I hate this parade of boring viziers and mincing eunuchs; and to be shut up here with these palace proprieties is as irksome to me as Timour's iron cage was to my grandfather Bajazet. I think I shall put my harem on horse-back, and take to the fields. Scudding out of Albania with Scanderbeg at one's heels were preferable to this busy idleness. You have had a rapid ride to get from Brusa so soon, and look winded. Roll yourself on that wolf's skin. I killed that fellow in Caramania. By the turban of Abraham! your red head looks well against the black hide. But why don't you laugh? Have they made a Padishah of you, too, that you must mask your face with care?"
"I have a care, Sire," said the soldier.
"Tell me it," said the Sultan, "and I'll make it fly away as fast as the Prophet's horse took him to the seventh heaven."
"The Janizaries are restless, Sire."
"Does not the donative I have announced pacify them?"
"I have not heard of it," said the officer.
"Listen! Is not that their shout?" Shout after shout rent the air from the court without.
The Janizary turned pale; but in a moment said, "Your donative has been announced. They are cheering your Majesty."
"Long live the Padishah!" "Long life to Mahomet!" rang again and again.
"I thank you, Sire," eagerly cried the young man, kissing the hand of the Sultan.
"What else would they have?" asked he.
"Nothing but chance to show their gratitude by valiant service," was the reply.
"This they shall have, with you to lead them," putting his hand on the young officer's shoulder.
"Nay, Sire, I may not supplant those who are my superiors by virtue of service already rendered."
"But I command it. The corps shall to-morrow be put under your orders as their chief Aga."
"I beg your Majesty to desist from this purpose," said Ballaban. "The spirit of the corps, its efficiency, depends upon the strictest observance of the ancient rules of Orchan and Aladdin. By them we have been made what we are."
"But," cried Mahomet angrily, "there shall be no other will than mine throughout the army."
"I would have no other will than thine, Sire," was the response; "but it were well if your will should be to leave the Janizaries' rule untouched."
"You young rebel!" cried Mahomet, half vexed yet half pleased as, bursting into a laugh, he dashed over the face of his friend a jar of iced sherbet which was upon a lacquered stand at his side.
"You may thank the devil that it wasn't the arrow I once shot you with," said the playful tyrant, as Ballaban jumped to his feet.
"If you were not the Sultan now, I would pull you from the bed, as I pulled you from your horse that day," replied the good-natured favorite, making a motion as if to execute the threat.
"You are right," said Mahomet rising. "I am Sultan! Sultan? pshaw! Yet Sultan, surely." He paced the floor in deep agitation, and at length said, "Ihave a duty to perform, than which I would rather cut off my arms."
"Let me do the deed, though it takes my arm and my life," said Ballaban eagerly.
"You know not what it is, my old comrade."
"But I pledge before I know," was the response which came from stiffened lips and bowed head, as the captain made his obeisance.
The Sultan looked him in the face long and earnestly, and then, turning away, said:
"No! no! there are hands less noble than yours."
"But try me, Sire."
"You know the custom of our ancestors, approved by the wisdom of divans, as an expedient essential to the peace and safety of the empire, that—But I can not speak it: nor will I ask it of you. Leave me, Captain. Come to-morrow at this hour. I shall need the relief of your company then, even more than to-day."
An hour later the Kislar Aga, chief of the black eunuchs in charge of the royal harem, was announced.
"Well, Sinam, have any of your herd of gazelles escaped?" asked the Sultan.
"None. But Mira Sultana would pay her homage at your Majesty's feet."
"Mira, the Greek?" said Mahomet, the deep color rising to his temples.
Lowering his tone to a whisper, he conversed for a few moments with the eunuch, who prostrated himself upon the ground, and with harsh, yet thin voice, said:
"Your Majesty is wise, very wise. Your will is that of Allah, the Great Hunkiar. It shall be done."
Mira was a beautiful woman. The light texture of her robe revealed a perfect form; and the thin veil lent a charm to her face, such as shadows send across the landscape.
Mahomet shuddered, as the kneeling woman embraced his feet. The words of her congratulation to the young monarch, her protestation of devotion to him as to his father, though uttered with the sweetest voice he had ever heard, and with evident honesty, sent a visible tremor through the frame of her listener. And when she added, "My child, Ahmed, the image of his noble father and thine, will serve thee with his life, and"—
"It is well! It is well," interrupted the Sultan. "Be gone now!"
The morning following was one in which the hearts of the citizens of Adrianople stood almost throbless with horror. Mothers clasped their babes with a shudder to their breasts; and fathers stroked the fair hair of their boys, and thanked Allah that no tide of royal blood ran in their veins. A story afterward floated over the lands of Moslem and Christian, as terrible as a cloud of blood, dropping its shadow into palace and cottage, and dyeing that page of history on which Mahomet's name is written with a damning blot.
While Mira Sultana was bowing at the feet of the new monarch, congratulating him upon his accession to the throne, her infant son, Ahmed, half brother to Mahomet, was being strangled in the bath by his orders. Another son of Amurath, Calapin, had, through his mother's timely suspicion, escaped to the land of the Christians.
It was late in the day when Captain Ballaban appeared for audience with the Sultan. His Majesty was apparently in the gayest of moods.
"Come, toss me the dice! We have not played since I laid aside my manhood and put on the Padishah's cloak. Come! What? Have you no stake to put up? Then I will stake for both. A Turkoman, the father of my own bride, has sent me a bevy of women, Georgians, with faces as fair as the shell of an ostrich's egg,[72]and voices as sweet as of the birds which sang to the harp of David.[73]The choice to him who wins! What! does not that tempt the cloud to drift off your face? Then have your choice without the toss. What! still brooding?" added he, growing angry. "By the holy house at Mecca! I'll make you laugh if I tickle your ribs with my dagger's point."
"You made me promise that I would be true to you, my Padishah, and if I should laugh to-day I would not be true," replied Ballaban quietly. "My face wears the shadows which the people have thrown into it."
"The people?" said Mahomet growing pale.
"Ay, the people have heard the wailing of the Sultana."
"For what? Tell me for what?" asked the Sultan with feigned surprise.
Ballaban narrated the story which was on every one's lips.
"It is treason against me," cried the monarch. Summoning the Capee Aga he bade him call the divan.
The great personages of the empire were speedily gathered in the audience room. At the right of the Sultan stood the Grand Vizier and three subordinate viziers. On his left was the Kadiasker, the chief of the judges, with other members of the ulema or guild of lawyers, constituting the high court. The Reis-Effendi, or clerk, stood with his tablets before the seat of the Sultan. The rear of the room was filled with various princes and high officials.
Turning to the Kadiasker, the Sultan asked:
"What is the denomination of the crime, and the penalty of him who, unbidden by the Padishah, shall put to death a child of royal blood?"
The Kadiasker, after a moment's evident surprise at the question, pronounced slowly the following decision:
"It were a double crime, Sire, being both murder and treason. And if perchance the child were fatherless, let a triple curse come upon the slayer. For what saith the Book of the Prophet?[74]'They who devour the possessions of orphans unjustly, shall swallow down nothing but fire into their bellies, andshall broil in raging flames.' If such be the curse of Allah upon him who shall despoil the child of his rightful goods, much more does Allah bid us visit with vengeance one who despoils the child of that chiefest possession—his life. Such is the law, O Zil Ullah."[75]
Turning to the Kislar Aga, Mahomet commanded him to give testimony.
The Nubian trembled as he looked into the blanched face of the Sultan; but soon recovered his self possession sufficiently to read his master's thoughts, and said,
"The child of Mira Sultana was found dead at the bath while in the hands of Sayid."
"Was Sayid the child's appointed attendant?" asked the Kadiasker.
"He was not," was the response.
"Let him die!" said the judge slowly.
"Let him die!" repeated the Grand Vizier.
The Sultan bowed in assent and withdrew.
The swift vengeance of the Padishah was hailed with applause by the officials, as if it had erased the blood guilt from the robe of royal honor; but the people shook their heads, and kept shadows on their faces for many days.
"I tire of this life in the barracks," said Captain Ballaban to the Sultan, shortly after this event.
"Speak honestly, man," was the reply. "You tire of me; my heart is not large enough to entertain one of such ambition."
"Nay, Sire, but I would get nearer to the innermostcore of your heart, into that which is your deepest desire."
"And where, think you, is that spot?" said the Sultan smiling.
"Constantinople," was the laconic response.
"Ah! true lover of mine art thou, if you would be there. Until I put the Mihrab[76]in the walls of St. Sophia, I shall not sleep without the dream that I have done it. Know you not the dream of Othman? how the leaves of the tree which sprang from his bosom when the fair Malkhatoon, the mother of all the Padishahs, sank upon it, were shaped like cimeters, and every wind turned their points toward Constantinople? My waking and sleeping thoughts are the leaves. The spirit of Othman breathes through my soul and turns them thither. Go! and prepare my coming. The walls withstood my father Amurath. Discover why? I hear that Urban, the cannon founder, is in the pay of the Greeks. He who discovered a way to turn the Dibrians against Sfetigrade can find a way to turn a foreigner's eyes from the battered crown of the Cæsars to something brighter—Go, and Allah give you wisdom!"
The reader is acquainted with the immediate sequel of Captain Ballaban's departure, his adventure with the Italian desperadoes at the old reservoir, and his success with Urban.
The siege and capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, was, with the exception of the discovery of America, the most significant event of the fifteenth century. The Eastern Roman Empire then perished, after eleven centuries of glory and shame; of heroic conquests, and pusillanimous compromises with other powers for the privilege of existence; exhibiting on its throne the virtues and wisdom of Theodosius and Justinian, and the vices and follies of emperors and empresses whose names it were well that the world should forget.
But the historic importance of the siege was matched by the thrilling interest which attaches to its scenes.
The last of the Constantines, from whose hands the queenly city was wrested, was worthy the name borne by its great founder, not, perhaps, for his display of genius in government and command, but for the pious devotion and sacrificial courage with which he defended his trust. A band of less than ten thousand Christians, mostly Greeks, and a few Latins whose love for the essential truth of their religion was stronger than their bigotry for sect, withstood for many weeks the horrors which were poured upon them by a quarter of a million Moslems. These foes were made presumptuous by nearly a century of unchecked conquest; their hot blood boiled with fury and daring excited by the promises of their religion, which opened paradise to those that perished with the sword; and they wereled by the first flashings of the startling genius and audacity of Mahomet II.
The Bosphorus was blockaded six miles above the city by the new fortress, Rumili-Hissar, the Castle of Europe; answering across the narrow strait to Anadolu-Hissari—the Castles of Asia.
A fleet of three hundred Moslem vessels crowded the entrance to the Bosphorus, to resist any Western ally of the Christians that might have run the gauntlet of forts which guarded the lower entrance to Marmora. At the same time this naval force threatened the long water front of the city with overwhelming assault. The wall which lay between the sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, and made the city a triangle, looked down upon armies gathered from the many lands between the Euphrates and Danube;—the feudal chivalry from their ziamets under magnificently accoutred beys; the terrible Akindji, the mounted scourge of the borders of Christendom; the motley hordes of Azabs, light irregular foot-soldiers,—these filling the plains for miles away:—while about the tents of the Sultan were the Royal Horse Guards, the Spahis, Salihdars, Ouloufedji and Ghoureba, rivals for the applause of the nations, as the most daring of riders and most skilful of swordsmen: and the Janizaries, who boasted that their tread was as resistless as the waves of an earthquake.
Miners from Servia were ready to burrow beneath the walls. A great cannon cast by Urban, the Dacian, who had deserted from the Christian to the Moslem camp, gaped ready to hurl its stone balls of six hundred pounds weight. It was flanked by two almostequally enormous fire-vomiting dragons, as the new artillery was called: while fourteen other batteries of lesser ordnance were waiting to pour their still novel destruction upon the works. Ancient art blended with modern science in the attack; for battering rams supplemented cannon, and trenches breast-deep completed the lines of shields. Moving forts of wood antagonized, across the deep moat, the old stone towers, which during the centuries had hurled back their assailants in more than twenty sieges. The various hosts of besiegers in their daily movements were like the folds of an enormous serpent, writhing in ever contracting circles about the body of some helpless prey. From dawn to dark the walls crumbled beneath the pounding of the artillery; but from dark to dawn they rose again under the toil of the sleepless defenders.
Thousands, impelled by the commands of the Sultan, and more, perhaps, by the prospect of reward in this world, and in another, out of which bright-eyed houris were watching their prospective lords, mounted the scaling ladders only to fill with their bodies the moat beneath. At the point of greatest danger the besieged were inspired with the courage of their Emperor, and by the aid of the bands of Italians whom the purse and the appeals of John Giustiniani had brought as the last offering of the common faith of Christendom upon the great altar already dripping with a nation's blood.
Sometimes when the Christians, whose fewness compared with the assailants compelled them to serve both day and night, were discouraged by incessant danger and fatigue, a light form in helmet and breastplatemoved among them, regardless of arrows and bullets of lead: now stooping to staunch the wounds of the fallen; now mounting the parapet, where scores of stout soldiers shielded her with their bodies, and hailed her presence with the shout of "The Albanian! The Albanian!" The reverence which the soldiers gave to the devoted nuns, who were incessant in their ministry of mercy, was surpassed by that with which they regarded Morsinia. She had become in their eyes the impersonation of the cause for which they were struggling.
The interruption by the war of the negotiations with the Emir of Trebizond, whose daughter had been selected as the imperial spouse, revived the rumors which had once associated the fair Albanian's name with that of his Majesty; and gave rise to a nick-name, "the Little Empress," which, among the soldiers, came to be spoken with almost as much loyalty of personal devotion, as if it had received the imperial sanction.
Constantine's solicitude led him to remonstrate with Morsinia for the exposure of her person to the dangers of the wall: but she replied—
"Have you not said, my dear brother, that the defence is hopeless? that the city must fall? What fate then awaits me? The Turks have service for men whom they capture, which, though hard, is not damning to body and soul. What if they send you to the mines, to the galleys? What if they slay you? You can endure that. Yet I know that you yourself would perish in the fight before you would submit to even such a fate. But what is the destiny of a woman whoshall fall into their hands? It is better to die than to be taken captive. And is not yonder breach where the men of the true God are giving their lives for their faith, as sacred as was ever an altar on earth? Is not the crown of martyrdom better than a living death in the harem of the infidel? The arrow that finds me there on the wall shall be to me as an angel from heaven; and a death-wound received there will be as painless to my soul as the kiss of God."
"But this must not be!" cried Constantine. "Our valor, if it does not save the city, may lead to surrender upon terms which shall save all the lives of the people."
"It is impossible," replied she. "His Majesty informed me yesterday that Mahomet had pledged to his soldiers the spoil of the city, with unlimited license to pillage."
Constantine was silent, but at length added. "If worst comes, it will then be time enough to expose your life."
"But the end is near, dear Constantine. The city is badly provisioned. The poor are already starving. The garrison is on allowance which can sustain it but a few days. Besides, as you have told me, the Italians are at feud with the Greeks, and ready to open the gates if famine presses upon them."
"Yes, curses on the head of that monk Gennadius, who sends insult to our allies every day from his cell!" muttered Constantine. "But I cannot see you in danger, Morsinia. Promise me—for your life is dearer to me than my own—that you will not go upon the walls. I need not the solemn oath to our brave Castriot,and that to our father Kabilovitsch, that I will guard you. But, if not for my sake, then for their sake, take my counsel. I know that you are under the special care of the Blessed Jesu. Has He not shielded us both—me for your sake—many times before?"
"Your words are wise, my brother. You need not urge the will of Castriot and father Kabilovitsch, for your own wish is to me as sacred as that of any one on earth," said she, looking him in the eyes with the reverence of affection, and yielding to his embrace as he kissed her forehead.
"But," added she, "I must exact of you one promise."
"Any thing, my darling, that is consistent with your safety," was the quick reply.
"It is this. Promise me, by the Virgin Mother of God, that you will not allow me to become a living captive to the Turk."
"Not if my life can shield you. This you know!"
"Yes, I would not ask that, but something harder than that you should die for me."
A pallor spread over the face of Constantine, for he suspected her meaning, yet asked, "And what—what may that be?"
"Take my life with your own hand, rather than that a Turk should touch me," said Morsinia, without the slightest tremor in her voice.
Constantine stood aghast. Morsinia continued, taking his strong right hand in hers, and raising it to her lips—
"That were joy, indeed, if the hand of him who loves me, the hand which has saved me from dangerso often—could redeem me from this which I fear more than a thousand deaths! Promise me for love's sake!"
"I may not promise such a thing," said the young lover, with a voice which showed that her request had cut him to the heart.
"Then you love me not," said the girl, turning away.
But the look upon Constantine's face showed the terrible tragedy which was in his soul, and that such an accusation brought it too near its culmination. Instantly she threw herself into his arms.
"Forgive me! forgive me!" cried she. "I will not impugn that love which has proved itself too often. But let us speak calmly of it. Why should you shrink from this?" she asked, leading him to a seat beside her.
"Because I love you. My hand would become paralyzed sooner than touch rudely a hair of your head."
"Nay, in that you do not know yourself," said Morsinia. "Would you not pluck a mole from my face if I was marred by it in your eyes!"
"But that would be to perfect, not to harm you," said Constantine.
"And did you not hold the hand of the poor soldier to-day, while the leech was cutting him, lest the gangrene should infect his whole body with poison? And would you not have done so had he been your long lost brother, Michael, whom you loved? And would you not have done it more willingly because you loved him?"
"Yes," said Constantine, "but that would be to save life, not to destroy it."
"But what, my brother dear, is the fairness of a face compared with the fairness of honor? What the breath of the body, when both the body and the soul in it are threatened with contamination of such an existence as every woman receives from the Turk?"
"I cannot argue with you, Morsinia. My nature rebels against the deed you propose."
"But," replied she, "is not love nobler, and should it not be stronger, than nature? If nature should rebel against love, let love crush the rebellion, and show its sovereignty. If my hand should tremble to do aught that your true service required, I would accuse my hand of lack of devotion. But I think that men do not know the fulness of love as women do."
"Let me ask the question of you, Morsinia," replied the young lover after a pause. "Could you take my life as I lie here? Will your hand mix the poison to put to my lips in the event of the Turk entering the city? My life will be worse than death in its bitterness if you are lost to me."
Morsinia pondered the question, growing pale with the fearfulness of the thought. For a while she was speechless. The imagination started by Constantine's question seemed to stun her. She stared at the vague distance. At length she burst into tears, and laying her head upon her companion's shoulder, said:
"I love you too dearly, Constantine, to ask that ofyou which you shrink from doing. There is another who can render me the service."
"Who would dare?" said Constantine, rising and gazing wildly at her. "Who would dare to touch you, even at your own bidding?"
"I would," said Morsinia quietly. "And this I shall save for the moment when I need the last friend on earth," she added, drawing from her dress the bright blade of an Italian stiletto. "Perhaps, my heart would tremble, and my flesh shrink from the sharp point, though I love not myself as I love you."
"Let us talk no more of this," said Constantine, "but leave it for the hour of necessity, which happily I think will not soon come. I must tell you now for what I sought you. I have been ordered this very night to aid in a venture which, heaven grant! shall re-provision the city. Several large galleys, laden with corn and oil, are now coming up the sea from Genoa. If they see the cordon of the enemy's ships drawn across the harbor, not knowing the extremity to which the city is reduced, they may return without venturing an encounter. I am to reach them, and, if possible, induce them to cut their way through. The great chain at the entrance to the Golden Horn will be lowered at the opportune moment, and all the shipping in the harbor will make an attack upon the enemy's fleet. Of this our allies must be informed. As soon as it is dark I shall drift in a swift little skiff between these Turkish boats; and before the dawn I shall be far down on Marmora. To-morrow night, if your prayers are offered, Jesu will grant us success."
With a kiss he released himself from her embrace and was gone.
Constantine eluded the heavy boats of the Turks, which were anchored to prevent their drifting away upon the swift current with which the Black Sea discharges itself through the Bosphorus into Marmora. Upon meeting the befriending galleys, it was with little difficulty that he persuaded the Genoese captains to risk the encounter with the Turkish fleet. As Constantine pointed out to the Italian captains, the enormous navy of the blockaders, formed in the shape of a crescent, and stretched from the wall of the city across to the Asiatic shore, presented a more formidable obstacle to the eye than to the swift and skilfully manned Genoese galleys. The Turkish boats were generally but small craft, and laden down to the water's edge with men. The Genoese had four galleys, together with one which belonged to Byzantium.
These were vessels of the largest size, constructed by men who had learned to assert their prowess as lords of the sea. They were armed with cannon adapted to sweep the deck of an adversary at short range:—a weapon which the Turks had not yet floated, though they were in advance of the Christians in using such artillery on land. The high sides of theChristian galleys, moreover, prevented their being boarded except with dangerous climbing, while the defenders stood ready to pour the famous liquid called "Greek fire" upon the heads of those who should attempt it. Besides, heaven favored the Christians; for a strong gale was blowing, which, while it tossed the boats of their adversaries beyond their easy control, filled the sails of the Genoese, and sent them bounding over the waves: the oarsmen sitting ready to catch deftly into the bending billows with their blades. Each of the five vessels chose for a target a large one of the Turks, and clove it with its iron prow: while the cannon swept the Turkish soldiers by hundreds from other boats near to them. Passing through the thin crescent, the Christian galleys skilfully tacked, and, careening upon their sides, again assailed the Turks before they could evade their swift and resistless momentum. Again and again the galleys passed, like shuttles on a loom, through the line of the enemy, sinking the unwieldy hulks and drowning the crowded crews.
From the walls and house tops of the city went up huzzas for the victors and praises to heaven. From the shores of Asia, and from below the city wall, thousands of Moslems groaned their imprecations. The Sultan raged upon the beach, as he saw one after another of his pennants sink beneath the waves. Dashing far into the sea upon his horse, he vented his impotent fury in beating the water with his mace, shrieking maledictions into the laughing winds, and invoking upon the Christians curses from all the Pagan gods and Moslem saints.
At one moment the Byzantine galley was nearlyovercome, having been caught in a group of Turkish boats, whose occupants climbed her sides, and did murderous work among the crew. Though ultimately rescued by the Genoese, it was only after severe loss.
But above all other casualties the Christians mourned the fate of young Constantine. With almost superhuman strength he had cut down several assailants; but was finally set upon by such odds that he was pressed over the low bulwarks, and fell into the sea. The galley with its consorts made way to the chain at the entrance to the Golden Horn, where the rich stores, a thousand times richer now in the necessity which they relieved, were received amid the acclamations of the grateful Greeks.
But woe,—Oh, so heavy! crushed one solitary heart. Her eyes stared wildly at the messenger who brought the fatal tidings; and stared, hour by hour, in their stony grief, upon the wall of her apartment. Kind attendants spoke to her, but she heard them not. Her soul seemed to have gone seeking in other worlds the soul of her lover. The servants, awed by the majesty of her sorrow, sat down in the court without, and waited: but she called them not. Daylight faded into darkness. The lamp which was brought she waved with her hand to have taken away. The maidens who came to disrobe her for the night found her bowed with her face upon the couch; and, receiving no response to their proffered offices, retired again to wait.
The morning came; and the cheer of the sunlight which, quickening the outer world, poured through the windows high in the walls of her apartment,seemed to awaken her from her trance. But how changed in appearance! The ruddy hue of health, and the bronzing of daily exposure to the open air, seemed alike to have been blanched by that which had taken hope from her soul. Her eyes were sunken, and the lustre in them, though not lessened, now seemed to come from an infinite depth—from some distant, inner world which had lost all relation to this, as a passing star. Morsinia rose, weak at first; but her limbs grew strong with the imparted strength of her will. She ate; and speaking aloud—but more in addressing herself than her attendants—said: "I will away to the walls!"
Through the masses of debris, and among the groups of men who were resting and waiting to take the places of their wearied comrades on the ramparts, she went straight to the gate of St. Romanus, where the assaults were most incessant. The cry of "The Little Empress!" gave way to that of "The Panurgia! The Panurgia!"[77]as some, though familiar with her form, were startled by the almost unearthly change of her countenance. She returned no salutation as was usual with her, but, as if impelled by some superhuman purpose, her beauty lit as with a halo by the majesty of a celestial passion, she climbed the steps into the tottering tower above the gate. A strong, but gentle hand was put upon her arm. It was that of the Emperor.
"My daughter, you must not be here. Come away!"
She looked at him for an instant in hesitation; and then, bowing her head, responded in scarcely audible voice:
"I will obey you, Sire," and added, speaking to herself—
"It ishiswill too."
"I know your grief," said his majesty kindly, "and now, as your Emperor, I must protect you against yourself."
"I want no protection," cried the broken-hearted girl. "Oh, let me die! For what should I live?"
"My dear child," said the Emperor with trembling voice, while the tears filled his eyes. "In other days your holy faith taught me how to be strong. Now, in your necessity, let me repeat to you the lesson. For what shallyoulive? For what shouldIlive? I am Emperor, but my empire is doomed. I live no longer for earthly hope, but solely to do duty; nothing but duty, stern duty, painful every instant, crushing always, but a burden heaven imposed on a breaking heart. That heaven appoints it—that, and that alone—makes me willing to live and do it. When the time comes I shall seek death where the slain lie the thickest. But not to-day; for to-day I can serve. Live for duty! Live for God! The days may not be many before we shall clasp hands with those who, now invisible, are looking upon us. Let us go and cheer the living before we seek the companionship of the dead."
As the Emperor spoke, his face glowed with a majesty of soul which made the symbol of earthly majesty that adorned his brow seem poor indeed.
Gazing a moment with reverent amazement at the man who had already received the divine anointing for the sacrifice of martyrdom he was so soon to offer, Morsinia responded:
"Your words, Sire, come to me as from the lips of God. I will go and pray, and then—then I shall live for duty."
Mahomet had not expended all his petulant rage upon feelingless waves and distant Christians. He summoned to his presence the Admiral of his defeated fleet, Baltaoghli, and ordered that he should be impaled.
The Admiral had shown as much naval skill as could, perhaps, have been exhibited with the unwieldy boats at his command; and, moreover, had brought from the fight an eyeless socket to attest his bravery and devotion. The penalty, therefore, which Mahomet attached to his misfortune, brought cries of entreaty in his behalf from other brave officers, especially from the leading Janizaries. This opposition at first confirmed the determination of the irate despot. But soon the petition of the honored corps swelled into a murmur, which the more experienced of his advisers persuaded Mahomet to heed.
The Sultan had schooled himself to obey the preceptwhich Yusef, the eunuch, who instructed his childhood, had imparted, viz, "Make passion bend to policy." He therefore apparently yielded, so far at least as to compromise with those whom he feared to offend, and commuted the Admiral's sentence to a flogging.
The brave man was stretched upon the ground by four slaves. Turning to Captain Ballaban, the Sultan bade him lay on the lash. Ballaban hesitated. Drawing near to Mahomet, he said respectfully, but firmly,
"The Janizaries are soldiers, not executioners, Sire."
Mahomet's rage burst as suddenly as powder under the spark.
"Away with the rebel!" cried he. "We will find the executioner for him, too, who dares to disobey our orders."
Seizing his golden mace, the Sultan himself beat the prostrate form of the Admiral until it was senseless.
Wearying of his bloody work, Mahomet glared like a half satiated beast upon those about him.
"Where is the damned rebel who dares dispute my will? Did no one arrest him?"
"The order was not so understood," said an Aga who was near.
"You understand it now," growled the infuriated, yet half-ashamed, monarch. "Arrest him!—But no! Let these slaves go search for the runaway. It shall be their office to deal with one who dares to break with my will."
The Janizaries returned to their places near the walls.
Mahomet was ill at ease when his better judgment displaced his unwise passion. His love for Ballaban,the manliness of the captain's reply to the unreasonable order, and the danger of injuring one who stood so high in the estimate of the entire Janizary corps, were not outweighed even by the sense of the indignity which the act of disobedience had put upon the royal authority.
The slaves, not daring to venture among the Janizaries in their search for Captain Ballaban, easily persuaded themselves that he must have fled; and that, perhaps, he might be lurking somewhere on the shore, as this was the only way of escape. Their search was rewarded. Though in the disguise of scant garments, utterly exhausted so that he could make no resistance, their victim was readily recognized by his form and features, which were too peculiar to be mistaken. The captain had apparently attempted to escape by water; perhaps, had ventured upon some chance kaik or raft, and been wrecked in the caldron which the strong south wind made with the current pouring from the north.
His wet garments, such as he had not stripped off, and his exhausted look confirmed their theory.
One of their number brought the report to the Grand Vizier, Kalil, who repeated it to the Sultan.
"I will deal with him in person. Let no one know of the capture until I have seen him," said Mahomet, seeking an opportunity to revoke the threat against his friend, which he had uttered in insane rage; and, at the same time, to cover his imperial dignity by the semblance of a trial.
The culprit was brought in the early evening to the Sultan's tent. A large lantern of various colored crystalshung from the ridge-pole, and threw its beautiful, but partly obscured, light over the arraigned man.
His captors had clothed him in the uniform of the Janizaries.
"His face has a strange look, as if another's soul had taken lodging behind the familiar lineaments," the Sultan remarked to Kalil as he scanned the culprit closely.
"Do you know, knave, in whose presence you are?" said Mahomet, sternly.
"I know not, Sire, except that the excellent adornment of your person and pavilion suggest that I am in the presence of his majesty the—"
"Silence, villain! do you mock me?" cried the Padishah, in surprise at the man's assumed ignorance.
"I mock thee not, Sire," said the victim, bowing with courtly reverence, and speaking in a sort of patois of Greek and Turkish. "But I was about to say that I know thee not, except that from the excellence of thy person and estate thou art none less"——
"Silence, you dog! This is no time for your familiar jesting, Ballaban. Speak pure tongue, or I'll cut thine from thy head!" interrupted the Padishah.
"I speak as best I can," replied the man, "for I was not brought up to the Turkish tongue. I presume that I address the king of the Turks."
"Miserable wretch!" hissed his majesty, drawing his jewelled sword. "Dare you call me king of theTurks?Turks! thou circumcised Christian dog! thoupup of Nazarene parentage! thou damned infidel, beplastered with Moslem favors!"[78]
"It would seem that I needed Moslem favors, which in my destitute condition and imminent danger, I most humbly crave," replied the object of this contumely.
"Are you mad?" shrieked the Sultan, rising and glaring into the other's face. "Youaremad, man. Poor soul! Ay! Ay! I see it now. Some demon has possessed you. Some witch has blown on the knots against you."[79]
"I am not mad, Sire," said the culprit, "but a poor castaway on your coast."
"Hear him, poor fellow! so mad that he knows not himself. Well! well! I must forgive you then for not knowing me," said Mahomet, with genuine pity. "Did you love me so, old comrade, that my harsh words knocked over your reason? or did your reason, toppling over, lead you to challenge me as you did? We must cure this malady, though it takes the treasure of the empire to do it." Lowering his voice he addressed the Vizier:
"I could not believe that my faithful comrade would have rebelled. It was not he, but the demon who has possessed him. Think you not so, good Kalil?"
The Vizier bowed in assent to the Sultan's theory, and whispered, "It provides a wise escape from antagonizing the Janizaries. But you should summon a physician."
Clapping his hands, an attendant appeared, who was dispatched for the court physician; a man of fame in his profession, whose duty it was to be always within call of the Sultan.
The physician entering, examined the culprit, looking into his eyes, balancing his head between his hands to determine if there were any sudden disturbance of the proportionate avoirdupois; noting if his tongue lay in the middle of his mouth, and feeling his pulse. At length he said in low voice to the Sultan and Vizier:
"There is, Sire, no outward evidences of lacking wit. I would have him speak."
"He is the Janizary, Captain Ballaban," whispered the Vizier. "You will observe that the wit is clean gone from him. Tell us your story, Ballaban, or whoever you are."
"I beg the favor of your excellency, your lordship, Sire; for, since you deny that you are the king of the Turks, I know not what title to give to your authority. I am your prisoner. I fought on the Byzantine galley as Jesu gave me strength, but was unfortunate enough to fall overboard, and fortunate enough to avoid capture by the Turkish boats, as I dived beneath them, or rested myself below their sterns until I reached the shore. But as heaven willed it, I landed below the walls of the city. I was altogether weaponless, having shuffled off my armorthat I might swim—and altogether blown by my effort—or, by the bones of Abraham! I had never been captured by the cowardly slaves you sent. I ask only the treatment of an honorable enemy."
"By the beard of the Prophet!" exclaimed Mahomet, "if he were a Christian I would give him liberty for the valor of his speech. Some of the spirit of our gallant Ballaban is still left in him. The witches could not take the great heart out of him, though they stole away his wits. What say you, Sage Murta?" The physician replied, knitting his brows and stroking his chin—
"The Padishah is wise. The man is mad. But since his heart is not touched by the demon, but only his memory erased and his imagination distorted, my science tells me there is hope of his cure."
"What medicament have you for a diseased mind?" asked the Sultan.
With reverent pomposity, but in low voice not overheard by the patient, the physician uttered the prescription:
"First, we have the religious cure—if so be that the man is under the charm of the evil spirits—Find thee a cord with eleven knots tied on it:—for such was the number on the cord with which the daughters of Lobeid, the Jew, bewitched the Prophet. As thou untiest the knots repeat the last two chapters of the Koran, which the Angel Gabriel revealed as the talisman, saying—
"'I fly for refuge unto the Lord of the daybreak, that he may deliver me from the mischief of the night, when it cometh on; and from the mischief of women,blowing on the knots; and from the mischief of the envious; and from the mischief of the whisperer, the devil, who slyly withdraweth, who whispereth evil suggestions into the breasts of men: and from genii and men.'
"If this should fail—as I have known it to fail in the case of those who were not born in the sacred family of Islâm—we should try the virtues of the heritage bowl, which is much esteemed among the Giaours. I have possessed myself of one, once the property of an ancient family. It is made of silver, and engraved with forty-one padlocks. A decoction mixed in this bowl, and poured on the head of the patient any time within seven weeks after the day on which they celebrate the imagined rising of Jesu, son of Mary, from the dead, will often break the most malignant spell. The Christian Paska[80]is just past; so that it will be opportune."
"But should this likewise fail?" asked Mahomet, impatient with the sage's prolixity.
"Ah! we shall then have to try our strictly human remedies. This ailment is called by the Latin disciples of Galen,dementia, which signifieth that the man's mind, his natural thoughts, have gone away from him. We must recall them. For this we must have some strong appeal to that which was his hottest passion or interest before his mind flew away from him. Do you know the absorbing humor of this man? Was he a lover? If so, we must find the fair one who has robbed him of his better part, and, restoring her to him, we shall restore him to himself."
"Nay," said Mahomet. "Captain Ballaban wasnever enamored of woman. The maid who lured the Prophet from the charms of Ayesha and Hafsa,[81]would not have turned Ballaban's head. I once offered him the choice of a bevy of Georgians; but he would not even look at them. He is a soldier; from tassel to shoe-thong a soldier."
"Ah! then we have the remedy at hand," said Murta, rolling his eyes as if reading the prescription in the air. "Give him command; military excitement; honors of the field. When the cimeters gleam then will reason flash again. And my science is at fault if the simple summons to some high duty work not a counter charm to break the spell that is on him, though it were woven by the mystic dance of all the genii and devils."
"We will try this last remedy first," said Mahomet. "Dismiss him. Let him go as he will, without hindrance or seeming to follow, until my orders be brought him by his Aga. In the meantime search the shore for the knotted cord the witches may have blown upon. And, good Murta, send for the silver bowl; for my brain is that hot that I fear me the Giaour ghosts we have sent gibbering to hell during the last few days have left the spell of their evil eyes upon me too."
The following day was not far advanced when Captain Ballaban was summoned to the Sultan's tent, the rumor of his restoration to royal favor having been made to precede the summons. In fact, after the affair of the preceding afternoon, Ballaban had not gone to the sea shore, but retired to his own quarters, wherehe loyally awaited either his death summons, or an invitation for some wild frolic with the Padishah; he knew not which, so thought about neither; but busied himself over a plan for a new gun-carriage he was going to submit to Urban.
With assumed stolidity he entered the royal tent. As he rose from his obeisance upon the earth, his majesty embraced him with boyish delight.
"Your old self again: I see your soul in your face. I'd give half the horse-tails in the empire rather than lose that shock of hair from my sight, or the glowing brain that is under it from my councils, my red-headed angel!"
"There is no need to lose it, except by cutting it off at my shoulders," said Ballaban, falling in with the humor of the Sultan, yet watchful not to be taken unawares, if, in its fitfulness, that humor should turn.
"I have a grand service for you, if you have skill and courage enough to execute it," said Mahomet, watching the effect on his friend.
The captain's eyes flashed with the prospect, as he said:
"I wait your plan, Sire; only let it be bold."
"I have no plan, you must make one. I would see if your brain is as square as the pot you keep it in," said the Sultan, tapping him on the head with a jewelled whip staff, and adding,
"It is evident, Captain, that we must get possession of the Golden Horn; for so long as the enemy hold that for their harbor, we cannot prevent their reprovisioning the city as they did yesterday; and a few more such auxiliaries as they brought, indeed, anothersuch leader as the Genoese Giustiniani, would compel us to raise the siege. How can we take the harbor? Our boats can never raise the chain at the mouth."
"That has been my problem since the siege began," said Ballaban. "I remember while in Albania, as I lodged one night in a village, I met with some Italian officers, who had come to offer their swords to Castriot. They told how they moved their fleet overland, several miles on a roadway of timbers.[82]We can use that device. The thing is not impracticable; for there is a depression to the north of Galata, through which from the Bosphorus to the inland extremity of the Golden Horn is but five or six miles. Our vessels are not large; could be transported with the multitudes of our troops, and on the still water of the harbor would soon, by superior numbers, capture those of the Christians."
"A good conception!" said Mahomet, "and if my reading has not been at fault, the Roman Augustus did something similar.[83]It shall be done. Let it not be said that the Ottoman was surpassed in daring or difficulty of enterprise by Pagan or Christian. You shall perform it, Ballaban. The woods above Galata will serve for planking, and the engineers can be spared from before the walls until it is accomplished."
A few days later a large fleet of the Moslems was conveyed overland, by means of a roadway of greased timbers. To the amazement of the Christians their adversary's navy no longer lay idly upon the Bosphorus,but was transformed into a line of floating batteries within the harbor of the Golden Horn, and from their rear soon destroyed the fleet of the defenders.
The city was now completely invested. Menaced from all sides, the defenders were not sufficient in numbers to guard the many approaches. Yet the daily fighting was desperate, for the Moslems were inspired by the certainty of success, while the Christians were nerved with the energy of despair. To end the siege Mahomet designated a time for a combined assault from sea and land.
As the fatal day dawned, numberless hordes moved towards the walls. The great ditches were soon filled with the dead bodies of thousands of the least serviceable soldiers, who had been driven from behind by the lances of the trained bands, that they might thus worry the patience and exhaust the resources of the brave defenders, without taxing the best of the Moslem troops. The carcasses of the slain made a highway for the living, over which they poured against the gate of St. Romanus. The four grim towers toppled beneath the pounding of great stone balls hurled from the cannon of Urban. The defenders were driven off the adjacent walls by the storms of bullets and arrows that swept them. At the critical moment the Janizaries, unwearied as yet by watchingor fighting, twelve thousand strong, as compact a mass beneath the eye of the Sultan as the weapon he held in his hand, moved to where the breach was widest.
"The spoil to all! A province to him who first enters!" cried the Sultan, waving his iron battle mace. Hassan, the giant, first mounted the rampart, and fell pierced with arrows and crushed with stones. But through the gap his dying valor had made in the ranks of the foe first rushed the company of Ballaban.
In vain did the people crowd beneath the dome of St. Sophia, grasping with hopeless hope an ancient prophecy that at the extreme moment an angel would descend to rescue the city. Alas! only the angel of death came that day; and to none brought he more welcome news than to the Emperor,—"Thy prayer is answered; for thou hast fallen where the dead lie thickest!" Near the gateway of St. Romanus, where he had met the first of the invaders, under the piles of the dead, gashed by sabre strokes and crushed beneath the feet of the victors, lay the body of Constantine Palæologus, the noblest of the Cæsars of the Eastern Empire!
The Turks placed his ghastly head between the feet of the bronze horse, a part of the equestrian statue of Justinian, where it was reverently saluted even by the Moslems, who paused in the rage of the sack to think upon the virtue and courage of the unfortunate monarch.
Captain Ballaban had pressed rapidly through the city to the doors of St. Sophia. The oaken gates flew back under the axes of the Moslems. Monks and matrons, children and nuns, lords and beggars werecrowded together, not knowing whether the grand dome would melt away and a legion of angels descend for their relief, or the vast enclosure would become a pen of indiscriminate slaughter. The motley and helpless misery excited the pity of the captors. Ballaban's voice rang through the arches, proclaiming safely to those who should submit. That he might the better command the scene, he made his way to the chancel in front of the grand altar. It was filled with the nuns, repeating their prayers. Among them was the fair Albanian. Her face was but partly toward him, yet he could never mistake that queenly head. She was addressing the Sisters. Holding aloft the bright shaft of a stiletto, she cried,—
"Let us give ourselves to heaven, but never to the harem!"
Ballaban paused an instant. But that instant seemed to him many minutes. As, under the lightning's flash, the whole moving panorama of the wide landscape seems to stand still, and paints vividly its prominent objects, however scattered, upon the startled eye of the beholders; so his mind marvellously quickened by the excitement, took in at once the long track of his own life. He saw a little child's hand wreathing him with flowers plucked beside a cottage on the Balkans; a lovely captive whose face was lit by the blazing home in a hamlet of Albania; a form of one at Sfetigrade lying still and faint with sickness, but radiant as with the beginning of transfiguration for the spirit life; and the queenly being who was borne in the palanquin through the gate of Phranza. But how changed! How much more glorious now! Earthlybeauty had become haloed with the heavenly. He never had conceived of such majesty, such glory of personality, such splendor of character, as were revealed by her attitude, her eye, her voice, her purpose.
"But now," thought he, "the descending blade will change this utmost sublimity of being into a little heap of gory dust!"
All this flashed through his mind. In another instant his strong hand had caught the arm of the voluntary sacrifice. The stiletto, falling, caught in the folds of her garments, and then rang upon the marble floor of the chancel. Morsinia uttered a shriek and fell, apparently as lifeless as if the blade had entered her heart.
The Janizary stood astounded. A tide of feeling strange to him poured through his soul. For the first time in his life he felt a horror of war. Not thousands writhing on the battle field could blanch his cheek with pity for their pangs: but that one voice rang through and through him, and rent his heart with sympathetic agony. Her cry had become a cry of his own soul too.
For the first time he realized the dignity of woman's character. This woman was not even wounded. She had fallen beneath the stroke of a thought, a sentiment, a woman's notion of her honor! The women he had known had no such fatal scruples. Other captive beauties soon became accustomed to their new surroundings. Many even offered to buy with their charms an exchange of poverty for the luxuries of the harem of Pashas and wealthy Moslems.Was this a solitary woman's tragedy of virtue? Or was it some peculiar teaching of the Christian's faith that inspired her to such heroism? However it came, the man knew that with her it was a mighty reality; this instinct of virtue; this sanctity of person.
And this woman was his dream made real! A celestial ideal which he had touched!
The man's brain reeled with the shock of these tenderer and deeper feelings, coming after the wildness of the battle rage. He grasped the altar for support. The blood seemed to have ceased to bound in his veins, the temples to be pulseless; a band to have been drawn tightly about his brain so as to paralyze its action. He felt himself falling. A deathly sickness spread through his frame. He was sure he had fainted. He thought he must have been unconscious for a while. Yet when he opened his eyes, the soldier near him was in the same attitude of dragging a nun by her wrists as when he last saw him. Time had stood still with his pulses. He shuddered at the cruelty on every side, as the shrieks from the high galleries were answered by those in distant alcoves and from the deep crypt. He watched the groups of old men and children, monks and senators, nuns and courtesans, tied together and dragged away, some for slaughter, some for princely ransom, some for shame.
The building was well emptied when the Sultan entered.
He at once advanced to the altar and proclaimed:
"God is God; there is but one God, and Mahomet is the apostle of God!"
"But whom have we here, Captain Ballaban?"
"Your Majesty, I am guarding a beautiful captive whom I would not have fall into the hands of the common soldiers; I take it, of high estate," replied the Janizary, knowing that such an introduction to the royal attention alone could save her from the fate which awaited the unhappy maidens, most of whom were liable to be sold to brutal masters and transported to distant provinces.