The Captain of the Janizaries Part 24

"But, tell me, good father, can that be necessary to be believed, about which whole nations, like the Greeks, differ from other nations, like the Latins? I have seen Greeks at their worship, and bowed with them, and felt that G.o.d was near and blessing us all. And I have heard them say, when they were dying, that they saw heaven open; and they reached out their arms to be taken by the angels. Does not Jesu save them, though they may err about that which we trust to be the truth?"

"My child, you must not think of these things," said Barletius kindly.

"It is better that you sleep now. The air is growing chill. Wrap your cloak closely even beneath the deck."

He walked away, repeating a line from Virgil as he scanned the star-gemmed heavens.

"Suadentque cadentia sidera somnos."

Wrapping his hood close over his face, he lay down upon the deck.

FOOTNOTES:

[63] Marinus Barletius, a Latin monk of the time, has given us in his chronicles, the most extended account of Scanderbeg.

[64] Filioque; "and the Son." The Latin Church holds that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father _and the Son_. The Greeks deny the latter part of the proposition.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Two new comers joined the party at Corinth, where, crossing the isthmus on horses, they re-embarked. One was Giustiniani, a Genoese, of commanding form and n.o.ble features, the very type of chivalric gentility, bronzed by journeyings under various skies, and scarred with the memorials of heroic soldiership on many fields. The other was a Dacian, short of stature, with broad and square forehead, and a crooked neck which added to the sinister effect of his squinting eyes.

"Well, Urban," said the Genoese, "you still have confidence in your new ordnance, and think that saltpetre and charcoal are to take the place of the sword, and that every lout who can strike a fire will soon be a match for a band of archers:--Eh!"

"Yes, Sire, and if the emperor would only allow me a few hundred ducats, I would cast him a gun which, from yonder knoll, would heave a stone of five talents'[65] weight, and crash through any galley ever floated from the docks of Genoa or Venice. Four such guns on either side would protect this isthmus from a fleet. But, I tell you, n.o.ble Giustiniani, that without taking advantage of our new science, the emperor cannot hold out long against the Turk. The Turk is using gunpowder. He is willing to learn, and has already learned, what the emperor will find out to his cost, that the walls of Constantinople itself cannot long endure the battering of heavy cannon."

"You are right, Urban," replied the Genoese. "The Turk is also ahead of us in the art of approaching citadels. I have no doubt that his zigzag trenches[66] give the a.s.sailant almost equality with the besieged in point of safety. I will gladly use my influence at the court of Byzantium in behalf of your scheme for founding large cannon, Urban; if, perchance, the defence of the empire may receive a t.i.the of the treasure now squandered in princely parades and useless emba.s.sages."

The galley glided smoothly through the little gulf of aegina, with its historic bays of Eleusis and Salamis. Giustiniani and Urban discussed the disposition of the Greek and Persian fleets during the ancient fight at Salamis, as they moved under the steep rocky hill on which Xerxes sat to witness the battle. They soon rounded the headland, opposite the tomb of Themistocles, and anch.o.r.ed in the harbor of the Piraeus.

This port of Athens was crowded with shipping. There were Spanish gallea.s.ses like floating castles, with huge turrets at stem and stern, rowed by hundreds of galley slaves. Other vessels of smaller size floated the standard of France. Those of the maritime cities of Italy vied with one another in the exquisite carving of their prows and the gaiety of their banners.

The chief attention was centred upon a splendid galley of Byzantium, whose deck was covered with silken awnings, beneath which a band of music floated sweet strains over the waters. This was the vessel of the imperial chamberlain, Phranza, who, having been entertained in Athens with honors befitting his dignity, was now about to return to Constantinople.

Giustiniani ordered his galley alongside of that of the chamberlain, by whom he was received with distinguishing favors. Constantine took this opportunity to deliver, through the Genoese, Scanderbeg's letters to Phranza. They were read with evident gratification by the chamberlain. With a hearty welcome, not devoid of some curiosity on his part, as he scrutinized the appearance of the strangers, he invited Constantine and his companion to complete their journey in his galley.

Morsinia was at first as much dazed by the splendor, as she was mortified by her ignorance of the formalities, with which she was received. But the natural dignity of her bearing stood her in good stead of more courtly graces: for these modern Greeks emulated those of ancient times in the reverence they paid to womanly beauty. The chamberlain was somewhat past middle life. He was a man whose studious habits, as the great historian of his times, did not dull his brilliancy as the master of etiquette. Nor had his astuteness as a statesman been acquired by any sacrifice of his taste for social intrigues. The diversions from the cares of state, which other great men have found at the gaming-table or in their cups, Phranza sought in studying the mysteries of female character; admiring its virtues, and yet not averse to finding entertainment in its foibles. A true Greek, he believed that physical beauty was the index of the rarer qualities of mind and heart. He would have been a consenting judge at the trial of that beautiful woman in the cla.s.sic story, the perfection of whose unrobed form disproved the charge of her crime. He was such an ardent advocate of the absolute authority of the emperor that, though of decided aristocratic tendencies, he held that no marriage alliance, however high the rank of the bride, could add to the dignity of the throne: indeed, that beauty alone could grace the couch of a king; that the first of men should wed the fairest of women, and thus combine the aristocracy of rank with the aristocracy of nature. He had frequent opportunities to express his peculiar views on this subject; for, among the problems which then perplexed his statecraft, was that of the marriage of the emperor--that the succession might not be left to the hazard of strife among the families of the blood of the Palaeologi. Had the choice of the royal spouse been left entirely in his hands, he would have made the selection on no other principle than that adopted by the purveyor of plumage for the court, who seeks the rarest colors without regard to the nesting-place of the bird.

The genuine politeness of the courtier, together with Morsinia's womanly tact in adapting herself to her new environment, soon relieved her from the feeling of restraint, and the hours of the voyage pa.s.sed pleasantly. Her conversation, which was free from the conventionalities of the day, was, for this very reason, as refreshing to Phranza as the simple forms of nature--the mountain stream, the tangles of vines and wild flowers--are to the habitues of cities. There was a native poetry in her diction, an artlessness in her questions, and a transparent honesty in her responses. Indeed, her very manner unveiled the features of so exalted and healthy a mind, of a disposition so frank and ingenuous, of a character so delicately pure and exquisitely beautiful, that they compensated many fold any lack of artificial culture. The great critic of woman forgot to study her face: he only gazed upon it. He ceased to a.n.a.lyze her character: he simply felt her worth.

But no fairness of a maiden, be she Albanian or Greek, can long monopolize the attention of an elderly man whose swift vessel bears him through the cl.u.s.tering glories of the aegean. Nor could any awe for his rank, or interest in his learned conversation, absorb Morsinia from these splendors which glowed around her. They gazed in silence upon the smooth and scarcely bending sea, which, like a celestial mirror, reflected all the hues of the sky--steely blue dissolving into softest purple; white mists transfused by sunset's glow into billows of fire; monolithic islands flashing with the colors of mighty agates in the prismatic air; clouds white as snow and clear cut as diamonds, lifting themselves from the horizon like the "great white throne" that St. John saw from the cliffs of Patmos yonder.

Crossing the aegean, the voyagers hugged the old Trojan coast until off the straits of the h.e.l.lespont. They lay during a day under the lee of Yeni Sheyr shoals, and at night ran the gauntlet of the new Turkish forts, Khanak-Kalesi and Khalid-Bahar, at the entrance to the Sea of Marmora. Two days later there broke upon the view that most queenly of cities, Byzantium, reclining upon the tufted couch of her seven hills, by the most lovely of seas, like a nymph beside her favorite fountain.

The galley glided swiftly by the "Seven Towers," which guard on Marmora the southern end of the enormous triple wall. The bastions and towers of this famous line of defenses cut their bold profile against the sky for a distance of five or six miles in a straight line, until the wall met the extremity of the Golden Horn on the north; thus making the city in shape like a triangle--the base of gigantic masonry; the sides of protecting seas.

Gay barges and kaiks shot out from the sh.o.r.e to form a welcoming pageant to the returning chamberlain. With easy oars they drifted almost in the shadows of the cypress trees which lined the bank and hid the residences of wealthy Greek merchants and the pavilions of princes. The lofty dome of St. Sophia flashed its benediction upon the travelers, and its challenge of a better faith far across the Bosphorus to the Asiatic Moslem, whose minarets gleamed like spear-heads from beside their mosques. From the point where the Golden Horn meets the strait of the Bosphorus and the sea of Marmora, rose the palace of the emperor, embowered in trees, and surrounded with gardens which loaded the air with the perfume of rarest flowers and the song of birds. Rounding the point into the Golden Horn, the grim old Genoese tower of Galata, on the opposite bank, saluted them with its drooping banner. They dropped anchor in the lovely harbor. Strong arms with a few strokes sent the tipsy kaiks from the galley through the rippling water to the landing. An elegant palanquin brought the wife of Phranza to meet her lord. Another, which was designed for the chamberlain, he courteously a.s.signed to Morsinia; while Constantine and the gentlemen of the suite mounted the gaily caparisoned horses that were in readiness. The chamberlain insisted upon Morsinia and Constantine becoming his guests, at least until their familiarity with the city should make it convenient for them to reside elsewhere.

FOOTNOTES:

[65] A modern Greek talent weighs 125 English pounds.

[66] The present art of "slow approach" was an invention of the Turks.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

The house of Phranza was rather a series of houses built about a square court, in which were parterres of rarest plants, divided from each other by walks of variegated marble, and moistened by the spray of fountains.

Morsinia's palanquin was let down just within the gateway. A young woman a.s.sisted her to alight, and conducted her to apartments elegantly furnished with all that could please a woman's eye, though she were the reigning beauty of a court, instead of one brought up as a peasant in a distant province, and largely ignorant of the arts of the toilet. She was bewildered with the strangeness of her surroundings, and sat down speechless upon the cushion to gaze about her. Was she herself? It required the remembrance that Constantine was somewhere near her to enable her to realize her own ident.i.ty, and that she had not been changed by some fairy's wand into a real princess.

"Will my lady rest?" said the attendant, in softest Greek.

Morsinia was familiar with this language, which was used more or less everywhere in Servia and Albania; but she had never heard it spoken with such sweetness. The words would have been restful to hear, though she had not understood their meaning. Without hesitation she resigned herself to the hands of the servant, who relieved her of her outer apparel. Another maiden brought a tray of delicate wafers of wheat, and flasks of light wine, with figs and dates. A curtain in the wall, being drawn, exposed the bath; a great basin of mottled marble, and a little fountain scattering a spray scented with roses.

Morsinia began to fear that she had been mistaken for some great lady, whose wardrobe was expected to be brought in ma.s.sive chests, and whose personal ornaments would rival the toilet treasures of the Queen of Sheba. There entered opportunely several tire-women, laden with silks and linens, laces and shawls, every portion of female attire, in every variety of color and shape--from the strong buskin to the gauze veil so light that it will hide from the eye less than it reveals to the imagination.

The guest was about to question her attendants, when one gave her a note, hastily written by Constantine, and simply saying--

"Be surprised at nothing." Phranza had expressed to Constantine the deep interest of the emperor in the career of Scanderbeg, and his plans for Morsinia.

"Scanderbeg," said he, "is the one hero of our degenerate age; the only arm not beaten nerveless by the blows of the Turk. I have asked nothing concerning yourself, my young man; nor need I know more than that such a chieftain is interested in you and your charge. Your great captain informs me (reading from a letter), that any service we may render you here will be counted as service to Albania; and that any favor we may bestow upon the lady will be as if shown to his own child. Is she of any kin to him?"

"I may not speak of that," replied the youth, "except to tell that her blood is n.o.ble, and that General Castriot has made her safety his care. An Albanian needs but to know that this is the will of our loving and wise chieftain, to defend Morsinia with his life."

"You speak her name with familiarity," said Phranza.

"It is the custom of our people," replied Constantine, coloring. "The trials of our country have thrown n.o.bles and peasants into more intimate relations than would perhaps be allowed in a settled condition. This, too, may have influenced General Castriot in sending her here, where her life may be more suitable to her gentle blood."

"It is enough!" exclaimed Phranza. "If our distance from Albania, and our own pressing difficulties and dangers do not allow us to send aid to your hero, we can show him our respect and grat.i.tude by treating her, whom he would have as his child, as if she were our own. And now for yourself--well! you shall have what, if I mistake you not, your discreet mind and l.u.s.ty muscles most crave--an opportunity 'to win your spurs,' as the western knights would say. Events are thickening into a crash, the out-come of which no one can foresee, except that the Moslem or the Christian shall hold all from the Euxine to the Adriatic. This double empire cannot long exist. Scanderbeg's arms alone are keeping the Sultan from trying again the strength of our walls. A disaster there; an a.s.sault here! You serve the one cause whether here or there."

"I give my fealty to the emperor as I would to my general," replied the young man warmly.

Constantine found himself arrayed before night in the costume of a subaltern officer of the imperial guard, and a.s.signed to quarters at the barracks in the section of the city near to the house of the chamberlain. His brief training under the eye of Castriot, and his hazardous service, had developed his great natural talent for soldiership into marvellous acquirements for one of his years. With the foils, in the saddle, in mastery of tactics, in engineering ability displayed at the walls--which were being constantly strengthened--he soon took rank with the most promising. By courtesy of the chamberlain he was allowed the freest communication with Morsinia, and was often the guest of her host; especially upon excursions of pleasure up the Golden Horn to the "Sweet Waters," along the western sh.o.r.e of the Bosphorus, to the Princess Island, and such other spots on the sea of Marmora as were uninfested by piratical Turks.

Morsinia became the favorite not only of the wife of Phranza, but of the ladies of the court, and the object of especial devotion on the part of the n.o.bles and officers of the emperor's suite.

But it would have required more saintliness of female disposition than was ever found in the court of a Byzantine emperor, to have smothered the fires of jealousy, when, at a banquet given at the palace, Morsinia was placed at the emperor's right hand. It might not be just to Phranza to say that to his suggestion was due the praise of Morsinia's beauty and queenly bearing, which the emperor overheard from many of the courtiers' lips. Perhaps the charms of her person forced this spontaneous commendation from them: as it was a.s.serted by some of the more elderly of the ladies--whom long study had made proficient in the art of reading kings' hearts from their faces, that the monarch found an Esther in the Albanian.

The reigning beauty at the court of Constantine Palaelogus at this time was the daughter of a Genoese admiral. Though not reputed for amiability, she won the friendship of Morsinia by many delicate attentions. Gifts of articles of dress, ornaments and such souvenirs as only one woman can select for another, seemed to mark her increasing attachment. A box of ebony, richly inlaid with mother of pearl, and filled with delicious confections, was one day the offering upon the shrine of her sisterly regard. The wife of Phranza, in whose presence the box was opened, on learning the name of the donor, besought Morsinia not to taste the contents; and giving a candied fig to a pet ape, the brute sickened and died before the night.

An event contributed to the rumors which a.s.sociated the name of the fair Albanian with the special favors of the emperor. An emba.s.sage from the Doge of Venice had brightened the harbor with their galleys.

A gondola sheathed in silver, floated upon the waters of the Golden Horn, like a white swan, and was moored at the foot of the palace garden--the gift of the Doge. Another, its counterpart, was in the harbor of Venice--the possession of the daughter of the Doge; but waiting to join its companion, if the imperial heart could be persuaded to accept with it the person of its princely owner. Better than the ideal marriage of Venice with the sea--the ceremony of which was annually observed--would be the marriage of the two seas, the Adriatic and the aegean; and the reunion of their families of confluent waters under the double banner of St. Mark and Byzantium. But the Grand Duke Lucas Notaris, who was also grand admiral of the empire, declared openly that he would sooner hold alliance with the Turk than with a power representing that schismatic Latin Church. The hereditary n.o.bles protested against such a menace to social order as, in their estimate, a recognition of a republic like Venice would be. But it was believed that more potent in its influence over the emperor than these outcries, was the whisper of Phranza that the silver gondola of Venice was fairer than its possessor; and that queenly beauty awaited elsewhere the imperial embrace.