The Captain of the Janizaries Part 44

"Yes!" groaned the helpless man.

He was instantly disarmed, and bound by the girth to a horse.

FOOTNOTES:

[107] Vide Knowles, History of the Turks, and Albanian Chronicles.

[108] Modern Alessio.

CHAPTER LIV.

The corps of Janizaries had been quartered at some distance from the main body of the Turks. Their new Aga comprehended at once the significance of the turmoil in the camp, and hastened to the defence.

Though he moved rapidly, and with a well conceived plan of confronting the enemy, yet, most of his troops being foot-soldiers, he was unable to confront the swift-riding squadrons of Scanderbeg. These a.s.sailants withdrew from the field, but only to return again and again upon the panic stricken Turks, whose fears had magnified the numbers of their foes into scores of thousands. So rapidly did a.s.sault follow a.s.sault, and from such diverse quarters, that the Moslem fright imagined one attack was headed by the terrible Ivan Beg with his savage Montenegrins, and another by Hunyades, a report of whose alliance with Scanderbeg had reached the camps before the battle. Indeed the rumble of a coming thunder storm was interpreted into the clamor and tread of unknown myriads ready to burst through the mountains. Never did a more insane panic steal away the courage of soldiers and the judgment of generals. Late in the day the plain of Pharsalia was the scene of one vast wreck. Overturned tents displayed immense stores of burnished arms and vestments, provisions of need and luxury, standards for the field and banners for the pageant; and everywhere strewn amid this debris of pomp and pride the half-armored bodies of the slaughtered Turks. In narrow mountain valleys the freshet following the sudden tempest, never changed the bloom of the summer gardens more completely, than this panic, following Scanderbeg's raid, changed the splendid camp of the morning into the desolation upon which the setting sun cast, as a fitting omen, its red rays. Indeed, we can conceive no similitude by which to express the contrast better than that of Amesa himself, in the morning adorned in the splendor of his royal expectation, and at night lying bound with ropes at the feet of Scanderbeg.

The grand old chieftain looked at the renegade for a moment with pity and scorn; then turned away, saying,--

"Let him lie there until Captain Constantine, to whom he belongs, shall come."

But Constantine came not. Though the main body of the Turks had taken to precipitate flight, the Janizaries had managed, by their unbroken and orderly retreat, to cover the rear, and prevent pursuit by Scanderbeg. Ballaban had reached the group engaged in the capture of Amesa, and almost rescued him. This would have been accomplished had not Constantine and a handful of his company made a living wall between the Janizaries and those who were leading away the miserable man. Ballaban, feeling the responsibility of saving him whom he had led into this shameful misfortune, pressed to the very front.

"By the sword of the Prophet! the fellow fights bravely," he exclaimed, as he watched Constantine, baffling a half dozen Janizaries who were pressing upon him.

"Back, men! I would measure my arm against his," he cried, as he laid his sword against that of his unknown antagonist.

Both were in complete armor, their faces concealed by the closed helmets. The soldiers stood as eager spectators of the masterly sword play. The two men seemed evenly matched,--the same in stature and build. There was, too, a surprising similarity in movement--the very tactics of the Janizary in thrust and parry being repeated by the Albanian; their swords now flashing like interlacing flames; the sharp ring as the Albanian smote upon the polished metal of his antagonist's armor, answered by the duller thud as the Janizary's blow fell upon the thick leather which encased the panoply of his opponent. Then both stood as if posing for the sculptor; their sword points crossing; their eyes glaring beneath the visors; the slightest movement of a muscle antic.i.p.ated by either--then again the crash.

But Constantine was exhausted by his previous engagement with Amesa.

In an unlucky moment the sword turned in his hand. The steadiness of the grip was lost. He managed to ward the blow which the Aga delivered; but, foreseeing that he could not recover his grasp soon enough to return it, and that his opponent was thrown slightly off his perfect poise by his exertion, he dropped his sword, and closed with him. They fell to the ground; but the Aga, more alert at the instant, was uppermost, and his dagger first in position for the fatal cut.

"I can not slay so valiant a man as you," said Ballaban. "You surrender?"

"I must," was the response. As they rose, Ballaban looked a moment upon the vanquished, and said,

"I would know the name of my worthy antagonist, for worthier I never found. Scanderbeg himself could not have done better. But I had the advantage of being in better wind at the start, or, Allah knows, I had fared hard."

"It is enough that I am your prisoner," said Constantine, "and that I have detained my conqueror long enough to prevent the recapture of that Albanian traitor, Amesa. You can have me willingly, now that you cannot have him."

The Albanian threw up his visor. Ballaban stared at the face. It was as familiar as his own which he saw daily in the polished bra.s.s mirror. The Janizaries stared with almost equal amazement.

"No wonder he fought so well, Aga!" said one, "for he is thy other self."

"Let him be brought to our headquarters when we halt," said Ballaban, remounting his horse, and dashing away to another part of the field.

CHAPTER LV.

Night brought little sleep to the Turkish host. Though danger was past, a sense of humiliation and chagrin was shared by officers and men, as they realized that their defeat was due to their own folly more than to the strength of their foe. In every tentless group the men disturbed the quiet of the night with their ceaseless quarrels.

Members of the different commands, hopelessly confused in the general flight, rivalled one another in the rancor and contempt of their mutual recriminations as much as they ever emulated one another in the courage and prowess of a well fought field. Among those of highest rank bitter and insulting words were followed by blows, as if the general disgrace could be washed out by a gratuitous spilling of their own blood.

But a different interest kept Ballaban waking. Beneath the great tree, which had been designated as the headquarters of the Janizaries, and from a limb of which was suspended the symbolic kettle, his prisoner had been awaiting the Chief Aga. The glimpse of his face at the time of the capture had awakened in the Janizary more than a suspicion of the personality of the captive; while the name of Ballaban, which he had heard from the soldiers, revealed to the Albanian that of his captor. With impatience the Aga conversed with the various commanders who thronged him, and as soon as possible dismissed them. When they were alone Constantine rose, and, without completing his salam, exclaimed,

"You play more roughly, Michael, than when last we wrestled together among the rocks of Slatiza."

"Ah, my brother Constantine, I thought of you when you gripped me in the fight to-day; for it was the same old hug with which we rolled together long ago. I would have known you, had you only given me time to think, without your raising the visor."

The brothers stood for a moment in half embrace, scanning each other's face and form. An onlooker would have noted that their mutual resemblance was not in the details of their features, so much as in certain marked peculiarities; such as the red and bristling hair, square face, prominent nose and chin. Constantine's forehead was higher than Michael's, which had more breadth and ma.s.siveness across the brows. In speaking, Constantine's eye kindled, and his plastic lips gave expression to every play of sentiment: while Michael's face was as inflexible as a mask; the deep light of his glance as thoroughly under control of his will as if it were the flash of a dark lantern; his appearance revealing not the shadow of a thought, not the flicker of an emotion, beyond that he chose to put into words. This physiognomical difference was doubtless largely due to the training of years. The Janizary's habit of caution and secretiveness evolved, as it were, this invisible, but impenetrable, visor. The custom of unquestioning obedience to another, and that of the remorseless prosecution of whatever he regarded as politic for the service, gave rigidity to the facial muscles; set them with the prevalent purpose; stereotyped in them the expression of determination. A short beard added to the immobile cast of his countenance. Thus, though when separated the two men might readily be taken the one for the other, when together their resemblance served to suggest as wide contrasts.

The entire night was spent by the brothers in mutual narrations of their eventful lives. Though their careers had been so distinct, in different lands, under rival civilizations, in the service of contending nations, and inflamed by the incentives of antagonistic religions, yet their roads had crossed at the most important points in each. They learned to their astonishment that the most significant events, those awakening the deepest experience in the one life, had been due to the presence of the other. As Michael told of his raid upon the Albanian village, Constantine supplied the key to the mystery of the escape of his fair captive, and the arrest of Michael for having at that time deserted his command. Then Michael in turn supplied the key to Constantine's arrest by Colonel Kabilovitsch's men as a Turkish spy. Constantine solved the enigma of Amesa's overtures to Michael in reference to the Dodola Elissa; and Michael solved that of Constantine's rough handling by the garrison of Sfetigrade for having dropped the dog into the well. Constantine unravelled the diabolical plot which had nearly been tragic for Michael in the old reservoir at Constantinople; and Michael as readily unravelled that of the serio-comic drama in the tent of Mahomet, when Constantine's life was saved through the a.s.sumption that he was his lunatic brother.

Constantine supplied to Michael the missing link in the story of Morsinia's escape from Constantinople; and Michael supplied that which was wanting of Constantine's knowledge of the story of her escape from death in the horrors of the scene in St. Sophia after the capture of the city. They had, under the strange leadings of what both their Christian and Moslem faith recognized as a Divine Providence, been more to each other than they could have been had their lives drifted in the same channel during all these years. In the old boyhood confidence, which their strange meeting had revived, Michael did not withhold the confession of Morsinia's influence upon him, though she had been to him more of an ideal than a real person, a beautiful development to his imagination out of his childhood memory of his little playmate in the Balkans. Nor did Constantine hesitate to declare the love and betrothal by which he held the charming reality as his own. He told, too, of her real personality as the ward of Scanderbeg, and the true heir of the splendid estates until recently held by Amesa.

The dawn brought duties to the Aga which precluded further conference with Constantine.

"We must part, my dear brother," said Michael. "Our armies will probably return through Macedonia, and abandon the campaign: for such is the unwise determination of our commander Isaac. You must escape into your own lines. That can be easily arranged. We may not meet again soon; but I swear to you, by the memory of our childhood, that your personal interest shall be mine. Aside from the necessities of the military service, we can be brothers still. And Morsinia, that angel of our better natures; you must let me share with you, if not her affection, surely her confidence. I could not woo her from you if I would; but a.s.sure her that, though wearing the uniform of an enemy, I shall be as true in my thoughts of her as when we played by the old cot on the mountains; and as when I pledged my life to serve her while she was in the harem at Stamboul."

"But why must this war against Castriot continue? I would that our compact were that of the armies to which we belong," said Constantine.

"It is impossible for a Janizary to sheath the sword while Scanderbeg lives," replied the Aga. "Our oath forbids it. He once was held by the vow of the Prophet's service, and deserted it. I know his temptation was strong. In my heart I might find charity for him." The speaker hesitated as if haunted by some troublesome memory, then continued--"But a Janizary may show no charity to a renegade. Besides, he is the curse of Albania. But for his ambition, these twelve years of blood would have been those of peace and happiness through all these valleys, under the sway of our munificent and wise Padishah."

"Your own best thoughts, Michael, should correct you. What are peace and its happy indolence compared with the cause of a holy faith?"

"You speak sublimely, my brother," replied Michael, "but your faith gains nothing by this war. Under our Padishah's beneficence the Giaours are protected. The Greeks hold sufficient churches, even in Stamboul, for the worship of all who remain in that faith. Indeed, I have heard Gennadius the monk of whom you were speaking awhile ago--say that he would trust his flock to the keeping of the Moslem stranger sooner than to the Pope of Rome. I have known our Padishah defend the Greek Giaours from the tyranny of their own bishops. He asks only the loyalty of his people to his throne, and awaits the will of Allah to turn them to his faith; for the Book of the Prophet says truly, Allah will lead into error whom he pleaseth and whom he pleaseth he will put in the right way.[109] Believe me, my brother, Albania's safety is only in submission. The Fate that directs all affairs has indubitably decreed that all this vast peninsula between Adria and aegea shall lie beneath the shadow of the Padishah's sceptre; for he is Zil-Ullah, the shadow of G.o.d. Who can resist the conqueror of the capital of your Eastern Christian Empire; the conqueror of Athens, and of the islands of the sea?"

"Let us then speak no more of this," said Constantine. "Our training has been so different, that we can not hope to agree. But we can be one in the kindliness of our thoughts, as we are of one blood. Jesu bless you, my brother!"

"Allah bless you, Constantine!" was the hearty response, as the two grasped hands. Eyes which would not have shown bodily pain by so much as the tremor of their lids, were moist with the outflow of those springs in our nature that are deeper than courage--springs of brotherly affection, fed by hallowed memories of the long ago.

Two Janizaries accompanied Constantine beyond the Turkish lines.

"What new scheme has the Aga hatched in his brain now?" said one of them, as they returned.

"He has twisted that fellow's brain so that he will never serve Scanderbeg truly again," was the knowing reply. "The Aga is the very devil to throw a spell over a man. They say that when he captured the fellow yesterday, he had only to squint into his face a moment, when, as quick as a turn of a foil, the man changed his looks, and was as much like the Aga as two thumbs."

FOOTNOTE:

[109] Koran, Chapter VI.

CHAPTER LVI.