The Captain of the Janizaries Part 5

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Voivode; a Servian and Albanian term for general.

[16] Gunpowder was at this time coming into general use.

CHAPTER VI.

Hunyades, closely m.u.f.fled in his bear-skin disguise, returned to the camp.

"A desperate adventure that of Castriot," thought he. "It is well that he permits no voice but his own to speak his plans, and no ear but mine to hear them.

"Hist!

"No; it is but the ice crackling from the balsams. Yet who knows what interlopers there may have been? and if the brave Scanderbeg may not be hamstrung before he reaches his own camp? The ride will be long and rattling after he enters the Turkish lines. Will it excite no suspicion? Nor his absence? Heaven guard the brave heart, for the very mole holes in the ground are the Sultan's ears, into which he drinks the secrets of his soldiers. By the way, I must lift the dirty cap from the fellow who called me Kabilovitsch at the herdsman's fire; for the messenger who brought me word surely said that only Castriot and the two children were there. Who may this other one be? I must discover; and if he knows aught he should not, he shall know no more this side of h.e.l.l-gate, or my dagger's point has grown so honest that it has forgotten the way to a knave's heart."

Approaching the little group, Hunyades went behind them, that, if possible, he might overhear some words before any persons there knew of his presence.

Milosch had been ill at ease through the continued absence of his friend Kabilovitsch, the peculiar action of the strange man who had taken his place beneath the blanket, and the apparition of the one who wore the cap and cape which he thought he could not mistake. There had always been a mystery about Kabilovitsch's early life, which their long and close neighborly relations upon the mountain had not enabled him to solve. The girl, he often thought, was of too light a build and too fair featured to be the child of the mountaineer. The story Kabilovitsch often told about the early death of the child's mother, Milosch's wife never heard without impatience and a shrug of the shoulders. Who was the child? Could there be any plot to carry her away among persons who knew the secret of her birth? Milosch could reach one definite conclusion about the matter, and that was that he ought to guard the child just now. So, with senses made alert by suspicion, he heard the soft footfall of Hunyades through the crust-broken snow; and though with head averted, noted his stealthy approach. The caution observed by the stranger made Milosch feel certain of the intended treachery. Loosening the short sheath-knife, which hung by the ring in its bone handle from his girdle, he grasped it tightly, and with a sudden bound faced the intruder.

"Your business, man?" said he, eyeing him as a hunter eyes a wolf to antic.i.p.ate the spring of the brute, that the knife may enter his throat before the fangs strike.

"A rude greeting to a neighbor, that," was the quiet reply.

"A fair enough greeting to one who wears a neighbor's fleece, and prowls by night about his flock. Stop! not a step nearer! or, by the soul of Kabilovitsch, whom, for aught I know, you have murdered, I will send you to meet him!"

A motion of the stranger toward his weapon was antic.i.p.ated by the mountaineer, who gripped the intruder with the strength of a bear, pinioning his arms by his sides, and falling with him to the ground.

In an instant more, however, the dagger point of his antagonist began to penetrate Milosch's thigh. Clenching tighter to prevent a more deadly thrust, he felt beneath his opponent's rough outer robe the hard corselet woven with links of iron--not the coa.r.s.e fabric such as was worn by common soldiers, but the lighter steel-tempered underwear of knights and n.o.bles.

"You have murdered another better than yourself, d.a.m.ned villain, and have stolen his shirt. But it shall not save you this time."

As he let out these words one by one and breath by breath, Milosch worked the knife into such a hold that he could press it into the back of his antagonist. Slowly but surely the stout point made its way between the hard links until the man's flesh quivered with the pain.

Then Milosch hissed through his clenched teeth:--

"Who are you? If you speak not, you die. If you lie, let the devil shrive your black soul! for I'll send you to him on the knife point.

Speak!"

"I am General Hunyades," replied the almost breathless man.

The words relieved him from the pressure of the knife, but not from the crunching hug of his captor.

"Prove it!" hissed Milosch. "I have heard that Hunyades has a scar on the left side of the neck. Uncover your neck!"

Milosch released Hunyades' left hand sufficiently to allow him to reach upward. In an instant the leathern string which bound the bear-skin cape about his neck was broken, the lacings of a velvet jacket loosened, and the fingers of Milosch led over the roughened surface of the scarred skin.

The herdsman rose to his knees, and kissed the hand of the general.

"Strike thy dagger into me! for I have raised my hand against the Lord's anointed," cried he in shame and fear.

"Nay, friend," said the chief; "the fault was mine, and yours shall be the reward of the only man who ever conquered Hunyades. Your name, my good fellow?"

"Milosch!"

"Milosch, the goatherd of the Pa.s.s? I have heard tell of your strength; how you could out-crunch a bear; I believe it. You have been faithful to your absent friend, as you have been severe with me."

"But what of my friend Kabilovitsch? You surely wear his gear," said Milosch.

"Yes, I borrowed these of a pa.s.sing stranger--I know not that he be Kabilovitsch--with which I might pa.s.s disguised among the guards. The owner of this cape and hood is keeping warm in a tent hard by until I return. But whom have you here?"

"The lad is mine. The la.s.s is my neighbor's. He calls her Morsinia, in honor of your fair mother," replied Milosch.

"Then I must see her face. She should be fair with such a name."

As he raised the coa.r.s.e-knit hood which closely wrapped her, a flicker of the dying fire-light illumined for an instant the features of the child. The uncombed ma.s.s of golden hair made a natural pillow in which lay a face unsurpa.s.sed in balance of proportion and delicacy of detail by any sculptor's art. Her forehead was high and full, but apparently diminished by the wealth of curling locks that nestled upon brow and temples; her nose straight and thin, typically Greek; her lips firm, but arched, as with some abiding and happy dream; her skin, purest white, tinged with the glow of youthful health, as the snow on the Balkans under the first roseate gleam of the morning sun.

"A peasant's child?" asked the general. But without waiting for reply, continued, "No, by the cheek of Venus! It took more than one generation of n.o.ble culture, high thoughts and purest blood, to mould such a face as that. She was not born in your neighbor's cot on the mountains? Will you swear that she was? No? Then I will swear that she was not. And the boy? Ah!" said he, scanning Constantine's face. "I know his stock. He is a sprig of the same rough thorn-tree that came near to tearing me to pieces just now. But his face is gentler than yours. Yet, it is a strong one; very bold; broad-thoughted; deep-souled; a sprig that may bear even better fruit than the old one."

"Heaven grant it may!" said Milosch, fervently.

"Yes, if you will let me transplant it from these barren mountains to the gardens of Buda and the banks of the Drave, it will get better shelter than you can give it. The boy shall be my protege for to-night's adventure, if his father will enter my personal service.

You see, you gave me so warm a welcome that I am loath to part company with you, my good fellow."

"Heaven bless you, Sire!" replied Milosch; "but my heart will cling to these cliffs until I know that my faithful wife and other boy are no longer among them."

"I shall give orders that the camp be searched," promised Hunyades.

"If they live, and have not been carried away by the Turks, they must have sought refuge somewhere in the host. Farewell! When you will, Hunyades shall stand the friend of Milosch."

The apparent old herdsman returned through the heart of the camp to headquarters.

"Methinks, comrade, that you bandied words with a greater than you knew, when you teased the old goatherd awhile ago," said a sentinel, thrusting his thumb into the side of the spearman at the entrance to the general's hut. "Do you note his mien as he comes yonder? That crumpled old bear skin cannot hide his straight back; nor those shoes, as big as Spanish galleons, break the firmness of his tread. If the gust of wind should lift his cape you would see at least a golden cross on his shoulders. You cannot hide a true soldier."

The bear-skin pa.s.sed between the fluttering canvas without challenge.

Hunyades made a playful salute to Kabilovitsch, who rose to meet him.

"I found your camp. I have looked into the face of your little daughter."

"Mary save her!" said the old man with gratified look.

"I say I saw your daughter, your _daughter_, you know," said the general again, quizzing Kabilovitsch with his eyes.

"Ay, my daughter! and the Virgin Mother never sent a fairer child, save Jesu himself, to prince or peasant."

"Come, now," said the general, "tell me, did the Holy Virgin send this child to prince _or_ peasant?"

"Why?" said Kabilovitsch, "these h.o.r.n.y hands should tell thee, Sire, that I was not royal born."