The Prince of India; Or, Why Constantinople Fell Volume Ii Part 67

About the third hour after midnight he was again awakened. A man stood by his cot imperfectly shading the light of a lamp with his hand.

"Prince of India!" exclaimed Mahommed, rising to a sitting posture.

"It is I, my Lord."

"What time is it?"

The Prince gave him the hour.

"Is it so near the break of day?" Mahommed yawned. "Tell me"--he fixed his eyes darkly on the visitor--"tell me first why thou art here?"

"I will, my Lord, and truly. I wished to see if you could sleep. A common soul could not. It is well the world has no premonitory sense."

"Why so?"

"My Lord has all the qualities of a conqueror."

Mahommed was pleased.

"Yes, I will make a great day of to-morrow. But, Prince of India, what shadows are disturbing thee? Why art thou not asleep?"

"I too have a part in the day, my Lord."

"What part?"

"I will fight, and"--

Mahommed interrupted him with a laugh.

"Thou!" and he looked the stooped figure over from head to foot.

"My Lord has two hands--I have four--I will show them."

Returning to his apartment, the Prince reappeared with Nilo.

"Behold, my Lord!"

The black was in the martial attire of a king of Kash-Cush--feathered coronet, robe of blue and red hanging from shoulder to heel, body under the robe naked to the waist, a.s.segai in the oft-wrapped white sash, skirt to the knees glittering with crescents and b.u.t.tons of silver, sandals beaded with pearls. On his left arm depended a shield rimmed and embossed with bra.s.s; in his right hand he bore a club knotted, and of weight to fell a bull at a blow. Without the slightest abashment, but rather as a superior, the King looked down at the young Sultan.

"I see--I understand--I welcome the four hands of the Prince of India,"

Mahommed said, vivaciously; then, giving a few moments of admiration to the negro, he turned, and asked:

"Prince, I have a motive for to-morrow--nay, by the cool waters of Paradise, I have many motives. Tell me thine. In thy speech and action I have observed a hate for these Greeks deep as the Shintan's for G.o.d.

Why? What have they done to thee?"

"They are Christians," the Jew returned, sullenly.

"That is good, Prince, very good--even the Prophet judged it a justification for cleaning the earth of the detestable sect--yet it is not enough. I am not old as thou"--Mahommed lost the curious gleam which shone in the visitor's eyes--"I am not old as thou art; still I know hate like thine must be from a private grievance."

"My Lord is right. To-morrow I will leave the herd to the herd. In the currents of the fight I will hunt but one enemy--Constantine. Judge thou my cause."

Then he told of Lael--of his love for her--of her abduction by Demedes--his supplication for the Emperor's a.s.sistance--the refusal.

"She was the child of my soul," he continued, pa.s.sionately. "My interest in life was going out; she reinspired it. She was the promise of a future for me, as the morning star is of a gladsome day. I dreamed dreams of her, and upon her love builded hopes, like shining castles on high hills. Yet it was not enough that the Greek refused me his power to discover and restore her. She is now in restraint, and set apart to become the wife of a Christian--a Christian priest--may the fiends juggle for his ghost!--To-morrow I will punish the tyrant--I will give him a dog's death, and then seek her. Oh! I will find her--I will find her--and by the light there is in love, I will show him what all of h.e.l.l there can be in one man's hate!"

For once the cunning of the Prince overreached itself. In the rush of pa.s.sion he forgot the exquisite sensory gifts of the potentate with whom he was dealing; and Mahommed, observant even while shrinking from the malignant fire in the large eyes, discerned incoherencies in the tale, and that it was but half told; and while he was resolving to push his Messenger of the Stars to a full confession, a distant rumble invaded the tent, accompanied by a trample of feet outside.

"It is here, Prince of India--the day of Destiny. Let us get ready, thou for thy revenge, I for glory and"--Irene was on his tongue, but he suppressed the name. "Call my chamberlain and equerry.... On the table there thou mayst see my arms--a mace my ancestor Ilderim [Footnote: Bajazet.] bore at Nicopolis, and thy sword of Solomon.... G.o.d is great, and the Jinn and the Stars on my side, what have we to fear?"

Within half an hour he rode out of the tent.

"Blows the wind to the city or from it?" he asked his chief Aga of Janissaries.

"Toward the city, my Lord."

"Exalted be the name of the Prophet! Set the Flower of the Faithful in order--a column of front wide as the breach in the gate--and bring the heralds. I shall be by the great gun."

Pushing his horse on the parapet, he beheld the s.p.a.ce before him, down quite to the moat--every trace of the cemetery had disappeared--dark with hordes a.s.sembled and awaiting the signal. Satisfied, happy, he looked then toward the east. None better than he knew the stars appointed to go before the sun--their names were familiar to him--now they were his friends. At last a violet corona infinitely soft glimmered along the hill tops beyond Scutari.

"Stand out now," he cried to the five in their tabards of gold--"stand out now, and as ye hope couches in Paradise, blow--blow the stones out of their beds yonder--G.o.d was never so great!"

Then ensued the general advance which has been described, except that here, in front of St. Romain, there was no covering the a.s.sailants with slingers and archers. The fill in the ditch was nearly level with the outer bank, from which it may be described as an ascending causeway.

This advantage encouraged the idea of pouring the hordesmen _en ma.s.se_ over the hill composed of the ruins of what had been the towers of the gate.

There was an impulsive dash under incitement of a mighty drumming and trumpeting--a race, every man of the thousands engaged in it making for the causeway--a jam--a mob paralyzed by its numbers. They trampled on each other--they fought, and in the rebound were pitched in heaps down the perpendicular revetment on the right and left of the fill. Of those thus unfortunate the most remained where they fell, alive, perhaps, but none the less an increasing dump of pikes, shields, and crushed bodies; and in the roar above them, cries for help, groans, and prayers were alike unheard and unnoticed.

All this Justiniani had foreseen. Behind loose stones on top of the hill, he had collected culverins, making, in modern phrase, a masked battery, and trained the pieces to sweep the causeway; with them, as a support, he mixed archers and pikemen. On either flank, moreover, he stationed companies similarly armed, extending them to the unbroken wall, so there was not a s.p.a.ce in the breach undefended.

The Captain, on watch and expectant, heard the signal.

"To the Emperor at Blacherne," he bade; "and say the storm is about to break. Make haste." Then to his men: "Light the matches, and be ready to throw the stones down."

The hordesmen reached the edge of the ditch; that moment the guns were unmasked, and the Genoese leader shouted:

"Fire, my men!--_Christ and Holy Church!_"

Then from the Christian works it was bullet, bolt, stone, and shaft, making light of flimsy shield and surcoat of hide; still the hordesmen pushed on, a river breasting an obstruction. Now they were on the causeway. Useless facing about--behind them an advancing wall--on both sides the ditch. Useless lying down--that was to be smothered in b.l.o.o.d.y mire. Forward, forward, or die. What though the causeway was packed with dead and wounded?--though there was no foothold not slippery?--though the smell of hot blood filled every nostril?--though hands thrice strengthened by despair grappled the feet making stepping blocks of face and breast? The living pressed on leaping, stumbling, staggering; their howl, "Gold--spoils--women--slaves," answered from the smoking hill, "_Christ and Holy Church._"

And now, the causeway crossed, the leading a.s.sailants gain the foot of the rough ascent. No time to catch breath--none to look for advantage-- none to profit by a glance at the preparation to receive them--up they must go, and up they went. Arrows and javelins pierce them; stones crush them; the culverins spout fire in their faces, and, lifting them off their uncertain footing, hurl them bodily back upon the heads and shields of their comrades. Along the brow of the rocky hill a mound of bodies arises wondrous quick, an obstacle to the warders of the pa.s.s who would shoot, and to the hordesmen a barrier.

Slowly the corona on the Scutarian hills deepened into dawn. The Emperor joined Justiniani. Count Corti came with him. There was an affectionate greeting.

"Your Majesty, the day is scarcely full born, yet see how Islam is rueing it."

Constantine, following Justiniani's pointing, peered once through the smoke; then the necessity of the moment caught him, and, taking post between guns, he plied his long lance upon the wretches climbing the rising mound, some without shields, some weaponless, most of them incapable of combat.

With the brightening of day the mound grew in height and width, until at length the Christians sallied out upon it to meet the enemy still pouring on.

An hour thus.