The Prince of India; Or, Why Constantinople Fell Volume I Part 51

Kings are sometimes to be pitied. But there is then a special object in the Vigils?"

"The Vigils to-night are for the restoration of the unities once more, that the Church may find peace and the State its power and glory again.

G.o.d is in the habit of taking care of His own."

"Thank you, Father, I see the difference. Scholarius would intrust the State to the Holy Virgin; but Constantine, with a worldlier inspiration, adheres to the craft held by Kings immemorially. The object of the Vigils is to bring the Emperor to abandon his policy and defer to Scholarius?"

"The Emperor a.s.sists in the Mystery," the Father answered, vaguely.

The procession meantime came on, and when its head appeared in front of the Grand Gate three trumpeters blew a flourish which called the guards into line. A monk advanced and held parley with an officer; after which he was given a lighted torch, and pa.s.sed under the portal in lead of the mult.i.tude. The trumpeters continued plying their horns, marking the slow ascent.

"Were this an army," said Father Theophilus, "it would not be so laborious; but, alas! the going of youth is nowhere so rapid as in a cloister; nor is age anywhere so feeble. Ten years kneeling on a stony floor in a damp cell brings the anchorite to forget he ever walked with ease."

The Prince scarcely heard him; he was interested in the little to be seen crossing the area below--a column four abreast, broken into unequal divisions, each division with a leader, who, at the gate, received a torch. Occasionally a square banner on a cross-stick appeared-- occasionally a section in light-colored garments; more frequently a succession of heads without covering of any kind; otherwise the train was monotonously rueful, and in its slow movement out of the darkness reminded the spectator on the height of a serpent crawling endlessly from an underground den. Afterwhile the dim white of the pavement was obscured by ma.s.ses stationary on the right and left of the column; these were the people stopping there because for them there was no further pursuit of the spectral parade.

The horns gave sonorous notice of the progress during the ascent. Now they were pa.s.sing along the first terrace; still the divisions were incessant down by the gate--still the chanting continued, a dismal dissonance in the distance, a horrible discord near by. If it be true that the human voice is music's aptest instrument, it is also true that nothing vocalized in nature can excel it in the expression of diabolism.

Suddenly the first torch gleamed on the second terrace scarce an hundred yards from the Chapel.

"See him now there, behind the trumpeters--Scholarius!" said Father Theophilus, with a semblance of animation.

"He with the torch?"

"Ay!--And he might throw the torch away, and still be the light of the Church."

The remark did not escape the Prince. The man who could so impress himself upon a member of the court must be a power with his brethren of the gown generally. Reflecting thus, the discerning visitor watched the figure stalking on under the torch. There are men who are causes in great events, sometimes by superiority of nature, sometimes by circ.u.mstances. What if this were one of them? And forthwith the observer ceased fancying the mystical looking monk drawing the interminable train after him by the invisible bonds of a will mightier than theirs in combination--the fancy became a fact. "The procession will not stop at the Chapel," the Father said; "but keep on to the palace, where the Emperor will join it. If my Lord cares to see the pa.s.sage distinctly, I will fire the basket here."

"Do so," the Prince replied.

The flambeau was fired.

It shed light over the lower terraces right and left, and brought the palace in the upper s.p.a.ce into view from the base of the forward building to the Tower of Isaac; and here, close by, the Chapel with all its appurtenances, paved enclosure, speeding brook, solemn cypresses, and the wall and arched gateway at the hither side stood out in almost daytime clearness. The road in the cut underfoot must bring the frocked host near enough to expose its spirit.

The bellowing of the horns frightened the birds at roost in the melancholy grove, and taking wing, they flew blindly about.

Then ensued the invasion of the enclosure in front of the Chapel-- Scholarius next the musicians. The Prince saw him plainly; a tall man, stoop-shouldered, angular as a skeleton; his hood thrown back; head tonsured; the whiteness of the scalp conspicuous on account of the band of black hair at the base; the features high and thin, cheeks hollow, temples pinched. The dark brown ca.s.sock, leaving an attenuated neck completely exposed, hung from his frame apparently much too large for it. His feet disdained sandals. At the brook he halted, and letting the crucifix fall from his right hand, he stooped and dipped the member thus freed into the water, and rising flung the drops in air. Resuming the crucifix, he marched on.

It cannot be said there was admiration in the steady gaze with which the Prince kept the monk in eye; the attraction was stronger--he was looking for a sign from him. He saw the tall, nervous figure cross the brook with a faltering, uncertain step, pa.s.s the remainder of the pavement, the torch in one hand, the holy symbol in the other; then it disappeared under the arch of the gate; and when it had come through, the sharp espial was beforehand with it, and waiting. It commenced ascending the acute grade--now it was in the cut--and now, just below the Prince, it had but to look up, and its face would be on a level with his feet. At exactly the right moment, Scholarius did look up, and--stop.

The interchange of glances between the men was brief, and can be likened to nothing so aptly as sword blades crossing in a red light.

Possibly the monk, trudging on, his mind intent upon something which was part of a scene elsewhere, or on the objects and results of the solemnities in celebration, as yet purely speculative, might have been disagreeably surprised at discovering himself the subject of study by a stranger whose dress proclaimed him a foreigner; possibly the Prince's stare, which we have already seen was at times powerfully magnetic, filled him with aversion and resentment; certain it is he raised his head, showing a face full of abhorrence, and at the same time waved the crucifix as if in exorcism.

The Prince had time to see the image thus presented was of silver on a cross of ivory wrought to wonderful realism. The face was dying, not dead; there were the spikes in the hands and feet, the rent in the side, the crown of thorns, and overhead the initials of the inscription: This is the King of the Jews. There was the worn, buffeted, bloodspent body, and the lips were parted so it was easy to think the sufferer in mid-utterance of one of the exclamations which have placed his Divinity forever beyond successful denial. The swift reversion of memory excited in the beholder might have been succeeded by remorse, but for the cry:

"Thou enemy of Jesus Christ--avaunt!"

It was the voice of Scholarius, shrill and high; and before the Prince could recover from the shock, before he could make answer, or think of answering, the visionary was moving on; nor did he again look back.

"What ails thee, Prince?"

The sepulchral tone of Father Theophilus was powerful over the benumbed faculties of His Majesty's guest; and he answered with a question:

"Is not thy friend Scholarius a great preacher?"

"On his lips the truth is most unctuous."

"It must be so--it must be so! For"--the Prince's manner was as if he were settling a grave altercation in his own mind--"for never did a man offer me the Presence so vitalized in an image. I am not yet sure but he gave me to see the Holy Son of the Immaculate Mother in flesh and blood exactly as when they put Him so cruelly to death. Or can it be, Father, that the effect upon me was in greater measure due to the night, the celebration, the cloud of ministrants, the serious objects of the Vigils?"

The answer made Father Theophilus happy as a man of his turn could be--he was furnished additional evidence of the spiritual force of Scholarius, his ideal.

"No," he answered, "it was G.o.d in the man."

All this time the chanting had been coming nearer, and now the grove rang with it. A moment, and the head of the first division must present itself in front of the Chapel. Could the Wanderer have elected then whether to depart or stay, the _Pannychides_ would have had no further a.s.sistance from him--so badly had the rencounter with Scholarius shaken him. Not that he was afraid in the vulgar sense of the term. Before a man can habitually pray for death, he must be long lost to fear. If we can imagine conscience gone, pride of achievement, without which there can be no mortification or shame in defeat, may yet remain with him, a source of dread and weakness. The chill which shook Brutus in his tent the evening before Philippi was not in the least akin to terror. So with the Prince at this juncture. There to measure the hold of the Christian idea upon the Church, it seemed Scholarius had brought him an answer which finished his interest in the pa.s.sing Vigils. In brief, the Reformer's interest in the Mystery was past, and he wished with his whole soul to retreat to the sedan, but a fascination held him fast.

"I think it would be pleasanter sitting," he said, and returned to the platform.

"If I presume to take the chair, Father," he added, "it is because I am older than thou."

Hardly was he thus at ease when a precentor, fat, and clad in a long gown, stepped out of the grove to the clear lighted pavement in front of the Chapel. His shaven head was thrown back, his mouth open to its fullest stretch, and tossing a white stick energetically up and down in the air, he intoned with awful distinctness: "The waters wear the stones. Thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth, and Thou destroyest the hopes of man."

The Prince covered his ears with his hands.

"Thou likest not the singing?" Father Theophilus asked, and continued: "I admit the graces have little to do with musical practice in the holy houses of the Fathers." But he for whom the comfort was meant made no reply. He was repeating to himself: "Thou prevailest forever against him, and he pa.s.seth."

And to these words the head of the first division strode forward into the light. The Prince dropped his hands in time to hear the last verse: "But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn."

For whom was this? Did the singers know the significancy of the text to him? The answer was from G.o.d, and they were merely messengers bringing it. He rose to his feet; in his rebellious pa.s.sion the world seemed to melt and swim about him. He felt a longing to burn, break, destroy--to strike out and kill. When he came to himself, Father Theophilus, who thought him merely wonder struck by the ma.s.s of monks in march, was saying in his most rueful tone: "Good order required a careful arrangement of the procession; for though the partic.i.p.ants are pledged to G.o.dly life, yet they sometimes put their vows aside temporarily. The holiest of them have pride in their establishments, and are often too ready to resort to arms of the flesh to a.s.sert their privileges. The Fathers of the Islands have long been jealous of the Fathers of the city, and to put them together would be a signal for riot. Accordingly there are three grand divisions here--the monks of Constantinople, those of the Islands, the sh.o.r.es of the Bosphorus and the three seas, and finally the recluses and hermits from whatever quarter. Lo! first the Fathers of the Studium--saintly men as thou wilt see anywhere."

The speech was unusually long for the Father; a fortunate circ.u.mstance of which the Prince availed himself to recover his self-possession. By the time the brethren eulogized were moving up the rift at his feet, he was able to observe them calmly. They were in long gowns of heavy gray woollen stuff, with sleeves widening from the shoulders; their cowls, besides covering head and visage, fell down like capes. Cleanly, decent-looking men, they marched slowly and in order, their hands united palm to palm below their chins. The precentor failed to inspire them with his fury of song.

"These now coming," Father Theophilus said of the second fraternity,"

are conventuals of Petrion, who have their house looking out on the harbor here. And these," he said of the third, "are of the Monastery of Anargyres--a very ancient society. The Emperor Michael, surnamed the Paphlegonian, died in one of their cells in 1041. Brotherhood with them is equivalent to saintship."

Afterwhile a somewhat tumultuous flock appeared in white skirts and loose yellow cloaks, their hair and beard uncut and flying. The historian apologized.

"Bear with them," he said; "they are mendicants from the retreats of Periblepte, in the quarter of Psammatica. You may see them on the street corners and quays, and in all public places, sick, blind, lame and covered with sores. They have St. Lazarus for patron. At night an angel visits them with healing. They refuse to believe the age of miracles is past."

The city monastics were a great host carrying banners with the name of their Brotherhoods inscribed in golden letters; and in every instance the Hegumen, or Abbot, preceded his fraternity torch in hand.

A company in unrelieved black marched across the brook, and their chanting was lugubrious as their garb.

"Petra sends us these Fathers," said Theophilus--"Petra over on the south side. They sleep all day and watch at night. The second coming they say will happen in the night, because they think that time most favorable for the trumpeting herald and the splendor of the manifestations."

Half an hour of marching--men in gray and black and yellow, a few in white--men cowled--men shorn and unshorn--barefooted men and men in sandals--a river of men in all moods, except jovial and happy, toiling by the observing stand, seldom an upturned face, spectral, morose, laden body and mind--young and old looking as if just awakened after ages of entombment;--a half hour of dismal chanting the one chapter from the book of the man in the land of Uz, of all utterances the most dismal;--a half hour of waiting by the Prince for one kindly sign, without discovering it--a half hour, in which, if the comparison be not too strong, he was like a soul keeping watch over its own abandoned body.

Then Father Theophilus said:

"From the cloisters of St. James of Manganese! The richest of the monasteries of Constantinople, and the most powerful. It furnishes Sancta Sophia with renowned preachers. Its brethren cultivate learning.

Their library is unexcelled, and they boast that in the hundreds of years of their society life, they had never an heretic. Before their altars the candles are kept burning and trimmed forever. Their numbers are recruited from the n.o.blest families. Young men to whom the army is open prefer G.o.d-service in the elegant retirement of St. James of Manganese. They will interest you, Prince; and after them we will have the second grand division."