We heard the Tecbir, so these Arabs call
Their shout of onset, when with loud acclaim
They challenged Heaven, as if demanding conquest.
The battle join'd, and through the barb'rous herd,
Fight, fight! and Paradise was all their cry.
THE SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.
The voice of the northern soldier, although modified by feelings of
respect to the Emperor, and even attachment to his captain, had more of
a tone of blunt sincerity, nevertheless, than was usually heard by the
sacred echoes of the imperial palace; and though the Princess Anna
Comnena began to think that she had invoked the opinion of a severe
judge, she was sensible, at the same time, by the deference of his
manner, that his respect was of a character more real, and his
applause, should she gain it, would prove more truly flattering, than
the gilded assent of the whole court of her father. She gazed with some
surprise and attention on Hereward, already described as a very
handsome young man, and felt the natural desire to please, which is
easily created in the mind towards a fine person of the other sex. His
attitude was easy and bold, but neither clownish nor uncourtly. His
title of a barbarian, placed him at once free from the forms of
civilized life, and the rules of artificial politeness. But his
character for valour, and the noble self-confidence of his bearing,
gave him a deeper interest than would have been acquired by a more
studied and anxious address, or an excess of reverential awe.
In short, the Princess Anna Comnena, high in rank as she was, and born
in the imperial purple, which she herself deemed the first of all
attributes, felt herself, nevertheless, in preparing to resume the
recitation of her history, more anxious to obtain the approbation of
this rude soldier, than that of all the rest of the courteous audience.
She knew them well, it is true, and felt nowise solicitous about the
applause which the daughter of the Emperor was sure to receive with
full hands from those of the Grecian court to whom she might choose to
communicate the productions of her father's daughter. But she had now a
judge of a new character, whose applause, if bestowed, must have
something in it intrinsically real, since it could only be obtained by
affecting his head or his heart.
It was perhaps under the influence of these feelings, that the Princess
was somewhat longer than usual in finding out the passage in the roll
of history at which she purposed to commence. It was also noticed, that
she began her recitation with a diffidence and embarrassment surprising
to the noble hearers, who had often seen her in full possession of her
presence of mind before what they conceived a more distinguished, and
even more critical audience.
Neither were the circumstances of the Varangian such as rendered the
scene indifferent to him. Anna Comnena had indeed attained her fifth
lustre, and that is a period after which Grecian beauty is understood
to commence its decline. How long she had passed that critical period,
was a secret to all but the trusted ward-women of the purple chamber.
Enough, that it was affirmed by the popular tongue, and seemed to be
attested by that bent towards philosophy and literature, which is not
supposed to be congenial to beauty in its earlier buds, to amount to
one or two years more. She might be seven-and-twenty.
Still Anna Comnena was, or had very lately been, a beauty of the very
first rank, and must be supposed to have still retained charms to
captivate a barbarian of the north; if, indeed, he himself was not
careful to maintain an heedful recollection of the immeasurable
distance between them. Indeed, even this recollection might hardly have
saved Hereward from the charms of this enchantress, bold, free-born,
and fearless as he was; for, during that time of strange revolutions,
there were many instances of successful generals sharing the couch of
imperial princesses, whom perhaps they had themselves rendered widows,
in order to make way for their own pretensions. But, besides the
influence of other recollections, which the reader may learn hereafter,
Hereward, though flattered by the unusual degree of attention which the
Princess bestowed upon him, saw in her only the daughter of his Emperor
and adopted liege lord, and the wife of a noble prince, whom reason and
duty alike forbade him to think of in any other light.
It was after one or two preliminary efforts that the Princess Anna
began her reading, with an uncertain voice, which gained strength and
fortitude as she proceeded with the following passage from a well-known
part of her history of Alexius Comnenus, but which unfortunately has
not been republished in the Byzantine historians. The narrative cannot,
therefore, be otherwise than acceptable to the antiquarian reader; and
the author hopes to receive the thanks of the learned world for the
recovery of a curious fragment, which, without his exertions, must
probably have passed to the gulf of total oblivion.