It scarcely requires telling how these complications added weight to

the cares with which the Emperor was already overladen. Through the

afternoon he sat by the open window of a room above the Cercoporta, or

sunken gate under the southern face of his High Residence, [Footnote:

This room is still to be seen. The writer once visited it. Arriving

near, his Turkish _cavass_ requested him to wait a moment. The man then

advanced alone and cautiously, and knocked at the door. There was a

conference, and a little delay; after which the _cavass_ announced it

was safe to go in. The mystery was revealed upon entering. A half dozen

steaming tubs were scattered over the paved floor, and by each of them

stood a scantily attired woman with a dirty _yashmak_ covering her

face. The chamber which should have been very sacred if only because

there the last of the Byzantine Emperors composedly resigned himself to

the inevitable, had become a filthy den devoted to one of the most

ignoble of uses. The shame is, of course, to the Greeks of

Constantinople.] watching the movements of the Turks. The subtle

prophet which sometimes mercifully goes before death had discharged its

office with him. He had dismissed his last hope. Beyond peradventure

the hardest task to one pondering his fate uprisen and standing before

him with all its attending circumstances, is to make peace with

himself; which is simply viewing the attractions of this life as birds

of plumage in a golden cage, and deliberately opening the door, and

letting them loose, knowing they can never return. This the purest and

noblest of the imperial Greeks--the evil times in which his race as a

ruler was run prevent us from terming him the greatest--had done.

He was in armor, and his sword rested against the cheek of a window.

His faithful attendants came in occasionally, and spoke to him in low

tones; but for the most part he was alone.

The view of the enemy was fair. He could see their intrenchment, and

the tents and ruder quarters behind it. He could see the standards,

many of them without meaning to him, the detachments on duty and

watchful, the horsemen coming and going, and now and then a column in

movement. He could hear the shouting, and he knew the meaning of it

all--the final tempest was gathering.

About four o'clock in the afternoon, Phranza entered the room, and

going to his master's right hand, was in the act of prostrating himself.

"No, my Lord," said the Emperor, reaching out to stay him, and smiling

pleasantly, "let us have done with ceremony. Thou hast been true

servant to me--I testify it, God hearing--and now I promote thee. Be as

my other self. Speak to me standing. To-morrow is my end of days. In

death no man is greater than another. Tell me what thou bringest."

On his knees, the Grand Chamberlain took the steel-gloved hand nearest

him, and carried it to his lips.

"Your Majesty, no servant had ever a more considerate and loving

master."

An oppressive silence followed. They were both thinking the same

thought, and it was too sad for speech.

"The duty Your Majesty charged me with this morning "--thus Phranza

upon recovery of his composure--"I attended to."

"And you found it?"

"Even as Your Majesty had warning. The Hegumens of the Brotherhoods"--

"All of them, O Phranza?"

"All of them, Your Majesty--assembled in a cloister of the Pantocrator."

"Gennadius again!"

The Emperor's hands closed, and there was an impatient twitching of his

lips.

"Though why should I be astonished? Hark, my friend! I will tell thee

what I have as yet spoken to no man else. Thou knowest Kalil the Vizier

has been these many years my tributary, and that he hath done me many

kindly acts, not always in his master's interest. The night of the day

our Christian ships beat the Turks the Grand Vizier sent me an account

of a stormy scene in Mahommed's tent, and advised me to beware of

Gennadius. Ah, I had fancied myself prepared to drink the cup Heaven

hath in store for me, lees and all, without a murmur, but men will be

men until their second birth. It is nature! ... Oh, my Phranza, what

thinkest thou the false monk is carrying under his hood?"

"Some egg of treason, I doubt not."

"Having driven His Serenity, the pious and venerable Gregory, into

exile, he aspires to succeed him."

"The hypocrite!--the impostor!--the perjured!--He, Patriarch!" cried

Phranza, with upraised eyes.

"And from whose hands thinkest thou he dreams of deriving the honor?"

"Not Your Majesty's."

The Emperor smiled faintly. "No--he regards Mahommed the Sultan a

better patron, if not a better Christian."

"Forbid it Heaven!" and Phranza crossed himself repeatedly.

"Nay, good friend, hear his scheme, then thou mayst call the forbidding

powers with undeniable reason....He undertook--so Kalil privily

declared--if Mahommed would invest him with the Patriarchate, to

deliver Constantinople to him."

"By what means? He has no gate in keeping--he is not even a soldier."

"My poor Phranza! Hast thou yet to learn that perfidy is not a trait of

any class? This gowned traitor hath a key to all the gates. Hear him--I

will ply the superstition of the Greeks, and draw them from the walls

with a prophecy."

Phranza was able to cry out: "Oh! that so brave a prince, so good a

master should be at the mercy of--of such a"--

"With all thy learning, I see thou lackest a word. Let it pass, let it

pass--I understand thee....But what further hast thou from the meeting?"

Phranza caught the hand again, and laid his forehead upon it while he

replied: "To-night the Brotherhoods are to go out, and renew the story

of the angel, and the man at the foot of the column of Constantine."

The calmness of the Emperor was wonderful. He gazed at the Turks

through the window, and, after reflection, said tranquilly:

"I would have saved it--this old empire of our fathers; but my utmost

now is to die for it--ay, as if I were blind to its unworthiness. God's

will be done, not mine!"

"Talk not of dying--O beloved Lord and master, talk not so! It is not

too late for composition. Give me your terms, and I will go with them

to"--

"Nay, friend, I have done better--I have made peace with myself.... I

shall be no man's slave. There is nothing more for me--nothing except

an honorable death. How sweet a grace it is that we can put so much

glory in dying! A day of Greek regeneration may come--then there may be

some to do me honor--some to find worthy lessons in my life--perchance

another Emperor of Byzantium to remember how the last of the

Palaeologae accepted the will of God revealed to him in treachery and

treason.... But there is one at the door knocking as he were in haste.

Let him enter."

An officer of the guard was admitted.

"Your Majesty," he said, after salutation, "the Captain Justiniani, and

the Genoese, his friends, are preparing to abandon the gates."

Constantine seized his sword, and arose.

"Tell me about it," he said, simply.

"Justiniani has the new ditch at St. Romain nearly completed, and

wanting some cannon, he made request for them of the High Admiral, who

refused, saying, 'The foreign cowards must take care of themselves.'"

"Ride, sir, to the noble Captain, and tell him I am at thy heels."

"Is the Duke mad?" Constantine continued, the messenger having

departed. "What can he want? He is rich, and hath a family--boys

verging on manhood, and of excellent promise. Ah, my dear friend in

need, what canst thou see of gain for him from Mahommed?"

"Life, your Majesty--life, and greater riches."

"How? I did not suppose thou thoughtest so ill of men."

"Of some--of some--not all." Then Phranza raised his head, and asked,

bitterly: "If five galleys won the harbor, every Moslem sail opposing,

why could not twelve or more do better? Does not Mahommed draw his

supplies by sea?"

The Emperor looked out of the window again, but not at the Turks.

"Lord Phranza," he said, presently, "thou mayst survive to-morrow's

calamity; if so, being as thou art skilful with the pen, write of me in

thy day of leisure two things; first, I dared not break with Duke

Notaras while Mahommed was striving for my gates--he could and would

have seized my throne--the Church, the Brotherhoods, and the people are

with him--I am an _azymite._ Say of me next that I have always held the

decree of union proclaimed by the Council of Florence binding upon

Greek conscience, and had I lived, God helping me roll back this flood

of Islam, it should have been enforced.... Hither--look hither, Lord

Phranza"--he pointed out of the window--"and thou wilt see an argument

of as many divisions as there are infidels beleaguering us why the

Church of Christ should have one head; and as to whether the head

should be Patriarch or Bishop, is it not enough that we are perishing

for want of Western swords?"--He would have fallen into silence again,

but roused himself: "So much for the place I would have in the world's

memory.... But to the present affair. Reparation is due Justiniani and

his associates. Do thou prepare a repast in the great dining hall. Our

resources are so reduced I may not speak of it as a banquet; but as

thou lovest me do thy best with what we have. For my part, I will ride

and summon every noble Greek in arms for Church and State, and the

foreign captains. In such cheer, perhaps, we can heal the wounds

inflicted by Notaras. We can at least make ready to die with grace."

He went out, and taking horse, rode at speed to the Gate St. Romain,

and succeeded in soothing the offended Genoese.

At ten o'clock the banquet was held. The chroniclers say of it that

there were speeches, embraces, and a fresh resolution to fight, and

endure the worst or conquer. And they chose a battle-cry--_Christ and

Holy Church._ At separating, the Emperor, with infinite tenderness, but

never more knightly, prayed forgiveness of any he might have wronged or

affronted; and the guests came one by one to bid him adieu, and he

commended them to God, and the gratitude of Christians in the ages to

come, and his hands were drenched with their tears.

From the Very High Residence he visited the gates, and was partially

successful in arresting the desertions actually in progress.

Finally, all other duties done, his mind turning once more to God, he

rode to Sancta Sophia, heard mass, partook of the Communion, and

received absolution according to Latin rite; after which the morrow

could hold no surprise for him. And he found comfort repeating his own

word: How sweet a grace it is that we can put so much glory in dying.

CHAPTER XI

COUNT CORTI IN DILEMMA

From the repast at Blacherne--festive it was in no sense--Count Corti

escorted the Emperor to the door of Sancta Sophia; whence, by

permission, and taking with him his nine Berbers, he rode slowly to the

residence of the Princess Irene. Slowly, we say, for nowhere in the

pent area of Byzantium was there a soul more oppressed.

If he looked up, it was to fancy all the fortunate planets seated in

their Houses helping Mahommed's star to a fullest flood of splendor; if

he looked down, it was to see the wager--and his soul cried out, Lost!

Lost! Though one be rich, or great, or superior in his calling, wherein

is the profit of it if he have lost his love?

Besides the anguish of a perception of his rival's better fortune, the

Count was bowed by the necessity of deciding certain consequences

unforeseen at the time the wager was made. The place of the surrender

of the Princess was fixed. Thinking forward now, he could anticipate

the scene in the great church--the pack of fugitives, their terror and

despair, the hordes raging amongst them. How was he single-handed to

save her unharmed in the scramble of the hour? Thoughts of her youth,

beauty, and rank, theretofore inspirations out of Heaven, set him to

shivering with an ague more like fear than any he had ever known.

Nor was this all. The surrender was by the terms to be to Mahommed

himself. The Sultan was to demand her of him. He groaned aloud: "Oh,

dear God and Holy Mother, be merciful, and let me die!" For the first

time it was given him to see, not alone that he might lose the woman to

his soul all the sun is to the world, but her respect as well. By what

management was he to make the surrender without exposing the

understanding between the conqueror and himself? She would be

present--she would see what took place--she would hear what was said.

And she would not be frightened. The image of the Madonna above the

altar in the nave would not be more calm. The vaguest suspicion of a

compact, and she the subject, would put her upon inquiry; then--"Oh,

fool--idiot--insensate as my sword-grip!" Thus, between groans, he

scourged himself.

It was late, but her home was now a hospital filled with wounded men,

and she its sleepless angel. Old Lysander admitted him.

"The Princess Irene is in the chapel."

Thus directed, the Count went thither well knowing the way.

A soldier just dead was the theme of a solemn recital by Sergius. The

room was crowded with women in the deepest excitement of fear. Corti

understood the cause. Poor creatures! They had need of religious

comfort. A thousand ghosts in one view could not have overcome them as

did the approach of the morrow.

At the right of the altar, he discovered the Princess in the midst of

her attendants, who kept close to her, like young birds to the mother

in alarm. She was quiet and self-contained. Apparently she alone heard

the words of the reader; and whereas the Count came in a

penitent--doubtful--in a maze--unknowing what to do or where to turn,

one glance at her face restored him. He resolved to tell her his

history, omitting only the character in which he entered her kinsman's

service, and the odious compact with Mahommed. Her consent to accompany

him to Sancta Sophia must be obtained; for that he was come.

His presence in the chapel awakened a suppressed excitement, and

directly the Princess came to him.

"What has happened, Count Corti? Why are you here?"

"To speak with you, O Princess Irene'

"Go with me, then."

She conducted him into a passage, and closed the door behind them.

"The floor of my reception room is overlaid with the sick and

suffering--my whole house is given up to them. Speak here; and if the

news be bad, dear Count, it were mercy not to permit the unfortunates

to hear you."

She was not thinking of herself. He took the hand extended to him, and

kissed it--to him it was the hand of more than the most beautiful woman

in the world--it was the hand of a saint in white transfigurement.

"Thy imperial kinsman, O Princess, is at the church partaking of the

Holy Communion, and receiving absolution."

"At this hour? Why is he there, Count?"

Corti told her of the repast at the palace, and recounted the scene at

parting.

"It looks like despair. Can it be the Emperor is making ready to die?

Answer, and fear not for me. My life has been a long preparation. He

believes the defence is lost--the captains believe so--and thou?"

"O Princess, it is terrible saying, but I too expect the judgment of

God in the morning."

The hall was so dimly lighted he could not see her face; but the nerve

of sympathy is fine--he felt she trembled. Only a moment--scarcely

longer than taking a breath--then she answered:

"Judgment is for us all. It will find me here."

She moved as if to return to the chapel; but he stepped before her, and

drawing out a chair standing by the door, said, firmly, yet tenderly:

"You are weary. The labor of helping the unfortunate these many

days--the watching and anxiety--have been trying upon you. Sit, I pray,

and hear me."

She yielded with a sigh.

"The judgment which would find you here, O Princes, would not be death,

but something more terrible, so terrible words burn in thinking of it.

I have sworn to defend you: and the oath, and the will to keep it, give

me the right to determine where and how the defence shall be made. If

there are advantages, I want them, for your sweet sake."

He stopped to master his feeling.

"You have never stood on the deck of a ship in wreck, and seen the sea

rush in to overwhelm it," he went on presently: "I have; and I declare

to you, O beloved lady, nothing can be so like to-morrow when the

hordes break into the city, as that triumph of waters; and as on the

deck there was no place of safety for the perishing crew, neither will

there be place of safety for man, woman, or child in Byzantium

then--least of all for the kinswoman of the Emperor--for her--permit me

to say it--whose loveliness and virtue are themes for story-tellers

throughout the East. As a prize--whether for ransom or dishonor--richer

than the churches and the palaces, and their belongings, be they jewels

or gold, or anointed crown, or bone of Saint, or splinter of the True

Cross, or shred from the shirt of Christ--to him who loves her, a prize

of such excellence that glory, even the glory Mahommed is now dreaming

of when he shall have wrenched the keys of the gates from their

rightful owner dead in the bloody breach, would pale if set beside it

for comparison, and sink out of sight--think you she will not be

hunted? Or that the painted Mother above the altar, though it spoke

through a miraculous halo, could save her when found? No, no, Princess,

not here, not here!... You know I love you; in an unreasoning moment I

dared tell you so; and you may think me passion-blind, and that I hung

the vow to defend you upon my soul's neck, thinking it light as this

favor you were pleased to give me; that love being a braggart,

therefore I am a braggart. Let me set myself right in your

opinion--your good opinion, O Princess, for it is to me a world of such

fair shining I dream of it as of a garden in Paradise.... If you do not

know how hardly I have striven in this war, send, I pray, and ask any

of the captains, or the most Christian sovereign I have just left

making his peace with God. Some of them called me mad, but I pardoned

them--they did not know the meaning of my battle-cry--'For Christ and

Irene'--that I was venturing life less for Constantinople, less for

religion--I almost said, less for Christ--than for you, who are all

things in one to me, the fairest on earth, the best in Heaven.... At

last, at last I am driven to admit we may fail--that to-morrow, whether

I am here or there, at your side or under the trampling, you may be a

prisoner at mercy."

At these words, of infinite anguish in utterance, the Princess

shuddered, and looked up in silent appeal.

"Attend me now. You have courage above the courage of women; therefore

I may speak with plainness.... What will become of you--I give the

conclusion of many wrangles with myself--what will become of you

depends upon the hands which happen to be laid on you first. O

Princess, are you giving me heed? Do you comprehend me?"

"The words concern me more than life, Count."

"I may go on then.... I have hope of saving your life and honor. You

have but to do what I advise. If you cannot trust me, further speech

were idleness, and I might as well take leave of you. Death in many

forms will be abroad to-morrow--nothing so easily found."

"Count Corti," she returned, "if I hesitate pledging myself, it is not

because of distrust. I will hear you."

"It is well said, dear lady."

He stopped--a pleasant warmth was in his heart--a perception, like dim

light, began breaking through the obscurities in his mind. To this

moment, in fact, he had trouble gaining his own consent to the proposal

on his tongue; it seemed so like treachery to the noble woman--so like

a cunning inveiglement to deliver her to Mahommed under the hated

compact. Now suddenly the proposal assumed another appearance--it was

the best course--the best had there been no wager, no compact, no

obligation but knightly duty to her. As he proceeded, this conviction

grew clearer, bringing him ease of conscience and the subtle influence

of a master arguing right. He told her his history then, holding

nothing back but the two points mentioned. Twice only she interrupted

him.

"Your mother, Count Corti--poor lady--how she has suffered! But what

happiness there is in store for her!" And again: "How wonderful the

escape from the falsehoods of the Prophet! There is no love like

Christ's love unless--unless it be a mother's."

At the conclusion, her chin rested in the soft palm of her hand, and

the hand, unjewelled, was white as marble just carven, and, like the

arm, a wonder of grace. Of what was she thinking?--Of him? Had he at

last made an impression upon her? What trifles serve the hope of

lovers! At length she asked:

"Then, O Count, thou wert his playmate in childhood?"

A bitter pang struck him--that pensiveness was for Mahommed--yet he

answered: "I was nearest him until he took up his father's sword."

"Is he the monster they call him?"

"To his enemies, yes--and to all in the road to his desires, yes--but

to his friends there was never such a friend."

"Has he heart to"--

The omission, rather than the question, hurt him--still he returned:

"Yes, once he really loves."

Then she appeared to awake.

"To the narrative now--Forgive my wandering."

The opportunity to return was a relief to him, and he hastened to

improve it.

"I thank you for grace, O Princess, and am reminded of the pressure of

time. I must to the gate again with the Emperor.... This is my

proposal. Instead of biding here to be taken by some rapacious

hordesman, go with me to Sancta Sophia, and when the Sultan comes

thither--as he certainly will--deliver yourself to him. If, before his

arrival, the plunderers force the doors of the holy house, I will stand

with you, not, Princess, as Count Corti the Italian, but Mirza the Emir

and Janissary, appointed by the Sultan to guard you. My Berbers will

help the assumption."

He had spoken clearly, yet she hesitated.

"Ah," he said, "you doubt Mahommed. He will be upon honor. The

glory-winners, Princess, are those always most in awe of the judgment

of the world."

Yet she sat silent.

"Or is it I who am in your doubt?"

"No, Count. But my household--my attendants--the poor creatures are

trembling now--some of them, I was about saying, are of the noblest

families in Byzantium, daughters of senators and lords of the court. I

cannot desert them--no, Count Corti, not to save myself. The baseness

would be on my soul forever. They must share my fortune, or I their

fate."

Still she was thinking of others!

More as a worshipper than lover, the Count replied: "I will include

them in my attempt to save you. Surely Heaven will help me, for your

sake, O Princess."

"And I can plead for them with him. Count Corti, I will go with you."

The animation with which she spoke faded in an instant.

"But thou--O my friend, if thou shouldst fall?"

"Nay, let us be confident. If Heaven does not intend your escape, it

would be merciful, O beloved lady, did it place me where no report of

your mischance and sorrows can reach me. Looking at the darkest side,

should I not come for you, go nevertheless to the Church. Doubt not

hearing of the entry of the Turks. Seek Mahommed, if possible, and

demand his protection. Tell him, I, Mirza the Emir, counselled you. On

the other side, be ready to accompany me. Make preparation

to-night--have a chair at hand, and your household assembled--for when

I come, time will be scant.... And now, God be with you! I will not say

be brave--be trustful."

She extended her hand, and he knelt, and kissed it.

"I will pray for you, Count Corti."

"Heaven will hear you."

He went out, and rejoining the Emperor, rode with him from the Church

to Blacherne.

CHAPTER XII

THE ASSAULT

The bonfires of the hordes were extinguished about the time the

Christian company said their farewells after the last supper in the

Very High Residence, and the hordes themselves appeared to be at rest,

leaving Night to reset her stars serenely bright over the city, the

sea, and the campania.

To the everlasting honor of that company, be it now said, they could

under cover of the darkness have betaken themselves to the ships and

escaped; yet they went to their several posts. Having laid their heads

upon the breast of the fated Emperor, and pledged him their lives,

there is no account of one in craven refuge at the break of day. The

Emperor's devotion seems to have been a communicable flame.

This is the more remarkable when it is remembered that in the beginning

the walls were relied upon to offset the superiority of the enemy in

numbers, while now each knight and man-at-arms knew the vanity of that

reliance--knew himself, in other words, one of scant five thousand

men--to such diminished roll had the besieged been reduced by wounds,

death and desertion--who were to muster on the ruins of the outer wall,

or in the breaches of the inner, and strive against two hundred and

fifty thousand goaded by influences justly considered the most powerful

over ferocious natures--religious fanaticism and the assurance of booty

without limit. The silence into which the Turkish host was sunk did not

continue a great while. The Greeks on the landward walls became aware

of a general murmur, followed shortly by a rumble at times vibrant--so

the earth complains of the beating it receives from vast bodies of men

and animals in hurried passage.

"The enemy is forming," said John Grant to his associate Carystos, the

archer.

Minotle, the Venetian bayle, listening from the shattered gate of

Adrianople, gave order: "Arouse the men. The Turks are coming."

Justiniani, putting the finishing touches upon his masked repairs

behind what had been the alley or passage between the towers Bagdad and

St. Romain, was called to by his lookout: "Come up, Captain--the

infidels are stirring--they seem disposed to attack."

"No," the Captain returned, after a brief observation, "they will not

attack to-night--they are getting ready."

None the less, without relieving his working parties, he placed his

command in station.

At Selimbria and the Golden Gate the Christians stood to arms. So also

between the gates. Then a deep hush descended upon the mighty

works--mighty despite the slugging they had endured--and the silence

was loaded with anxiety.

For such of my readers as have held a night-watch expectant of battle

at disadvantage in the morning it will be easy putting themselves in

the place of these warders at bay; they can think their thoughts, and

hear the heavy beating of their hearts; they will remember how long the

hours were, and how the monotony of the waiting gnawed at their spirits

until they prayed for action, action. On the other hand, those without

the experience will wonder how men can bear up bravely in such

conditions--and that is a wonder.

In furtherance of his plan, Mahommed drew in his irregulars, and massed

them in the space between the intrenchment and the ditch; and by

bringing his machines and small guns nearer the walls, he menaced the

whole front of defence with a line amply provided with scaling ladders

and mantelets. Behind the line he stationed bodies of horsemen to

arrest fugitives, and turn them back to the fight. His reserves

occupied the intrenchments. The Janissaries were retained at his

quarters opposite St. Romain.

The hordes were clever enough to see what the arrangement portended for

them, and they at first complained.

"What, grumble, do they?" Mahommed answered. "Ride, and tell them I say

the first choice in the capture belongs to the first over the walls.

Theirs the fault if the city be not an empty nest to all who come after

them."

The earth in its forward movement overtook the moon just before

daybreak; then in the deep hush of expectancy and readiness, the light

being sufficient to reveal to the besieged the assault couchant below

them, a long-blown flourish was sounded by the Turkish heralds from the

embrasure of the great gun.

Other trumpeters took up the signal, and in a space incredibly short it

was repeated everywhere along the line of attack. A thunder of drums

broke in upon the music. Up rose the hordes, the archers and slingers,

and the ladder bearers, and forward, like a bristling wave, they

rushed, shouting every man as he pleased. In the same instant the

machines and light guns were set in operation. Never had the old walls

been assailed by such a tempest of bolts, arrows, stones and

bullets--never had their echoes been awakened by an equal explosion of

human voices, instruments of martial music, and cannon. The warders

were not surprised by the assault so much as by its din and fury; and

when directly the missiles struck them, thickening into an

uninterrupted pouring rain, they cowered behind the merlons, and such

other shelters as they could find.

This did not last long--it was like the shiver and gasp of one plunged

suddenly into icy water. The fugitives were rallied, and brought back

to their weapons, and to replying in kind; and having no longer to

shoot with care, the rabble fusing into a compact target, especially on

the outer edge of the ditch, not a shaft, or bolt, or stone, or ball

from culverin went amiss. Afterwhile, their blood warming with the

work, and the dawn breaking, they could see their advantage of

position, and the awful havoc they were playing; then they too knew the

delight in killing which more than anything else proves man the most

ferocious of brutes.

The movement of the hordes was not a dash wholly without system--such

an inference would be a great mistake. There was no pretence of

alignment or order--there never is in such attacks--forlorn hopes,

receiving the signal, rush on, each individual to his own endeavor;

here, nevertheless, the Pachas and Beys directed the assault,

permitting no blind waste of effort. They hurled their mobs at none but

the weak places--here a breach, there a dismantled gate.

Thousands were pushed headlong into the moat. The ladders then passed

down to such of them as had footing were heavy, but they were caught

willingly; if too short, were spliced; once planted so as to bring the

coping of the wall in reach, they swarmed with eager adventurers, who,

holding their shields and pikes overhead, climbed as best they could.

Those below cheered their comrades above, and even pushed them up.

"The spoils--think of the spoils--the gold, the women!...

_Allah-il-Allah!_... Up, up--it is the way to Paradise!"

Darts and javelins literally cast the climbers in a thickened shade.

Sometimes a ponderous stone plunging down cleaned a ladder from top to

bottom; sometimes, waiting until the rounds were filled, the besieged

applied levers, and swung a score and more off helpless and shrieking.

No matter--_Allah-il-Allah!_ The living were swift to restore and

attempt the fatal ascents.

Every one dead and every one wounded became a serviceable clod; rapidly

as the dump and cumber of humanity filled the moat the ladders extended

their upward reach; while drum-beat, battle-cry, trumpet's blare, and

the roar of cannon answering cannon blent into one steady

all-smothering sound.

In the stretches of space between gates, where the walls and towers

were intact, the strife of the archers and slingers was to keep the

Greeks occupied, lest they should reenforce the defenders hard pressed

elsewhere.

During the night the blockading vessels had been warped close into the

shore, and, the wall of the seafront being lower than those on the land

side, the crews, by means of platforms erected on the decks, engaged

the besieged from a better level. There also, though attempts at

escalade were frequent, the object was chiefly to hold the garrison in

place.

In the harbor, particularly at the Wood Gate, already mentioned as

battered out of semblance to itself by the large gun on the floating

battery, the Turks exerted themselves to effect a landing; but the

Christian fleet interposed, and there was a naval battle of varying

fortune.

So, speaking generally, the city was wrapped in assault; and when the

sun at last rode up into the clear sky above the Asiatic heights,

streets, houses, palaces, churches--the hills, in fact, from the sea to

the Tower of Isaac--were shrouded in ominous vapor, through which such

of the people as dared go abroad flitted pale and trembling; or if they

spoke to each other, it was to ask in husky voices, What have you from

the gates?

Passing now to the leading actors in this terrible tragedy. Mahommed

retired to his couch early the night previous. He knew his orders were

in course of execution by chiefs who, on their part, knew the

consequences of failure. The example made of the Admiral in command of

the fleet the day the five relieving Christian galleys won the port was

fresh in memory. [Footnote: He was stretched on the ground and whipped

like a common malefactor.]

"To-morrow, to-morrow," he kept repeating, while his pages took off his

armor, and laid the pieces aside. "To-morrow, to-morrow," lingered in

his thoughts, when, his limbs stretched out comfortably on the broad

bronze cot which served him for couch, sleep crept in as to a tired

child, and laid its finger of forgetfulness upon his eyelids. The

repetition was as when we run through the verse of a cheerful song,

thinking it out silently, and then recite the chorus aloud. Once he

awoke, and, sitting up, listened. The mighty host which had its life by

his permission was quiet--even the horses in their apartment seemed

mindful that the hour was sacred to their master. Falling to sleep

again, he muttered: "To-morrow, to-morrow--Irene and glory. I have the

promise of the stars."

To Mahommed the morrow was obviously but a holiday which was bringing

him the kingly part in a joyous game--a holiday too slow in coming.

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, assegai in the oft-wrapped white sash,

skirt to the knees glittering with crescents and buttons of silver,

sandals beaded with pearls. On his left arm depended a shield rimmed

and embossed with brass; 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 God.

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 assistance--the refusal.

"She was the child of my soul," he continued, passionately. "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

hell there can be in one man's hate!"

For once the cunning of the Prince overreached itself. In the rush of

passion 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.... God 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 space before him, down

quite to the moat--every trace of the cemetery had disappeared--dark

with hordes assembled 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--God 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 assailants 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 masse_

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 space 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 bloody

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 assailants 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 pass 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.

Suddenly, seized with a comprehension of the futility of their effort,

the hordesmen turned, and rushed from the hill and the causeway.

The Christians suffered but few casualties; yet they would have gladly

rested. Then, from the wall above the breach, whence he had used his

bow, Count Corti descended hastily.

"Your Majesty," he said, his countenance kindled with enthusiasm, "the

Janissaries are making ready."

Justiniani was prompt. "Come!" he shouted. "Come every one! We must

have clear range for the guns. Down with these dead! Down with the

living. No time for pity!"

Setting the example, presently the defenders were tossing the bodies of

their enemies down the face of the hill.

On his horse, by the great gun, Mahommed had observed the assault,

listening while the night yet lingered. Occasionally a courier rode to

him with news from this Pacha or that one. He heard without excitement,

and returned invariably the same reply:

"Tell him to pour the hordes in."

At last an officer came at speed.

"Oh, my Lord, I salute you. The city is won."

It was clear day then, yet a light not of the morning sparkled in

Mahommed's eyes. Stooping in his saddle, he asked: "What sayest thou?

Tell me of it, but beware--if thou speakest falsely, neither God nor

Prophet shall save thee from impalement to the roots of thy tongue."

"As I have to tell my Lord what I saw with my own eyes, I am not

afraid.... My Lord knows that where the palace of Blacherne begins on

the south there is an angle in the wall. There, while our people were

feigning an assault to amuse the Greeks, they came upon a sunken gate"--

"The Cercoporta--I have heard of it."

"My Lord has the name. Trying it, they found it unfastened and

unguarded, and, pushing through a darkened passage, discovered they

were in the Palace. Mounting to the upper floor, they attacked the

unbelievers. The fighting goes on. From room to room the Christians

resist. They are now cut off, and in a little time the quarter will be

in our possession."

Mahommed spoke to Kalil: "Take this man, and keep him safely. If he has

spoken truly, great shall be his reward; if falsely, better he were not

his mother's son." Then to one of his household: "Come hither.... Go to

the sunken gate Cercoporta, pass in, and find the chief now fighting in

the palace of Blacherne. Tell him I, Mahommed, require that he leave

the Palace to such as may follow him, and march and attack the

defenders of this gate, St. Romain, in the rear. He shall not stop to

plunder. I give him one hour in which to do my bidding. Ride thou now

as if a falcon led thee. For Allah and life!"

Next he called his Aga of Janissaries.

"Have the hordes before this gate retired. They have served their turn;

they have made the ditch passable, and the _Gabours_ are faint with

killing them. Observe, and when the road is cleared let go with the

Flower of the Faithful. A province to the first through; and this the

battle-cry: _Allah-il-Allah!_ They will fight under my eye. Minutes are

worth kingdoms. Go thou, and let go."

Always in reserve, always the last resort in doubtful battle, always

the arm with which the Sultans struck the finishing blow, the

Janissaries thus summoned to take up the assault were in discipline,

spirit, and splendor of appearance the _elite_ corps of the martial

world.

Riding to the front, the Aga halted to communicate Mahommed's orders.

Down the columns the speech was passed.

The Flower of the Faithful were in three divisions dismounted. Throwing

off their clumsy gowns, they stood forth in glittering mail, and

shaking their brassy shields in air, shouted the old salute: "_Live the

Padishah! Live the Padishah!_"

The road to the gate was cleared; then the Aga galloped back, and when

abreast of the yellow flag of the first division, he cried:

"_Allah-il-Allah!_ Forward!"

And drum and trumpet breaking forth, a division moved down in column of

fifties. Slowly at first, but solidly, and with a vast stateliness it

moved. So at Pharsalia marched the legion Caesar loved--so in decision

of heady fights strode the Old Guard of the world's last Conqueror.

Approaching the ditch, the fresh assailants set up the appointed

battle-cry, and quickening the step to double time rushed over the

terrible causeway.

Mahommed then descended to the ditch, and remained there mounted, the

sword of Solomon in his hand, the mace of Ilderim at his saddle bow;

and though hearing him was impossible, the Faithful took fire from his

fire--enough that they were under his eye.

The feat attempted by the hordes was then repeated, except now there

was order in disorder. The machine, though shaken and disarranged, kept

working on, working up. Somehow its weight endured. Slowly, with all

its drench and cumber, the hill was surmounted. Again a mound arose in

front of the battery--again the sally, and the deadly ply of pikes from

the top of the mound.

The Emperor's lance splintered; he fought with a pole-axe; still even

he became sensible of a whelming pressure. In the gorge, the smoke,

loaded with lime-dust, dragged rather than lifted; no man saw down it

to the causeway; yet the ascending din and clamor, possessed of the

smiting power of a gust of wind, told of an endless array coming.

There was not time to take account of time; but at last a Turkish

shield appeared over the ghastly rampart, glimmering as the moon

glimmers through thick vapor. Thrusts in scores were made at it, yet it

arose; then a Janissary sprang up on the heap, singing like a muezzin,

and shearing off the heads of pikes as reapers shear green rye. He was

a giant in stature and strength. Both Genoese and Greeks were disposed

to give him way. The Emperor rallied them. Still the Turk held his

footing, and other Turks were climbing to his support. Now it looked as

if the crisis were come, now as if the breach were lost.

In the last second a cry _For Christ and Irene_ rang through the melee,

and Count Corti, leaping from a gun, confronted the Turk.

"Ho, Son of Ouloubad! Hassan, Hassan!" [Footnote: One of the

Janissaries, Hassan d'Ouloubad, of gigantic stature and prodigious

strength, mounted to the assault under cover of his shield, his cimeter

in the right hand. He reached the rampart with thirty of his

companions. Nineteen of them were cast down, and Hassan himself fell

struck by a stone.--VON HAMMER.] he shouted, in the familiar tongue.

"Who calls me?" the giant asked, lowering his shield, and gazing about

in surprise.

"I call you--I, Mirza the Emir. Thy time has come. _Christ and Irene.

Now!_"

With the word the Count struck the Janissary fairly on the flat cap

with his axe, bringing him to his knees. Almost simultaneously a heavy

stone descended upon the dazed man from a higher part of the wall, and

he rolled backward down the steep.

Constantine and Justiniani, with others, joined the Count, but too

late. Of the fifty comrades composing Hassan's file, thirty mounted the

rampart. Eighteen of them were slain in the bout. Corti raged like a

lion; but up rushed the survivors of the next file--and the next--and

the vantage-point was lost. The Genoese, seeing it, said:

"Your Majesty, let us retire."

"Is it time?"

"We must get a ditch between us and this new horde, or we are all dead

men."

Then the Emperor shouted: "Back, every one! For love of Christ and Holy

Church, back to the galley!"

The guns, machines, store of missiles, and space occupied by the

battery were at once abandoned. Constantine and Corti went last, facing

the foe, who warily paused to see what they had next to encounter.

The secondary defence to which the Greeks resorted consisted of the

hulk brought up, as we have seen, by Count Corti, planted on its keel

squarely in rear of the breach, and filled with stones. From the hulk,

on right and left, wings of uncemented masonry extended to the main

wall in form thus:

[Illustration]

A ditch fronted the line fifteen feet in width and twelve in depth,

provided with movable planks for hasty passage. Culverins were on the

hulk, with ammunition in store.

Greatly to the relief of the jaded Christians, who, it is easy

believing, stood not on the order of going, they beheld the reserves,

under Demetrius Palaeologus and Nicholas Giudalli, in readiness behind

the refuge.

The Emperor, on the deck, raised the visor of his helmet, and looked up

at an Imperial flag drooping in the stagnant air from a stump of the

mast. Whatever his thought or feeling, no one could discern on his

countenance an unbecoming expression. The fact, of which he must have

been aware, that this stand taken ended his empire forever, had not

shaken his resolution or confidence. To Demetrius Palaeologus, who had

lent a hand helping him up the galley's side, he said: "Thank you,

kinsman. God may still be trusted. Open fire."

The Janissaries, astonished at the new and strange defence, would have

retreated, but could not; the files ascending behind drove them

forward. At the edge of the ditch the foremost of them made a

despairing effort to resist the pressure rushing them to their

fate--down they went in mass, in their last service no better than the

hordesmen--clods they became--clods in bright harness instead of

bull-hide and shaggy astrakhan.

From the wings, bolts and stones; from the height of the wall, bolts

and stones; from the hulk, grapeshot; and the rattle upon the shields

of the Faithful was as the passing of empty chariots over a Pompeiian

street. Imprecations, prayers, yells, groans, shrieks, had lodgement

only in the ear of the Most Merciful. The open maw of a ravenous

monster swallowing the column fast as Mahommed down by the great moat

drove it on--such was the new ditch.

Yet another, the final horror. When the ditch was partially filled, the

Christians brought jugs of the inflammable liquid contributed to the

defence by John Grant; and cast them down on the writhing heap.

Straightway the trench became a pocket of flame, or rather an oven from

which the smell of roasting human flesh issued along with a choking

cloud!

The besieged were exultant, as they well might be--they were more than

holding the redoubtable Flower of the Faithful at bay--there was even a

merry tone in their battle-cry. About that time a man dismounted from a

foaming horse, climbed the rough steps to the deck of the galley, and

delivered a message to the Emperor.

"Your Majesty. John Grant, Minotle the bayle, Carystos, Langasco, and

Jerome the Italian are slain. Blacherne is in possession of the Turks,

and they are marching this way. The hordes are in the streets. I saw

them, and heard the bursting of doors, and the screams of women."

Constantine crossed himself three times, and bowed his head.

Justiniani turned the color of ashes, and exclaimed:

"We are undone--undone! All is lost!" And that his voice was hoarse did

not prevent the words being overheard. The fire slackened--ceased. Men

fighting jubilantly dropped their arms, and took up the cry--"All is

lost! The hordes are in, the hordes are in!"

Doubtless Count Corti's thought sped to the fair woman waiting for him

in the chapel, yet he kept clear head.

"Your Majesty," he said, "my Berbers are without. I will take them, and

hold the Turks in check while you draw assistance from the walls.

Or"--he hesitated, "or I will defend your person to the ships. It is

not too late."

Indeed, there was ample time for the Emperor's escape. The Berbers were

keeping his horse with Corti's. He had but to mount, and ride away. No

doubt he was tempted. There is always some sweetness in life,

especially to the blameless. He raised his head, and said to Justiniani:

"Captain, my guard will remain here. To keep the galley they have only

to keep the fire alive in the ditch. You and I will go out to meet the

enemy." ... Then he addressed himself to Corti: "To horse, Count, and

bring Theophilus Palaeologus. He is on the wall between this gate and

the gate Selimbria.... Ho, Christian gentlemen," he continued, to the

soldiers closing around him, "all is not lost. The Bochiardi at the

Adrianople gate have not been heard from. To fly from an unseen foe

were shameful, We are still hundreds strong. Let us descend, and form.

God cannot"--

That instant Justiniani uttered a loud cry, and dropped the axe he was

holding. An arrow had pierced the scales of his gauntlet, and disabled

his hand. The pain, doubtless, was great, and he started hastily as if

to descend from the deck. Constantine called out:

"Captain, Captain!"

"Give me leave, Your Majesty, to go and have this wound dressed."

"Where, Captain?"

"To my ship."

The Emperor threw his visor up--his face was flushed--in his soul

indignation contended with astonishment.

"No, Captain, the wound cannot be serious; and besides, how canst thou

get to thy ships?"

Justiniani looked over the bulwark of the vessel. The alley from the

gate ran on between houses abutting the towers. A ball from one of

Mahommed's largest guns had passed through the right-hand building,

leaving a ragged fissure. Thither the Captain now pointed.

"God opened that breach to let the Turks in. I will go out by it."

He stayed no longer, but went down the steps, and in haste little short

of a run disappeared through the fissure so like a breach.

The desertion was in view of his Genoese, of whom a few followed him,

but not all. Many who had been serving the guns took swords and pikes,

and gathering about the Emperor, cried out:

"Give orders, Your Majesty. We will bide with you."

He returned them a look full of gratitude.

"I thank you, gentlemen. Let us go down, and join our shields across

the street. To my guard I commit defence of the galley."

Unfastening the purple half-cloak at his back, and taking off his

helmet, he called to his sword-bearer: "Here, take thou these, and give

me my sword.... Now, gallant gentlemen--now, my brave countrymen--we

will put ourselves in the keeping of Heaven. Come!"

They had not all gained the ground, however, when there arose a clamor

in their front, and the hordesmen appeared, and blocking up the

passage, opened upon them with arrows and stones, while such as had

javelins and swords attacked them hand to hand.

The Christians behaved well, but none better than Constantine. He

fought with strength, and in good countenance; his blade quickly

reddened to the hilt.

"Strike, my countrymen, for city and home. Strike, every one, for

_Christ and Holy Church!_"

And answering him: "_Christ and Holy Church!_" they all fought as they

had strength, and their swords were also reddened to the hilt. Quarter

was not asked; neither was it given. Theirs to hold the ground, and

they held it. They laid the hordesmen out over it in scattered heaps

which grew, and presently became one long heap the width of the alley;

and they too fell, but, as we are willing to believe, unconscious of

pain because lapped in the delirium of battle-fever.

Five minutes--ten--fifteen--then through the breach by which Justiniani

ingloriously fled Theophilus Palaeologus came with bared brand to

vindicate his imperial blood by nobly dying; and with him came Count

Corti, Francesco de Toledo, John the Dalmatian, and a score and more

Christian gentlemen who well knew the difference between an honorable

death and a dishonored life.

Steadily the sun arose. Half the street was in its light, the other

half in its shade; yet the struggle endured; nor could any man have

said God was not with the Christians. Suddenly a louder shouting arose

behind them. They who could, looked to see what it meant, and the

bravest stood stone still at sight of the Janissaries swarming on the

galley. Over the roasting bodies of their comrades, undeterred by the

inextinguishable fire, they had crossed the ditch, and were slaying the

imperial body-guard. A moment, and they would be in the alley, and

then--

Up rose a wail: "The Janissaries, the Janissaries! _Kyrie Eleison!_"

Through the knot of Christians it passed--it reached Constantine in the

forefront, and he gave way to the antagonist with whom he was engaged.

"God receive my soul!" he exclaimed; and dropping his sword, he turned

about, and rushed back with wide extended arms.

"Friends--countrymen!--Is there no Christian to kill me?"

Then they understood why he had left his helmet off.

While those nearest stared at him, their hearts too full of pity to do

him the last favor one can ask of another, from the midst of the

hordesmen there came a man of singular unfitness for such a

scene--indeed a delicate woman had not been more out of place--for he

was small, stooped, withered, very white haired, very pale, and much

bearded--a black velvet cap on his head, and a gown of the like about

his body, unarmed, and in every respect unmartial. He seemed to glide

in amongst the Christians as he had glided through the close press of

the Turks; and as the latter had given him way, so now the sword points

of the Christians went down--men in the heat of action forgot

themselves, and became bystanders--such power was there in the

unearthly eyes of the apparition.

"Is there no Christian to kill me?" cried the Emperor again.

The man in velvet stood before him.

"Prince of India!"

"You know me? It is well; for now I know you are not beyond

remembering." The voice was shrill and cutting, yet it shrilled and cut

the sharper.

"Remember the day I called on you to acknowledge God, and give him his

due of worship. Remember the day I prayed you on my knees to lend me

your power to save my child, stolen for a purpose by all peoples held

unholy. Behold your executioner!"

He stepped back, and raised a hand; and ere one of those standing by

could so much as cry to God, Nilo, who, in the absorption of interest

in his master, had followed him unnoticed--Nilo, gorgeous in his

barbarisms of Kash-Cush, sprang into the master's place. He did not

strike; but with infinite cruel cunning of hand--no measurable lapse of

time ensuing--drew the assegai across the face of the astonished

Emperor. Constantine--never great till that moment of death, but then

great forever--fell forward upon his shield, calling in strangled

utterance: "God receive my soul!"

The savage set his foot upon the mutilated countenance, crushing it

into a pool of blood. An instant, then through the petrified throng,

knocking them right and left, Count Corti appeared.

"_For Christ and Irene!_" he shouted, dashing the spiked boss of his

shield into Nilo's eyes--down upon the feathered coronal he brought his

sword--and the negro fell sprawling upon the Emperor.

Oblivious to the surroundings, Count Corti, on his knees, raised the

Emperor's head, slightly turning the face--one look was enough. "His

soul is sped!" he said; and while he was tenderly replacing the head, a

hand grasped his cap. He sprang to his feet. Woe to the intruder, if an

enemy! The sword which had known no failure was drawn back to

thrust--above the advanced foot the shield hung in ready poise--between

him and the challenger there was only a margin of air and the briefest

interval of time--his breath was drawn, and his eyes gleamed with

vengeful murder--but--some power invisible stayed his arm, and into his

memory flashed the lightning of recognition.

"Prince of India," he shouted, "never wert thou nearer death!"

"Thou--liest! Death--and--I"--

The words were long drawn between gasps, and the speech was never

finished. The tongue thickened, then paralyzed. The features, already

distorted with passion, swelled, and blackened horribly. The eyes

rolled back--the hands flew up, the fingers apart and rigid--the body

rocked--stiffened--then fell, sliding from the Count's shield across

the dead Emperor.

The combat meantime had gone on. Corti, with a vague feeling that the

Prince's flight of soul was a mystery in keeping with his life, took a

second to observe him, and muttered: "Peace to him also!"

Looking about him then, he was made aware that the Christians, attacked

in front and rear, were drawing together around the body of

Constantine--that their resistance was become the last effort of brave

men hopeless except of the fullest possible payment for their lives.

This was succeeded by a conviction of duty done on his part, and of

every requirement of honor fulfilled; thereupon with a great throb of

heart, his mind reverted to the Princess Irene waiting for him in the

chapel. He must go to her. But how? And was it not too late?

There are men whose wits are supernaturally quickened by danger. The

Count, pushing through the intervening throng, boldly presented himself

to the Janissaries, shouting while warding the blows they aimed at him:

"Have done, O madmen! See you not I am your comrade, Mirza the Emir?

Have done, I say, and let me pass. I have a message for the Padishah!"

He spoke Turkish, and having been an idol in the barracks--their best

swordsman--envied, and at the same time beloved--they knew him, and

with acclamations opened their files, and let him pass.

By the fissure which had served Justiniani, he escaped from the

terrible alley, and finding his Berbers and his horse, rode with speed

for the residence of the Princess Irene.

Not a Christian survived the combat. Greek, Genoese, Italian lay in

ghastly composite with hordesmen and mailed Moslems around the Emperor.

In dying they had made good their battle-cry--_For Christ and Holy

Church!_ Let us believe they will yet have their guerdon.

About an hour after the last of them had fallen, when the narrow

passage was deserted by the living--the conquerors having moved on in

search of their hire--the Prince of India aroused, and shook himself

free of the corpses cumbering him. Upon his knees he gazed at the

dead--then at the place--then at the sky. He rubbed his hands--made

sure he was sound of person--he seemed uncertain, not of life, but of

himself. In fact, he was asking, Who am I? And the question had

reference to the novel sensations of which he was conscious. What was

it coursing through his veins? Wine?--Elixir?--Some new principle

which, hidden away amongst the stores of nature, had suddenly evolved

for him? The weights of age were gone. In his body--bones, arms, limbs,

muscles--he recognized once more the glorious impulses of youth; but

his mind--he started--the ideas which had dominated him were beginning

to return--and memory! It surged back upon him, and into its wonted

chambers, like a wave which, under pressure of a violent wind, has been

momentarily driven from a familiar shore. He saw, somewhat faintly at

first, the events which had been promontories and lofty peaks cast up

out of the level of his long existence. Then THAT DAY and THAT EVENT!

How distinctly they reappeared to him! They must be the same--must

be--for he beheld the multitude on its way to Calvary, and the Victim

tottering under the Cross; he heard the Tribune ask, "Ho, is this the

street to Golgotha?" He heard his own answer, "I will guide you;" and

he spit upon the fainting Man of Sorrows, and struck him. And then the

words--"TARRY THOU TILL I COME!" identified him to himself. He looked

at his hands--they were black with what had been some other man's

life-blood, but under the stain the skin was smooth--a little water

would make them white. And what was that upon his breast? Beard--beard

black as a raven's wing! He plucked a lock of hair from his head. It,

too, was thick with blood, but it was black. Youth--youth--joyous,

bounding, eager, hopeful youth was his once more! He stood up, and

there was no creak of rust in the hinges of his joints; he knew he was

standing inches higher in the sunlit air; and a cry burst from him--"O

God, I give thanks!" The hymn stopped there, for between him and the

sky, as if it were ascending transfigured, he beheld the Victim of the

Crucifixion; and the eyes, no longer sad, but full of accusing majesty,

were looking downward at him, and the lips were in speech: "TARRY THOU

TILL I COME!" He covered his face with his hands. Yes, yes, he had his

youth back again, but it was with the old mind and nature--youth, that

the curse upon him might, in the mortal sense, be eternal! And pulling

his black hair with his young hands, wrenching at his black beard, it

was given him to see he had undergone his fourteenth transformation,

and that between this one and the last there was no lapse of

connection. Old age had passed, leaving the conditions and

circumstances of its going to the youth which succeeded. The new life

in starting picked up and loaded itself with every burden and all the

misery of the old. So now while burrowing, as it were, amongst dead

men, his head upon the breast of the Emperor whom, treating Nilo as an

instrument in his grip, he had slain, he thought most humanly of the

effects of the transformation.

First of all, his personal identity was lost, and he was once more a

Wanderer without an acquaintance, a friend, or a sympathizer on the

earth. To whom could he now address himself with a hope of recognition?

His heart went out primarily to Lael--he loved her. Suppose he found

her, and offered to take her in his arms; she would repulse him. "Thou

art not my father. He was old--thou art young." And Syama, whose

bereavements of sense had recommended him for confidant in the event of

his witnessing the dreaded circumstance just befallen--if he addressed

himself to Syama, the faithful creature would deny him. "No; my master

was old--his hair and beard were white--thou art a youth. Go hence."

And then Mahommed, to whom he had been so useful in bringing additional

empire, and a glory which time would make its own forever--did he seek

Mahommed again--"Thou art not the Prince of India, my peerless

Messenger of the Stars. He was old--his hair and beard were white--thou

art a boy. Ho, guards, take this impostor, and do with him as ye did

with Balta-Ogli stretch him on the ground, and beat the breath out of

him."

There is nothing comes to us, whether in childhood or age, so crushing

as a sense of isolation. Who will deny it had to do with the

marshalling of worlds, and the peopling them--with creation?

These reflections did but wait upon the impulse which still further

identified him to himself--the impulse to go and keep going--and he

cast about for solaces.

"It is the Judgment," he said, with a grim smile; "but my stores

remain, and Hiram of Tyre is yet my friend. I have my experience of

more than a thousand years, and with it youth again. I cannot make men

better, and God refuses my services. Nevertheless I will devise new

opportunities. The earth is round, and upon its other side there must

be another world. Perhaps I can find some daring spirit equal to the

voyage and discovery--some one Heaven may be more willing to favor. But

this meeting place of the old continents"--he looked around him, and

then to the sky--"with my farewell, I leave it the curse of the most

accursed. The desired of nations, it shall be a trouble to them

forever."

Then he saw Nilo under a load of corpses, and touched by remembrance of

the poor savage's devotion, he uncovered him to get at his heart, which

was still beating. Next he threw away his cap and gown, replaced them

with a bloody tarbousche and a shaggy Angora mantle, selected a

javelin, and sauntered leisurely on into the city. Having seen

Constantinople pillaged by Christians, he was curious to see it now

sacked by Moslems--there might be a further solace in the comparison.

[Footnote: According to the earliest legends, the Wandering Jew was

about thirty years old when he stood in the road to Golgotha, and

struck the Saviour, and ordered him to go forward. At the end of every

hundred years, the undying man falls into a trance, during which his

body returns to the age it was when the curse was pronounced. In all

other respects he remains unchanged.]

CHAPTER XIII

MAHOMMED IN SANCTA SOPHIA

Count Corti, we may well believe, did not spare his own steed, or those

of his Berbers; and there was a need of haste of which he was not aware

upon setting out from St. Romain. The Turks had broken through the

resistance of the Christian fleet in the harbor, and were surging into

the city by the gate St. Peter (Phanar), which was perilously near the

residence of the Princess Irene.

Already the spoil-seekers were making sure of their hire. More than

once he dashed by groups of them hurrying along the streets in search

of houses most likely to repay plundering. There were instances when he

overtook hordesmen already happy in the possession of "strings of

slaves;" that is to say, of Greeks, mostly women and children, tied by

their hands to ropes, and driven mercilessly on. The wailing and

prayers of the unfortunate smote the Count to the heart; he longed to

deliver them; but he had given his best efforts to save them in the

struggle to save the city, and had failed; now it would be a providence

of Heaven could he rescue the woman waiting for him in such faith as

was due his word and honor specially plighted to her. As the pillagers

showed no disposition to interfere with him, he closed his eyes and

ears to their brutalities, and sped forward.

The district in which the Princess dwelt was being overrun when he at

last drew rein at her door. With a horrible dread, he alighted, and

pushed in unceremoniously. The reception-room was empty. Was he too

late? Or was she then in Sancta Sophia? He flew to the chapel, and

blessed God and Christ and the Mother, all in a breath. She was before

the altar in the midst of her attendants. Sergius stood at her side,

and of the company they alone were perfectly self-possessed. A white

veil lay fallen over her shoulders; save that, she was in unrelieved

black. The pallor of her countenance, caused, doubtless, by weeks of

care and unrest, detracted slightly from the marvelous beauty which was

hers by nature; but it seemed sorrow and danger only increased the

gentle dignity always observable in her speech and manner.

"Princess Irene," he said, hastening forward, and reverently saluting

her hand, "if you are still of the mind to seek refuge in Sancta

Sophia, I pray you, let us go thither."

"We are ready," she returned. "But tell me of the Emperor."

The Count bent very low.

"Your kinsman is beyond insult and further humiliation. His soul is

with God."

Her eyes glistened with tears, and partly to conceal her emotion she

turned to the picture above the altar, and said, in a low voice, and

brokenly:

"O Holy Mother, have thou his soul in thy tender care, and be with me

now, going to what fate I know not."

The young women surrounded her, and on their knees filled the chapel

with sobbing and suppressed wails. Striving for composure himself, the

Count observed them, and was at once assailed by an embarrassment.

They were twenty and more. Each had a veil over her head; yet from the

delicacy of their hands he could imagine their faces, while their rank

was all too plainly certified by the elegance of their garments. As a

temptation to the savages, their like was not within the walls. How was

he to get them safely to the Church, and defend them there? He was used

to military problems, and decision was a habit with him; still he was

sorely tried--indeed, he was never so perplexed.

The Princess finished her invocation to the Holy Mother.

"Count Corti," she said, "I now place myself and these, my sisters in

misfortune, under thy knightly care. Only suffer me to send for one

other.--Go, Sergius, and bring Lael."

One other!

"Now God help me!" he cried, involuntarily; and it seemed he was heard.

"Princess," he returned, "the Turks have possession of the streets. On

my way I passed them with prisoners whom they were driving, and they

appeared to respect a right of property acquired. Perhaps they will be

not less observant to me; wherefore bring other veils here--enough to

bind these ladies two and two."

As she seemed hesitant, he added: "Pardon me, but in the streets you

must all go afoot, to appearances captives just taken."

The veils were speedily produced, and the Princess bound her trembling

companions in couples hand to hand; submitting finally to be herself

tied to Lael. Then when Sergius was more substantially joined to the

ancient Lysander, the household sallied forth.

A keener realization of the situation seized the gentler portion of the

procession once they were in the street, and they there gave way to

tears, sobs, and loud appeals to the Saints and Angels of Mercy.

The Count rode in front; four of his Berbers moved on each side; Sheik

Hadifah guarded the rear; and altogether a more disconsolate company of

captives it were hard imagining. A rope passing from the first couple

to the last was the only want required to perfect the resemblance to

the actual slave droves at the moment on nearly every thoroughfare in

Constantinople.

The weeping cortege passed bands of pillagers repeatedly.

Once what may be termed a string in fact was met going in the opposite

direction; women and children, and men and women were lashed together,

like animals, and their lamentations were piteous. If they fell or

faltered, they were beaten. It seemed barbarity could go no further.

Once the Count was halted. A man of rank, with a following at his

heels, congratulated him in Turkish:

"O friend, thou hast a goodly capture."

The stranger came nearer.

"I will give you twenty gold pieces for this one," pointing to the

Princess Irene, who, fortunately, could not understand him--"and

fifteen for this one."

"Go thy way, and quickly," said Corti, sternly.

"Dost thou threaten me?"

"By the Prophet, yes--with my sword, and the Padishah."

"The Padishah! Oh, ho!" and the man turned pale. "God is great--I give

him praise."

At last the Count alighted before the main entrance of the Church. By

friendly chance, also--probably because the site was far down toward

the sea, in a district not yet reached by the hordesmen--the space in

front of the vestibule was clear of all but incoming fugitives; and he

had but to knock at the door, and give the name of the Princess Irene

to gain admission.

In the vestibule the party were relieved of their bonds; after which

they passed into the body of the building, where they embraced each

other, and gave praise aloud for what they considered a final

deliverance from death and danger; in their transports, they kissed the

marbles of the floor again and again.

While this affecting scene was going on, Corti surveyed the interior.

The freest pen cannot do more than give the view with a clearness to

barely stimulate the reader's imagination.

It was about eleven o'clock. The smoke of battle which had overlain the

hills of the city was dissipated; so the sun, nearing high noon, poured

its full of splendor across the vast nave in rays slanted from south to

north, and a fine, almost impalpable dust hanging from the dome in the

still air, each ray shone through it in vivid, half-prismatic relief

against the shadowy parts of the structure. Such pillars in the

galleries as stood in the paths of the sunbeams seemed effulgent, like

emeralds and rubies. His eyes, however, refused everything except the

congregation of people.

"O Heaven!" he exclaimed. "What is to become of these poor souls!"

Byzantium, it must be recalled, had had its triumphal days, when Greeks

drew together, like Jews on certain of their holy occasions;

undoubtedly the assemblages then were more numerous, but never had

there been one so marked by circumstances. This was the funeral day of

the Empire!

Let the reader try to recompose the congregation the Count

beheld--civilians--soldiers--nuns--monks--monks bearded, monks shaven,

monks tonsured--monks in high hats and loose veils, monks in gowns

scarce distinguishable from gowns of women--monks by the thousand. Ah,

had they but dared a manly part on the walls, the cause of the Christ

for whom they affected such devotion would not have suffered the

humiliation to which it was now going! As to the mass in general, let

the reader think of the rich jostled by the poor--fine ladies careless

if their robes took taint from the Lazarus' next them--servants for

once at least on a plane with haughty masters--Senators and

slaves--grandsires--mothers with their infants--old and young, high and

low, all in promiscuous presence--society at an end--Sancta Sophia a

universal last refuge. And by no means least strange, let the reader

fancy the refugees on their knees, silent as ghosts in a tomb, except

that now and then the wail of a child broke the awful hush, and gazing

over their shoulders, not at the altar, but toward the doors of

entrance; then let him understand that every one in the smother of

assemblage--every one capable of thought--was in momentary expectation

of a miracle.

Here and there moved priestly figures, holding crucifixes aloft, and

halting at times to exhort in low voices: "Be not troubled, O dearly

beloved of Christ! The angel will appear by the old column. If the

powers of hell are not to prevail against the Church, what may men do

against the sword of God?"

The congregation was waiting for the promised angel to rescue them from

the Barbarians.

Of opinion that the chancel, or space within the railing of the apse

opposite him, was a better position for his charge than the crowded

auditorium, partly because he could more easily defend them there, and

partly because Mahommed when he arrived would naturally look for the

Princess near the altar, the Count, with some trouble, secured a place

within it behind the brazen balustrade at the right of the gate. The

invasion of the holy reserve by the Berbers was viewed askance, but

submitted to; thereupon the Princess and her suite took to waiting and

praying.

Afterwhile the doors in the east were barred by the janitor.

Still later there was knocking at them loud enough to be by authority.

The janitor had become deaf.

Later still a yelling as of a mob out in the vestibule penetrated to

the interior, and a shiver struck the expectant throng, less from a

presentiment of evil at hand than a horrible doubt. An angel of the

Lord would hardly adopt such an incongruous method of proclaiming the

miracle done. A murmur of invocation began with those nearest the

entrances, and ran from the floor to the galleries. As it spread, the

shouting increased in volume and temper. Ere long the doors were

assailed. The noise of a blow given with determination rang dreadful

warning through the whole building, and the concourse arose.

The women shrieked: "The Turks! The Turks!"

Even the nuns who had been practising faith for years joined their lay

sisters in crying: "The Turks! The Turks!"

The great, gowned, cowardly monks dropped their crucifixes, and, like

the commoner sons of the Church, howled: "The Turks! The Turks!"

Finally the doors were battered in, and sure enough--there stood the

hordesmen, armed and panoplied each according to his tribe or personal

preference--each a most unlikely delivering angel.

This completed the panic.

In the vicinity of the ruined doors everybody, overcome by terror,

threw himself upon those behind, and the impulsion thus started gained

force while sweeping on. As ever in such cases, the weak were the

sufferers. Children were overrun--infants dashed from the arms of

mothers--men had need of their utmost strength--and the wisdom of the

Count in seeking the chancel was proved. The massive brazen railing

hardly endured the pressure when the surge reached it; but it stood,

and the Princess and her household--all, in fact, within the

chancel--escaped the crushing, but not the horror.

The spoilsmen were in strength, but they were prudently slow in

persuading themselves that the Greeks were unarmed, and incapable of

defending the Church. Ere long they streamed in, and for the first time

in the history of the edifice the colossal Christ on the ceiling above

the altar was affronted by the slogan of Islam--_Allah-il-Allah_.

Strange now as it may appear to the reader, there is no mention in the

chronicles of a life lost that day within the walls of Sancta Sophia.

The victors were there for plunder, not vengeance, and believing there

was more profit in slaves than any other kind of property, their effort

was to save rather than kill. The scene was beyond peradventure one of

the cruelest in history, but the cruelty was altogether in taking

possession of captives.

Tossing their arms of whatever kind upon their backs, the savages

pushed into the pack of Christians to select whom they would have. We

may be sure the old, sick, weakly, crippled, and very young were

discarded, and the strong and vigorous chosen. Remembering also how

almost universally the hordes were from the East, we may be sure a

woman was preferred to a man, and a pretty woman to an ugly one.

The hand shrinks from trying to depict the agonies of separation which

ensued--mothers torn from their children, wives from husbands--their

shrieks, entreaties, despair--the mirthful brutality with which their

pitiful attempts at resistance were met--the binding and dragging

away--the last clutch of love--the final disappearance. It is only

needful to add that the rapine involved the galleries no less than the

floor. All things considered, the marvel is that the cry--there was but

one, just as the sounds of many waters are but one to the ear--which

then tore the habitual silence of the august temple should have ever

ceased--and it would not if, in its duration, human sympathy were less

like a flitting echo.

Next to women, the monks were preferred, and the treatment they

received was not without its touches of grim humor. Their cowls were

snatched off, and bandied about, their hats crushed over their ears,

their veils stuffed in their mouths to stifle their outcries, their

rosaries converted into scourges; and the laughter when a string of

them passed to the doors was long and loud. They had pulled their

monasteries down upon themselves. If the Emperor, then lying in the

bloody alley of St. Romain, dead through their bigotry, superstition,

and cowardice, had been vengeful in the slightest degree, a knowledge

of the judgment come upon them so soon would have been at least restful

to his spirit.

It must not be supposed Count Corti was indifferent while this

appalling scene was in progress. The chancel, he foresaw, could not

escape the foray. There was the altar, loaded with donatives in gold

and precious stones, a blazing pyramidal invitation. When the doors

were burst in, he paused a moment to see if Mahommed were coming.

"The hordes are here, O Princess, but not the Sultan."

She raised her veil, and regarded him silently.

"I see now but one resort. As Mirza the Emir, I must meet the pillagers

by claiming the Sultan sent me in advance to capture and guard you for

him."

"We are at mercy, Count Corti," she replied. "Heaven deal with you as

you deal with us."

"If the ruse fails, Princess, I can die for you. Now tie yourselves as

before--two and two, hand to hand. It may be they will call on me to

distinguish such as are my charge."

She cast a glance of pity about her.

"And these, Count--these poor women not of my house, and the

children--can you not save them also?"

"Alas, dear lady! The Blessed Mother must be their shield."

While the veils were being applied, the surge against the railing took

place, leaving a number of dead and fainting across it.

"Hadifah," the Count called out, "clear the way to yon chair against

the wall."

The Sheik set about removing the persons blockading the space, and

greatly affected by their condition, the Princess interceded for them.

"Nay, Count, disturb them not. Add not to their terror, I pray."

But the Count was a soldier; in case of an affray, he wanted the

advantage of a wall at his back.

"Dear lady, it was the throne of your fathers, now yours. I will seat

you there. From it you can best treat with the Lord Mahommed."

Ere long some of the hordes--half a dozen or more--came to the chancel

gate. They were of the rudest class of Anatolian shepherds, clad

principally in half-cloaks of shaggy goat skin. Each bore at his back a

round buckler, a bow, and a clumsy quiver of feathered arrows. Awed by

the splendor of the altar and its surroundings, they stopped; then,

with shouts, they rushed at the tempting display, unmindful of the

living spoils crouched on the floor dumb with terror. Others of a like

kind reenforced them, and there was a fierce scramble. The latest

comers turned to the women, and presently discovered the Princess Irene

sitting upon the throne. One, more eager than the rest, was indisposed

to respect the Berbers.

"Here are slaves worth having. Get your ropes," he shouted to his

companions.

The Count interposed.

"Art thou a believer?" he asked in Turkish.

They surveyed him doubtfully, and then turned to Hadifah and his men,

tall, imperturbable looking, their dark faces visible through their

open hoods of steel. They looked at their shields also, and at their

bare cimeters resting points to the floor.

"Why do you ask?" the man returned.

"Because, as thou mayst see, we also are of the Faithful, and do not

wish harm to any whose mothers have taught them to begin the day with

the Fah-hat."

The fellow was impressed.

"Who art thou?"

"I am the Emir Mirza, of the household of our Lord the Padishah--to

whom be all the promises of the Koran! These are slaves I selected for

him--all these thou seest in bonds. I am keeping them till he arrives.

He will be here directly. He is now coming."

A man wearing a bloody tarbousche joined the pillagers, during this

colloquy, and pressing in, heard the Emir's name passing from mouth to

mouth.

"The Emir Mirza! I knew him, brethren. He commanded the caravan, and

kept the _mahmals,_ the year I made the pilgrimage.... Stand off, and

let me see." After a short inspection, he continued: "Truly as there is

no God but God, this is he. I was next him at the most holy corner of

the Kaaba when he fell down struck by the plague. I saw him kiss the

Black Stone, and by virtue of the kiss he lived.... Ay, stand back--or

if you touch him, or one of these in his charge, and escape his hand,

ye shall not escape the Padishah, whose first sword he is, even as

Khalid was first sword for the Prophet--exalted be his name!... Give me

thy hand, O valiant Emir."

He kissed the Count's hand.

"Arise, O son of thy father," said Corti; "and when our master, the

Lord Mahommed, hath set up his court and harem, seek me for reward."

The man stayed awhile, although there was no further show of

interference; and he looked past the Princess to Lael cowering near

her. He took no interest in what was going on around him--Lael alone

attracted him. At last he shifted his sheepskin covering higher upon

his shoulders, and left these words with the Count:

"The women are not for the harem. I understand thee, O Mirza. When the

Lord Mahommed hath set up his court, do thou tell the little Jewess

yonder that her father the Prince of India charged thee to give her his

undying love."

Count Corti was wonder struck--he could not speak--and so the Wandering

Jew vanished from his sight as he now vanishes from our story.

The selection among the other refugees in the chancel proceeded until

there was left of them only such as were considered not worth the

having.

A long time passed, during which the Princess Irene sat with veil drawn

close, trying to shut out the horror of the scene. Her attendants,

clinging to the throne and to each other, seemed a heap of dead women.

At last a crash of music was heard in the vestibule--drums, cymbals,

and trumpets in blatant flourish. Four runners, slender lads, in short,

sleeveless jackets over white shirts, and wide trousers of yellow silk,

barefooted and bareheaded, stepped lightly through the central doorway,

and, waving wands tipped with silver balls, cried, in long-toned shrill

iteration: "The Lord Mahommed--Mahommed, Sultan of Sultans."

The spoilsmen suspended their hideous labor--the victims, moved

doubtless by a hope of rescue, gave over their lamentations and

struggling--only the young children, and the wounded, and suffering

persisted in vexing the floor and galleries.

Next to enter were the five official heralds. Halting, they blew a

triumphant refrain, at which the thousands of eyes not too blinded by

misery turned to them.

And Mahommed appeared!

He too had escaped the Angel of the false monks!

When the fighting ceased in the harbor, and report assured him of the

city at mercy, Mahommed gave order to make the Gate St. Romain passable

for horsemen, and with clever diplomacy summoned the Pachas and other

military chiefs to his tent; it was his pleasure that they should

assist him in taking possession of the prize to which he had been

helped by their valor. With a rout so constituted at his back, and an

escort of _Silihdars_ mounted, the runners and musicians preceding him,

he made his triumphal entry into Constantinople, traversing the ruins

of the towers Bagdad and St. Romain.

He was impatient and restless. In their ignorance of his passion for

the Grecian Princess, his ministers excused his behavior on account of

his youth [Footnote: He was in his twenty-third year.] and the

greatness of his achievement. Passing St. Romain, it was also observed

he took no interest in the relics of combat still there. He gave his

guides but one order:

"Take me to the house the _Gabours_ call the Glory of God."

"Sancta Sophia, my Lord?"

"Sancta Sophia--and bid the runners run."

His Sheik-ul-Islam was pleased.

"Hear!" he said to the dervishes with him. "The Lord Mahommed will make

mosques of the houses of Christ before sitting down in one of the

palaces. His first honors are to God and the Prophet."

And they dutifully responded: "Great are God and his Prophet! Great is

Mahommed, who conquers in their names!"

The public edifices by which he was guided--churches, palaces, and

especially the high aqueduct, excited his admiration; but he did not

slacken the fast trot in which he carried his loud cavalcade past them

until at the Hippodrome.

"What thing of devilish craft is here?" he exclaimed, stopping in front

of the Twisted Serpents. "Thus the Prophet bids me!" and with a blow of

his mace, he struck off the lower jaw of one of the Pythons.

Again the dervishes shouted: "Great is Mahommed, the servant of God!"

It was his preference to be taken to the eastern front of Sancta

Sophia, and in going the guides led him by the corner of the Bucoleon.

At sight of the vast buildings, their incomparable colonnades and

cornices, their domeless stretches of marble and porphyry, he halted

the second time, and in thought of the vanity of human glory, recited:

"The spider hath woven his web in the imperial palace;

And the owl hath sung her watch-song on the towers of

Afrasiab."

In the space before the Church, as elsewhere along the route he had

come, the hordes were busy carrying off their wretched captives; but he

affected not to see them. They had bought the license of him, many of

them with their blood.

At the door the suite dismounted. Mahommed however, kept his saddle

while surveying the gloomy exterior. Presently he bade:

"Let the runners and the heralds enter."

Hardly were they gone in, when he spoke to one of his pages: "Here,

take thou this, and give me my cimeter." And then, receiving the

ruby-hilted sword of Solomon in exchange for the mace of Ilderim,

without more ado he spurred his horse up the few broad stone steps, and

into the vestibule. Thence, the contemptuous impulse yet possessing

him, he said loudly: "The house is defiled with idolatrous images.

Islam is in the saddle."

In such manner--mounted, sword in hand, shield behind him--clad in

beautiful gold-washed chain mail, the very ideal of the immortal Emir

who won Jerusalem from the Crusaders, and restored it to Allah and the

Prophet--Mahommed made his first appearance in Sancta Sophia.

Astonishment seized him. He checked his horse. Slowly his gaze ranged

over the floor--up to the galleries--up--up to the swinging dome--in

all architecture nothing so nearly a self-depending sky.

"Here, take the sword--give me back my mace," he said.

And in a fit of enthusiasm, not seeing, not caring for the screaming

wretches under hoof, he rode forward, and, standing at full height in

his stirrups, shouted: "Idolatry be done! Down with the Trinity. Let

Christ give way for the last and greatest of the Prophets! To God the

one God, I dedicate this house!"

Therewith he dashed the mace against a pillar; and as the steel

rebounded, the pillar trembled. [Footnote: The guides, if good Moslems,

take great pleasure in showing tourists the considerable dent left by

this blow in the face of the pillar.]

"Now give me the sword again, and call Achmet, my muezzin--Achmet with

the flute in his throat."

The moods of Mahommed were swift going and coming. Riding out a few

steps, he again halted to give the floor a look. This time evidently

the house was not in his mind. The expression on his face became

anxious. He was searching for some one, and moved forward so slowly the

people could get out of his way, and his suite overtake him. At length

he observed the half-stripped altar in the apse, and went to it.

The colossal Christ on the ceiling peered down on him through the

shades beginning to faintly fill the whole west end.

Now he neared the brazen railing of the chancel--now he was at the

gate--his countenance changed--his eyes brightened--he had discovered

Count Corti. Swinging lightly from his saddle, he passed with steps of

glad impatience through the gateway.

Then to Count Corti came the most consuming trial of his adventurous

life.

The light was still strong enough to enable him to see across the

Church. Comprehending the flourish of the heralds, he saw the man on

horseback enter; and the mien, the pose in the saddle, the rider's

whole outward expose of spirit, informed him with such certainty as

follows long and familiar association, that Mahommed was

come--Mahommed, his ideal of romantic orientalism in arms. A tremor

shook him--his cheek whitened. To that moment anxiety for the Princess

had held him so entirely he had not once thought of the consequences of

the wager lost; now they were let loose upon him. Having saved her from

the hordes, now he must surrender her to a rival--now she was to go

from him forever. Verily it had been easier parting with his soul. He

held to his cimeter as men instantly slain sometimes keep grip on their

weapons; yet his head sunk upon his breast, and he saw nothing more of

Mahommed until he stood before him inside the chancel.

"Count Corti, where is"--

Mahommed caught sight of the Count's face.

"Oh, my poor Mirza!"

A volume of words could not have so delicately expressed sympathy as

did that altered tone.

Taking off his steel glove, the fitful Conqueror extended the bare

hand, and the Count, partially recalled to the situation by the

gracious offer, sunk to his knees, and carried the hand to his lips.

"I have kept the faith, my Lord," he said in Turkish, his voice

scarcely audible. "This is she behind me--upon the throne of her

fathers. Receive her from me, and let me depart."

"My poor Mirza! We left the decision to God, and he has decided. Arise,

and hear me now."

To the notables closing around, he said, imperiously: "Stand not back.

Come up, and hear me."

Stepping past the Count, then, he stood before the Princess. She arose

without removing her veil, and would have knelt; but Mahommed moved

nearer, and prevented her.

The training of the politest court in Europe was in her action, and the

suite looking on, used to slavishness in captives, and tearful humility

in women, he held her with amazement; nor could one of them have said

which most attracted him, her queenly composure or her simple grace.

"Suffer me, my Lord," she said to him; then to her attendants: "This is

Mahommed the Sultan. Let us pray him for honorable treatment."

Presently they were kneeling, and she would have joined them, but

Mahommed again interfered.

"Your hand, O Princess Irene! I wish to salute it."

Sometimes a wind blows out of the sky, and swinging the bell in the

cupola, starts it to ringing itself; so now, at sight of the only woman

he ever really loved overtaken by so many misfortunes, and actually

threatened by a rabble of howling slave-hunters, Mahommed's better

nature thrilled with pity and remorse, and it was only by an effort of

will he refrained from kneeling to her, and giving his passion tongue.

Nevertheless a kiss, though on the hand, can be made tell a tale of

love, and that was what the youthful Conqueror did.

"I pray next that you resume your seat," he continued. "It has pleased

God, O daughter of a Palaeologus, to leave you the head of the Greek

people; and as I have the terms of a treaty to submit of great concern

to them and you, it were more becoming did you hear me from a

throne.... And first, in this presence, I declare you a free

woman--free to go or stay, to reject or to accept--for a treaty is

impossible except to sovereigns. If it be your pleasure to go, I pledge

conveyance, whether by sea or land, to you and yours--attendants,

slaves, and property; nor shall there be in any event a failure of

moneys to keep you in the state to which you have been used."

"For your grace, Lord Mahommed, I shall beseech Heaven to reward you."

"As the God of your faith is the God of mine, O Princess Irene, I shall

be grateful for your prayers.... In the next place, I entreat you to

abide here; and to this I am moved by regard for your happiness. The

conditions will be strange to you, and in your going about there will

be much to excite comparisons of the old with the new; but the Arabs

had once a wise man, El Hatim by name--you may have heard of him"--he

cast a quick look at the eyes behind the veil--"El Hatim, a poet, a

warrior, a physician, and he left a saying: 'Herbs for fevers, amulets

for mischances, and occupation for distempers of memory.' If it should

be that time proves powerless over your sorrows, I would bring

employment to its aid.... Heed me now right well. It pains me to think

of Constantinople without inhabitants or commerce, its splendors

decaying, its palaces given over to owls, its harbor void of ships, its

churches vacant except of spiders, its hills desolations to eyes afar

on the sea. If it become not once more the capital city of Europe and

Asia, some one shall have defeated the will of God; and I cannot endure

that guilt or the thought of it. 'Sins are many in kind and degree,

differing as the leaves and grasses differ,' says a dervish of my

people; 'but for him who stands wilfully in the eyes of the Most

Merciful--for him only shall there be no mercy in the Great Day.'...

Yes, heed me right well--I am not the enemy of the Greeks, O Princess

Irene. Their power could not agree with mine, and I made war upon it;

but now that Heaven has decided the issue, I wish to recall them. They

will not listen to me. Though I call loudly and often, they will

remember the violence inflicted on them in my name. Their restoration

is a noble work in promise. Is there a Greek of trust, and so truly a

lover of his race, to help me make the promise a deed done? The man is

not; but thou, O Princess--thou art. Behold the employment I offer you!

I will commission you to bring them home--even these sorrowful

creatures going hence in bonds. Or do you not love them so much?...

Religion shall not hinder you. In the presence of these, my ministers

of state, I swear to divide houses of God with you; half of them shall

be Christian, the other half Moslem; arid neither sect shall interfere

with the other's worship. This I will seal, reserving only this house,

and that the Patriarch be chosen subject to my approval. Or do you not

love your religion so much?"....

During the discourse the Princess listened intently; now she would have

spoken, but he lifted his hand.

"Not yet, not yet! it is not well for you to answer now. I desire that

you have time to consider--and besides, I come to terms of more

immediate concern to you.... Here, in the presence of these witnesses,

O Princess Irene, I offer you honorable marriage."

Mahommed bowed very low at the conclusion of this proposal.

"And wishing the union in conscience agreeable to you, I undertake to

celebrate it according to Christian rite and Moslem. So shall you

become Queen of the Greeks--their intercessor--the restorer and

protector of their Church and worship--so shall you be placed in a way

to serve God purely and unselfishly; and if a thirst for glory has ever

moved you, O Princess, I present it to you a cupful larger than woman

ever drank.... You may reside here or in Therapia, and keep your

private chapel and altar, and choose whom you will to serve them. And

these things I will also swear to and seal."

Again she would have interrupted him.

"No--bear with me for the once. I invoke your patience," he said. "In

the making of treaties, O Princess, one of the parties must first

propose terms; then it is for the other to accept or reject, and in

turn propose. And this"--he glanced hurriedly around--"this is no time

nor place for argument. Be content rather to return to your home in the

city or your country-house at Therapia. In three days, with your

permission, I will come for your answer; and whatever it be, I swear by

Him who is God of the world, it shall be respected.... When I come,

will you receive me?"

"The Lord Mahommed will be welcome."

"Where may I wait on you?"

"At Therapia," she answered.

Mahommed turned about then.

"Count Corti, go thou with the Princess Irene to Therapia. I know thou

wilt keep her safely.--And thou, Kalil, have a galley suitable for a

Queen of the Greeks made ready on the instant, and let there be no lack

of guards despatched with it, subject to the orders of Count Corti, for

the time once more Mirza the Emir.... O Princess, if I have been

peremptory, forgive me, and lend me thy hand again. I wish to salute

it."

Again she silently yielded to his request.

Kalil, seeing only politics in the scene, marched before the Princess

clearing the way, and directly she was out of the Church. At the

suggestion of the Count, sedan chairs were brought, and she and her

half-stupefied companions carried to a galley, arriving at Therapia

about the fourth hour after sunset.

Mahommed had indeed been imperious in the interview; but, as he

afterward explained to her, with many humble protestations, he had a

part to play before his ministers.

No sooner was she removed than he gave orders to clear the building of

people and idolatrous symbols; and while the work was in progress, he

made a tour of inspection going from the floor to the galleries. His

wonder and admiration were unbounded.

Passing along the right-hand gallery, he overtook a pilferer with a

tarbousche full of glass cubes picked from one of the mosaic pictures.

"Thou despicable!" he cried, in rage. "Knowest thou not that I have

devoted this house to Allah? Profane a Mosque, wilt thou?"

And he struck the wretch with the flat of his sword. Hastening then to

the chancel, he summoned Achmet, the muezzin.

"What is the hour?" he asked.

"It is the hour of the fourth prayer, my Lord."

"Ascend thou then to the highest turret of the house, and call the

Faithful to pious acknowledgment of the favors of God and his

Prophet--may their names be forever exalted."

Thus Sancta Sophia passed from Christ to Mahomet; and from that hour to

this Islam has had sway within its walls. Not once since have its

echoes been permitted to respond to a Christian prayer or a hymn to the

Virgin. Nor was this the first instance when, to adequately punish a

people for the debasement and perversions of his revelations, God, in

righteous anger, tolerated their destruction.

To-day there are two cities, lights once of the whole earth, under

curses so deeply graven in their remains--sites, walls, ruins--that

every man and woman visiting them should be brought to know why they

fell.

Alas, for Jerusalem!

Alas, for Constantinople!

POSTSCRIPTS.

In the morning of the third day after the fall of the city, a common

carrier galley drew alongside the marble quay in front of the Princess'

garden at Therapia, and landed a passenger--an old, decrepit man,

cowled and gowned like a monk. With tottering steps he passed the gate,

and on to the portico of the classic palace. Of Lysander, he asked: "Is

the Princess Irene here or in the city?"

"She is here."

"I am a Greek, tired and hungry. Will she see me?"

The ancient doorkeeper disappeared, but soon returned.

"She will see you. This way."

The stranger was ushered into the reception room. Standing before the

Princess, he threw back his cowl. She gazed at him a moment, then went

to him and, taking his hands, cried, her eyes streaming with tears:

"Father Hilarion! Now praised be God for sending you to me in this hour

of uncertainty and affliction!"

Needless saying the poor man's trials ended there, and that he never

again went cold, or hungry, or in want of a place to lay his head.

But this morning, after breaking fast, he was taken into council, and

the proposal of marriage being submitted to him, he asked first:

"What are thy inclinations, daughter?"

And she made unreserved confession.

The aged priest spread his hands paternally over her head, and, looking

upward, said solemnly: "I think I see the Great Designer's purpose. He

gave thee, O daughter, thy beauties of person and spirit, and raised

thee up out of unspeakable sorrows, that the religion of Christ should

not perish utterly in the East. Go forward in the way He has opened

unto thee. Only insist that Mahommed present himself at thy altar, and

there swear honorable dealing with thee as his wife, and to keep the

treaty proposed by him in spirit and letter. Doth he those things

without reservation, then fear not. The old Greek Church is not all we

would have it, but how much better it is than irreligion; and who can

now say what will happen once our people are returned to the city?"

* * * * *

In the afternoon, a boat with one rower touched at the same marble

quay, and disembarked an Arab. His face was a dusty brown, and he wore

an _abba_ such as children of the Desert affect. His dark eyes were

wonderfully bright, and his bearing was high, as might be expected in

the Sheik of a tribe whose camels were thousands to the man, and who

dwelt in dowars with streets after the style of cities. On his right

forearm he carried a crescent-shaped harp of five strings, inlaid with

colored woods and mother of pearl.

"Does not the Princess Irene dwell here?" he asked.

Lysander, viewing him suspiciously, answered: "The Princess Irene

dwells here."

"Wilt thou tell her one Aboo-Obeidah is at the door with a blessing and

a story for her?"

The doorkeeper again disappeared, and, returning, answered, with

evident misgivings, "The Princess Irene prays you to come in."

Aboo-Obeidah tarried at the Therapian palace till night fell; and his

story was an old one then, but he contrived to make it new; even as at

this day, though four hundred and fifty years older than when he told

it to the Princess, women of white souls, like hers, still listen to it

with downcast eyes and flushing cheeks--the only story which Time has

kept and will forever keep fresh and persuasive as in the beginning'.

They were married in her chapel at Therapia, Father Hilarion

officiating. Thence, when the city was cleansed of its stains of war,

she went thither with Mahommed, and he proclaimed her his Sultana at a

feast lasting through many days.

And in due time he built for her the palace behind Point Demetrius, yet

known as the Seraglio. In other words, Mahommed the Sultan abided

faithfully by the vows Aboo-Obeidah made for him. [Footnote: The throne

of Mahommed was guarded by the numbers and fidelity of his Moslem

subjects; but his national policy aspired to collect the remnant of the

Greeks; and they returned in crowds as soon as they were assured of

their lives, their liberties, and the free exercise of their

religion.... The churches of Constantinople were shared between the two

religions. GIBBON. ]

And so, with ampler means, and encouraged by Mahommed, the Princess

Irene spent her life doing good, and earned the title by which she

became known amongst her countrymen--The Most Gracious Queen of the

Greeks.

Sergius never took orders formally. With the Sultana Irene and Father

Hilarion, he preferred the enjoyment and practice of the simple creed

preached by him in Sancta Sophia, though as between the Latins and the

orthodox Greeks he leaned to the former. The active agent dispensing

the charities of his imperial benefactress, he endeared himself to the

people of both religions. Ere long, he married Lael, and they lived

happily to old age.

* * * * *

Nilo was found alive, and recovering, joined Count Corti.

* * * * *

Count Corti retained the fraternal affection of Mahommed to the last.

The Conqueror strove to keep him. He first offered to send him

ambassador to John Sobieski; that being declined, he proposed promoting

him chief Aga of Janissaries, but the Count declared it his duty to

hasten to Italy, and devote himself to his mother. The Sultan finally

assenting, he took leave of the Princess Irene the day before her

marriage.

An officer of the court representing Mahommed conducted the Count to

the galley built in Venice. Upon mounting the deck he was met by the

Tripolitans, her crew, and Sheik Hadifah, with his fighting Berbers. He

was then informed that the vessel and all it contained belonged to him.

The passage was safely made. From Brindisi he rode to Castle Corti. To

his amazement, it was completely restored. Not so much as a trace of

the fire and pillage it had suffered was to be seen.

His reception by the Countess can be imagined. The proofs he brought

were sufficient with her, and she welcomed him with a joy heightened by

recollections of the years he had been lost to her, and the manifest

goodness of the Blessed Madonna in at last restoring him--the joy one

can suppose a Christian mother would show for a son returned to her, as

it were, from the grave.

The first transports of the meeting over, he reverted to the night he

saw her enter the chapel: "The Castle was then in ruins; how is it I

now find it rebuilt?"

"Did you not order the rebuilding?"

"I knew nothing of it."

Then the Countess told him a man had presented himself some months

prior, with a letter purporting to be from him, containing directions

to repair the Castle, and spare no expense in the work.

"Fortunately," she said, "the man is yet in Brindisi."

The Count lost no time in sending for the stranger, who presented him a

package sealed and enveloped in oriental style, only on the upper side

there was a _tughra_, or imperial seal, which he at once recognized as

Mahommed's. With eager fingers he took off the silken wraps, and found

a note in translation as follows:

"Mahommed the Sultan to Ugo, Count Corti, formerly Mirza the Emir.

"The wager we made, O my friend, who should have been the son of my

mother, is not yet decided, and as it is not given a mortal to know the

will of the Most Compassionate until he is pleased to expose it, I

cannot say what the end will be. Yet I love you, and have faith in you;

and wishing you to be so assured whether I win or lose, I send Mustapha

to your country in advance with proofs of your heirship, and to notify

the noble lady, your mother, that you are alive, and about returning to

her. Also, forasmuch as a Turk destroyed it, he is ordered to rebuild

your father's castle, and add to the estate all the adjacent lands he

can buy; for verily no Countship can be too rich for the Mirza who was

my brother. And these things he will do in your name, not mine. And

when it is done, if to your satisfaction, O Count, give him a statement

that he may come to me with evidence of his mission discharged.

"I commend you to the favor of the Compassionate. MAHOMMED."

When the missive was read, Mustapha knelt to the Count, and saluted

him. Then he conducted him into the chapel of the castle, and going to

the altar, showed him an iron door, and said:

"My master, the Lord Mahommed, instructed me to deposit here certain

treasure with which he graciously intrusted me. Receive the key, I

pray, and search the vault, and view the contents, and, if it please

you, give me a certificate which will enable me to go back to my

country, and live there a faithful servant of my master, the Lord

Mahommed--may he be exalted as the Faithful are!"

Now when the Count came to inspect the contents of the vault he was

displeased; and seeing it, Mustapha proceeded:

"My master, the Lord Mahommed, anticipated that you might protest

against receiving the treasure; if so, I was to tell you it was to make

good in some measure the sums the noble lady your mother has paid in

searching for you, and in masses said for the repose of your father's

soul."

Corti could not do else than accept.

Finally, to complete the narrative, he never married. The reasonable

inference is, he never met a woman with graces sufficient to drive the

Princess Irene from his memory.

After the death of the Countess, his mother, he went up to Rome, and

crowned a long service as chief of the Papal Guard by dying of a wound

received in a moment of victory. Hadifah, the Berbers, and Nilo chose

to stay with him throughout. The Tripolitans were returned to their

country; after which the galley was presented to the Holy Father.

Once every year there came to the Count a special messenger from

Constantinople with souvenirs; sometimes a sword royally enriched,

sometimes a suit of rare armor, sometimes horses of El Hajez--these

were from Mahommed. Sometimes the gifts were precious relics, or

illuminated Scriptures, or rosaries, or crosses, or triptychs

wonderfully executed--so Irene the Sultana chose to remind him of her

gratitude.

Syama wandered around Constantinople a few days after the fall of the

city, looking for his master, whom he refused to believe dead. Lael

offered him asylum for life. Suddenly he disappeared, and was never

seen or heard of more. It may be presumed, we think, that the Prince of

India succeeded in convincing him of his identity, and took him to

other parts of the world--possibly back to Cipango.

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Prince of India, Volume II, by Lew. Wallace