great wooden turret filled with troops ready to swing bridges,
planks, and ladders on to the rampart. The whizzing of the missiles,
the shouts of the Romans, answered by barbaric yells from the walls,
the roar of the flames as, one after another, the engines of the
defenders or of the assailants caught fire, made a truly infernal
din. "See! general," called out the warden of the marches, "the
turret is within twenty feet of the wall and on a level with the
rampart--fifteen!--ten feet! Down with the scaling-bridge!" he
roared. And crashing went the gangway from the front of the
pent-house. But as he spoke, the soft earth in the newly filled
fosse whereon the turret stood gave way. The gangway fell short, the
turret toppled and split. The besiegers hurled on it bolts, rocks,
boiling pitch, and fire-balls; and presently it collapsed with a
sudden crash, and fell in a heap, mangling and burying the men inside
it and beneath it, and at once it blazed up a huge mass of burning
timber. "No," said the field-marshal, "as I feared, no turret lofty
enough to overtop these walls can be brought up to work on such a
ground as this. If rams and turrets fail us, we must fall back or
resort to a mine."
The destruction of the great, movable turret, on the success of which
such hopes and fears had been placed, caused the ranks of assailants
and defenders to pause for a space, while both were watching the
effect of the blazing pile. A lull ensued in the storm of battle,
which was interrupted by a strange incident such as the superstition
of that age invested with supernatural effect. On the battlement of
the topmost tower there now appeared the gaunt, dishevelled figure of
the wild woman who had long been known to both armies as the "Witch
of Nejd." The Saracens devoutly believed, and the Christians with
terror admitted, that by intercourse with the infernal powers, and by
incantations that she inherited from Sabasan and pagan ancestors, she
could work spells on those whom she devoted to her Satanic spirits.
Her long, black hair hung round her loosely, in wild folds. Her bony
arms held aloft a brazier, into which she dropped aromatic drugs, and
her loose robes floated in the wind as she shrieked out her
maledictions on the Christian soldiers beneath:
"Blaspheming followers of the Nazarene!" she screamed, "see the
foretaste of the blazing ruin that awaits your souls, even as fire is
now consuming your ruined turret. Each flash from this pan is the
answer of my Lord, the mighty Sheitan of the world below, that ye and
yours--your women, your children, your cattle, and your goods--shall
be utterly consumed. And you, proud, bloody, lecherous emir of the
Nazarenes, you shall be slaughtered like an ox on your own bed by the
foul woman to whom you have sold yourself. In the name of the prince
of hell, I devote you all to death on this field, and to burning
torment in the world to come!"
"Shoot down the crazy crone!" cried the Lord Digenes. "Who need
listen to her raving? Why do the dogs cower at the screaming of a
mad gypsy?" But not a man stirred. The guards, the officers, even
the general himself felt a thrill of awe, which they could neither
explain nor suppress.
Silence ensued, till it was broken by the yells of the maniac, who
had now worked herself up into a delirious spasm, which in that age
passed for the inspiration of one possessed by demons. Leo the
deacon and Theodosius the deacon devoutly believed in her diabolic
mission. Both solemnly relate the tale.
Again she screamed aloud: "Accursed are ye, sons of the Crucified
Impostor! Your bolts cannot harm me, the chosen paramour of Sheitan
himself; nor can your lying priests, nor the wanton, the Mother of
your God, avail to save you. See me stand bare and unprotected in
the sight of your rotten shafts, bare even as when my lord from hell
visits me! you cannot touch a hair of my head nor the skin of my
body! Shame, death, torment is your portion here and hereafter!
_Seeph--echeimat--ischarop--rhasan--sennet--midene--chaët--iphesane!_"
With these words, which no man in the Roman host could comprehend,
but which Theodosius solemnly rehearses, words which sounded to them
as the knell of their soul's damnation, the maniac fell into a series
of convulsions; and thrice repeating her "_Seeph-echeimat_," she
leaped on to the upper battlement, and then tore off her garments,
which she flung down in derision into the blazing heap below, and
there stood shrieking, in face of the two armies, covered only with
her long, black tresses.
"Shoot the blaspheming witch!" cried a voice here and there; and many
an archer raised his bow, but with the fear of the powers of darkness
in his heart, drew back without daring to take aim.
"_Seeph--echeimat!_" was yelled out a third time. And at last an
archer (it is said from the Mongol mercenaries, who held Moslem or
Christian mysteries equally cheap) levelled his weapon steadily at
the witch as she stood with her bare body lighted up by the blazing
pile below. The shaft pierced her breast, and with a shriek that
rang through the Moslem fortress and the Christian camp, the hag fell
headlong from the tower into the burning mass of the fallen turret,
and was there consumed to ashes--almost before the blood had ceased
to flow from the corpse.
XI
The Storming of Chandax
The strange scene had so deeply stirred the vague awe of the Romans,
and so fully engaged their attention, that in the gloom which
followed the dying down of the great fire they suffered themselves to
be surprised by a sudden sally of the Saracens. A light band,
stealing out from a concealed postern, dashed upon the advanced works
and nearly captured Nicephorus, with his immediate staff. Basil
Digenes, who had taken personal command of the ruined turret, was
actually surrounded, and after desperate feats of valor in
hand-to-hand combats, was struck down, wounded, and dragged back a
prisoner into the Moslem fortress. There he was thrown into a
dungeon in the great tower which served as headquarters of one of the
chief emirs, to wait question by the chief of the staff himself. He
strove to destroy any vestige of clothing or accoutrement which could
betray his rank or name; for he well knew that if the Moslems
discovered that he was the son of the renegade emir of Edessa, he
would suffer a more horrid death than that which, in any case, was
his almost certain fate. Through the long hours of darkness he lay
on the stony floor, sore and stiff with his untended wounds, and he
faced the worst with a brave heart, calling upon Mary in heaven, but
thinking of Agatha on earth.
Beneath the narrow grating of the slit in the wall of his cell he
could hear the tramp of guards in the courtyard, and as he had
retained enough of his father's native speech to follow the Arab
tongue, he listened to rude jests about the fate which awaited him
when questioned by the emir, and loud disputes as to whether he was
an ordinary guardsman of the capital or an officer of rank. "He is
not tall enough to be one of those accursed Russ," said one fellow.
"I saw on his side the baldric of a spathaire, as they call their
emirs," said another. "I tell you, he had a ruby ring," cried a
third, "but some Syrian thief had stolen it before I seized him,"
said the last. "We shall know all about it, at any rate, when 'Black
Malek' and his singeing tools have begun to loose his tongue!" And
the coarse shout with which this sally was received rang harshly in
the young hero's ears.
It was still as dark as pitch when a faint streak of light seemed to
glimmer around the barred door; and the keen ear of the lord warden
detected the slow movement of the bolt, as if it were being
cautiously drawn back. Was he to be assassinated quietly in his
sleep? If so, well! Thanks be for this to the Virgin Mother and the
saints! He closed his eyes and feigned to sleep, with a muttered
prayer to be received in mercy by Christ in heaven. Presently he was
aware of two figures stealthily approaching him. "He sleeps
soundly," said a voice, in whispers. "Allah be praised!" whispered
another voice, which sounded to the listener strangely like that of a
woman. "Lift up the lantern, nurse; the wound I saw on him was a
deep gash in the left shoulder, made by a blow which had shorn away
his vest." By the light of a borne lantern the prisoner could dimly
perceive standing over him the figure of a black Nubian woman, who
had sponge, bandages, and liniment with her, and was stooping down to
dress the wound. Digenes forced himself to lie still and feign deep
sleep in order to hear more of this unexpected visit.
"Ah! Is the young Nazarene dead?" came with a sigh from the other
woman, who had stood behind the door but now came forward
sufficiently to let the prisoner perceive a young and beautiful girl,
in the most elegant dress of a Saracen lady of high rank. "Is he
dead, nurse?" she sighed again. "Not dead, no, nor like to die, my
sweet mistress, not until his Excellency, your father, gives the
word, as I suppose he will at daybreak."
"Tend him now, at least," said the lady. And the Nubian, with her
strong arms and practised skill, bathed, soothed, and bandaged the
wound, while the patient still maintained his semblance of slumber,
eager as he was to understand what miracle could have won for him, as
it seemed, the protection of the emir's daughter, who was evidently
now stooping to look at his face in the dim half-light.
"What is it can lead you, my darling lady, to bring help to this
cruel giaour, who is fighting against God and His Prophet--one, too,
whom your own father will assuredly put to a just death when he has
wrung from him all that he knows about the unbelieving host?"
"Hush, nurse, do what I tell you. I saw our men last night as they
brought in this prisoner from the fight. Behind our lattice I could
see his look, and was struck with amazement at what I saw. He is the
very image of my own beloved brother, Hassan, who was taken prisoner
in the great battle round Tarsus and died in the castle of the
Armenian chief who had captured him. But his last days were made
peaceful by the care of the noble lord, who had blood relationship
with our family. I have longed to do as much for some captive
giaour--and here is one whom I can save."
"Oh, my dearest foster-child, this is a strange delusion," said the
slave-woman.
"I tell you, nurse, he is the image of my dear dead brother. It is
marvellous, it is incredible, it is some special will of God. This
young Christian officer--I am sure he is an officer of high rank--has
the same dark eyes, the delicate features, the olive tint, the raven
hair of my lost brother. I tell you, nurse, as I saw him dragged
bleeding and haggard beneath my lattice, I thought I was looking on
my brother just before he breathed his last in the house of a kind
Christian chief. It is not true, nurse, that they are all wicked and
savage. There are Christian heroes as there are Moslem heroes, and I
am fain to think this noble youth is one of them himself. In any
case, he shall not die if I can save him for my brother's sake!"
"Thanks, gracious lady, for that word. We are not all savage, as
your brother found us, and as your heart tells you," murmured the
Akritas, in the sweetest intonation which he could give to such
Arabic speech as he still retained.
The maiden started up and rushed towards the door in her amazement
and confusion, when she heard such words in her own tongue from one
whom but a moment before she believed to be in his last sleep. "Nay,
fly not, gentle maiden, fear nothing; I am your helpless and grateful
prisoner, but I, too, have known how to soothe the dying hours of an
enemy--a gallant Saracen; and from my own father I have the blood and
the speech of an emir as my inheritance--ay, and, I trust, something
still of the honor of that noble chief in my soul. Fear me not,
lady, help me to die in peace, even as, in my father's castle, I
eased the dying hours of the young Hassan, the son of my own father's
sister."
"What is this? Speak! who are you, then, if no giaour, and how come
you to be in arms against our people and our faith?"
"Lady, the Hassan, whose eyes I closed, and whom I buried with the
honors due to a gallant chief, was my own kinsman in blood, for I am
the only child of the emir of Edessa, Mousour, who forsook Islam when
he wedded the daughter of Prince Dukas."
"What!" cried the girl, quite beside herself with wonder and
excitement, "you are then cousin-germain to my own loved brother!
You are the lord who protected him! This, then, is how it came to
pass that when I saw you I thought that my brother himself had
returned to earth and was before me. Praise be to Allah, for in
spite of your faith and mine we are of one blood, and your father and
my mother were brother and sister of one house; and Allah in his
mercy has brought us at last together, so that blood of yours shall
not lie at our door after all, if the word of Fatima can suffice to
prevent this crime!"
Crimson with blushes and panting with excitement as the terrible
nature of her promise struck her mind, the Saracen maiden fell on her
knees before the prisoner, and, taking his right hand in hers, she
raised it solemnly to her lips, as she uttered to her God a silent
vow. Then she gave the hand she still held a gentle but meaning
pressure, and rose up in haste.
"Come, nurse, haste! bring these things away. There is much to be
done. Everything has to be arranged within an hour. Prisoner, who
stood friend to Hassan in prison, remember that Hassan's sister will
be friend to you, or will die in the attempt!"
The fair Fatima in fact persuaded her father that, her Nubian nurse
having been summoned to save the prisoner's life that he might be
questioned, it had been ascertained that he had Saracen blood in his
veins, but had been brought up from youth among the giaours. If he
were carefully nursed back to life and his wounds dressed he might be
led to return to the faith of his Moslem ancestors, and would then
prove of great service to the defence by what he could reveal. The
emir, absorbed in the cares of his desperate situation, and having no
reason to suppose that he had in his power a prisoner of importance,
consented to the man remaining in his dungeon, under guard, and
permitted the Nubian nurse to visit him and care for his life, if she
had any means of so doing.
When it was supposed that the prisoner was sufficiently restored to
bear examination, he was carried, chained to two stout guards, into
the audience-chamber of the emir-in-chief, Abd-el-Aziz, whom the
Byzantine historians call the kouropas--a curious corruption of
curopalatas, which itself is a corruption of curator palatii, or lord
high chamberlain. The kouropas was seated on a curiously carved
throne, in a hall hung with arms, Persian carpets, and embroidery,
and was surrounded by a fierce band of officers and orderlies. He
had already ordered the execution of some prisoners taken in the late
sortie, and Digenes was about to be dragged into his presence, when
an officer rushed forward to announce that the envoys he had
despatched at the beginning of the siege to the Caliph Abd-er-Rahman
in Cordova were just returning with ambassadors from the great
Ommeyad, the powerful sovereign of the West. As the city of Chandax
was so closely invested, the Spanish Moors had only with great
difficulty and hair-breadth escapes found their way to the walls; and
at last they had been drawn up to the ramparts in baskets hung out
over the fosse by a crane. The kouropas ordered them at once to be
admitted with all possible ceremony, and rose to do honor to the
representatives of his powerful fellow-believer, and, as he hoped,
his ally.
After the customary salaams and exchange of compliments, the
ambassadors were seated and opened their business, to which Digenes
listened, as he was thrust aside behind a throng of guards and
officials. The two envoys of Abd-er-Rahman reported that their lord
and master had despatched them from Andalusia in two of his swiftest
cruisers to ascertain the condition of their brethren in Crete. They
had been shocked to find to how terrible a strait they were reduced.
The giaour was master of the whole island. Far and wide the Saracen
cities had been sacked and occupied. The land had been ravaged, and
the bones and goods of the true believers lay scattered over the
fields. Chandax itself was closely invested, and was on every side
being bombarded with powerful engines. They saw with horror and pity
as they passed through the streets crowds of country people who had
taken refuge within its walls, old men, women, and children, in sore
destitution, pinched with cold and hunger and cumbering the
market-place with dead and dying. And, even while they were trying
to force their way through the giaour lines outside, they had
witnessed a ghastly scene. A helpless crowd of infirm men, children
reduced to the state of skeletons, and women dragging moaning infants
beside them, were forced out of the city as "useless mouths," driven,
as sheep are hunted by wolves, to the enemies' lines, from which
again they were forced back by the bloody Nazarenes with curses,
blows, and weapons, so that they lay down, gasping, in the trenches
now reeking with rotting bodies of men and beasts. It was a hideous
sight. And however anxious was the caliph of the West to succor his
kinsmen and fellow-believers in the Prophet, it seemed hopeless to
enter on so desperate an enterprise in a crisis so appalling.
"Noble envoys of the great caliph in Andalusia," said Abd-el-Aziz,
"we are indeed sore bested, but our case is not yet hopeless. We are
reduced to a remnant of fighting men, but we are sworn to defend this
city or die; and to keep a remnant alive and fit for arms, we have to
sacrifice those who cannot fight. They, too, are martyrs to our
faith, and God in His mercy will not suffer them to perish forever.
There is still hope left; for we learned but a few days ago that the
imaum of west Africa has succeeded in landing a large force of
gallant Moors, who even now are advancing with haste and will attack
the unbelievers in the rear."
"If ye can maintain your defence yet two months longer," said the
Spanish envoys, "our master will endeavor to give you succor or offer
you a refuge. His fleets scour the western sea from the island of
Sicily, but he is not yet prepared to make war on the sovereign of
Roum."
But at this moment a fresh despatch reached the kouropas, to the
effect that by a sudden night march Nicephorus had fallen unawares on
the African army of relief, had surprised them in their tents and
bivouac, and had annihilated the entire command and taken all their
stores, arms, and munitions of war.
A spasm of rage, grief, and disappointment ran through the council
when this news was made known; and the hall was a scene of frenzied
excitement and almost of panic as they saw how the wisdom of the
politic Abd-er-Rahman was justified, how little could be hoped from
the side of the Spanish caliphate.
The kouropas rose with an air of heroic resolution and calmed the
storm. "Illustrious envoys of the mighty caliph of the West, emirs,
officers, and soldiers of the Prophet--we have sworn to defend this
city of the true believers to the last drop of our blood. If the
great ones of our faith in Spain, in Asia, or in Africa come not to
our help, we Moslems of Crete will fight the Nazarene while we can
hold our swords. We will never be slaves to the foul brood that eats
swine, that worships stones and painted boards, that prostrates
itself to a wanton. Sons of Islam, if we are to die, let us prepare
for the Galilean a bloody victory!"
In the mean time the Roman commander-in-chief, sore grieved at the
loss of his young lieutenant-general, the akritas, and made anxious
by the determined energy of the enemy and his own daily losses, was
indefatigable in his efforts to force the siege to a triumphant end.
He was now pressing on the device of a mine, since he found that his
movable turrets could not overtop the wall, nor his rams or his bores
suffice to shake it. For a month his engineers had been at work on a
deep mine beneath the curtain that lay between two principal towers,
where at last he had detected a soil soft enough to be pierced by
mining. The main circuit of the wall rested on impenetrable rock;
but now he had found a bit which, with incessant labor, it was
possible to traverse. A vast, subterranean chamber was now prepared,
supported only on beams, which, on the appointed day, could be
destroyed by fire.
It was now ready for the great assault; and during the night the
whole Roman forces had been marshalled in their respective posts.
The catapults and balistæ were plied with new vehemence. The air
rang with missiles of every kind--rocks, bolts, darts, and bombs of
Greek fire. Nicephorus traversed the ranks, calling on his men to
smite these blaspheming sons of the concubine--these Ishmaelites, who
eat unclean camel's flesh and pollute themselves with a multitude of
women, who revile Christ and His Mother, who murder the innocent, and
practise all the abominations of the great Impostor. Christ and His
Holy Mother would welcome in Heaven all who fell in this sacred war
against the infidel, and their king in Rome would honor and reward
them on earth.
His engineers now reported to the general that the great mine was
quite ready to be fired when the order should be given. Thereupon
Nicephorus ordered a solemn service to be performed. He had caused
an army of artificers to be sent from Constantinople, who had raised
a church in an incredibly short time (Michael of Attala, the
historian, solemnly tells us that it was miraculously built in three
days). It was placed in the rear of the camp, behind an eminence
which concealed it from the city. It was a miniature Santa Sophia,
with a spherical dome, marble columns, bronze doors, and mosaic
pictures similar to the old Byzantine churches still standing in
Greece. It was, of course, dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin, and
it was filled with emblems and figures of the warrior saints, but it
long bore the popular name given to it by the soldiers--the "Church
of the Lord General." There Nicephorus was wont to worship daily,
but on this eventful day he chose to attend the service with more
than ordinary state. In his most resplendent uniform, with his gilt
corselet, his plumed helmet, and burnished greaves, he called round
him his principal officers and the entire body of the priests and
chaplains of the army. From the church he issued forth in a
brilliant procession, both military and sacerdotal. On his white
charger he rode forth, followed by his staff, and surrounded by
priests, choristers, and acolytes, bearing the golden crucifixes,
incense, miraculous ikons, and the host in chased ciboria of gold and
jewels. General and priests visited each post and detachment in
turn. The priests pronounced absolution and gave the holy wafer, and
offered to the fervid kisses of the soldiers on their knees the
relics of martyrs in their encolpia, the jewelled lockets they
carried hung by chains round their necks.
Nicephorus again harangued them, galloping from post to post. "Their
royal master, Romanus, had offered rewards of valor to all who should
distinguish themselves. These holy servants of Christ here, with the
bones of martyrs and the body and blood of their Saviour in their
hands, promised the palm of martyrs and the glory of heaven to all
who should fall in the fight. Smite these black sons of the False
Prophet, these revilers of God's name, these miscreants who commit
their abominations to-day in the holy spot where Mary our mother
first laid on earth the Divine Child, begotten of the Father; nay,
they polluted the hallowed sepulchre wherein the apostles laid their
crucified Lord and Master. Smite and spare them not, sons of Rome
and followers of Christ, even as the children of Israel smote the
sons of Amalek and the brood of Goliath! Smite--for God in heaven
with His holy ones this very hour is looking down on each of you from
heaven above!"