religious illusion, broke into a rhapsody which raised the enthusiasm
of his men to white heat: "I see," he cried, "the heaven opening
before my eyes. There sits in glory the Immaculate Mother of God: I
see her smile on you the assurance of her divine protection!" The
chief dismounted, and taking off his helmet, he prostrated himself
thrice on the bare rock, as if he stood before the altar of God.
Then rising, and raising his hands in an attitude of adoration, he
cried: "See the Blessed Mary of Victory as she beckons us to march
against the infidel! See Christ, the Son, the Creator of heaven and
earth, raising His holy hands to bless you, and to promise you His
Help. See! around the Saviour stand there St. Demetrius and St.
George, both in golden cuirass, St. Theodore, and the archangel
Michael with his flaming sword. Soldiers! Romans! Christians! can
ye not see the white wings of the mighty archangel beating the air as
he sweeps on in front of your lines? Can ye not see the flaming
sword that led the angels on to victory against the rebel crew of
Satan, as it points to you the path to victory and to glory?"
A deep and muffled roar ran along the Roman lines as the general
resumed his helmet and his charger; for in that age of imaginative
excitement and religious passion the troops were as easily brought to
believe they saw in the white clouds, tinted with the morning sun,
the figures of the celestial host, as truly as their commander in his
zealous trance had believed himself to have seen them. The strain on
the mind of Nicephorus, who alone knew the intense crisis of that
moment, was almost unbearable. He had just sent the order to spring
the mine by firing the props of timber. As he rode forward to watch
the issue an appalling crash rent the sky. The two main towers
heaved, toppled, and fell in masses into the fosse below, dragging
with them nearly the whole of the curtain of wall between them, with
battlements, engines, and defenders in one ghastly heap, and from the
fragments clouds of dust rose up, which covered both the city within
and the attacking forces without.
And now, before they could see each other, swarms of wild Saracens
rushed forth over the debris and from the gates of the city, suddenly
thrown wide open. Haggard dervishes in white vests flung themselves
madly on the Roman spears. Arab horsemen, on foaming chargers,
dashed into the advancing columns; turbaned emirs in gleaming coats
of mail frantically cheered on their men to slay the dogs who ate
swine's flesh and reviled the Prophet, promising the gold of the
infidel camp to those who survived and the houris of paradise to
those who fell. Abd-el-Aziz, the commander-in-chief, passed from one
corner of the field to the other, while the gigantic Emir
Ben-Senoussi, the captor of Digenes and the father of Fatima, charged
full at Nicephorus himself. The tremendous duel for an instant
arrested the attention of both sides. Spurring his powerful charger
to his utmost speed, and couching his lance, Ben-Senoussi rode at the
general, who was now equipped in his full panoply. As the Bedouin
bore down on him, Nicephorus caught the lance dexterously on his
shield, and caused it to swerve aside without piercing the weapon.
Then, as the huge Saracen came abreast of him, the general swung his
mighty falchion straight on to the turban of his adversary, and clove
him in twain down to the chine.
With a roar of joy, and triumphant shouts of "Rome!" "Mother of God!"
"St. George!" "St. Theodore!" the Roman army dashed on, slaying the
dervishes in heaps, and pouring over the fallen wall and through the
breach and the still open gates. The kouropas had been swept back by
the tide of victors and defeated in the _mêlée_, and still with
heroic determination he directed the combat within the walls. It had
now become a pitiless struggle from house to house, from one winding
alley to another. All day long the bloody work raged on. As each
house was stormed all within it were massacred, and it was then
burned or destroyed. Neither age nor sex was spared. Portable
valuables were seized; that which could not be carried was destroyed.
Lust, rapine, slaughter ruled unbridled. Violation did not save the
women who were victims of the license, nor did innocence and
helplessness avail to save the children of the accursed race. Hell
was enacted in all its atrocities in the name of Christ and for the
honor of the Immaculate Mother of God. Here and there was heard the
voice of a priest chanting a hymn from the psalm of David: "Thou
shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel." "The Lord shall swallow them up in His
wrath, and the fire shall devour them." "O daughter of Babylon, who
art to be destroyed!" "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth Thy
little ones against the stones."
Long did the infernal orgy of destruction, rape, torture, and murder
run riot through the length and breadth of the doomed city of the
Saracens. But in the afternoon, as the sun was setting, the
generalissimo of the Romans succeeded in quelling the outbreak. He
had been detained on the field in order to protect his own rear,
which was threatened by some roving bands which had made a circuitous
advance on to his camp. Now he rode into the thick of the street
fight, ordering the promiscuous slaughter and destruction to cease.
He directed tried officers of his own to collect and protect the
booty seized, with orders to execute all soldiers taken in the act of
rape, plunder, or massacre. Coming suddenly on a soldier in the very
act of mutilating a girl whom he had already raped, the general
ordered a sergeant to arrest him, have him flogged, and his nose cut
off. As he passed on, his officers reported that the soldier, with a
bag of gold that he had just plundered, had bribed the sergeant to
remit the punishment and let him escape free. Flagrant
insubordination such as this always roused the passion of Nicephorus.
He instantly ordered the same punishment to be inflicted on the
sergeant which that officer had failed to execute on the original
offender.
As he rode up to the gateway of one of the central habitations, the
general found a group of fierce irregulars from the Euxine steppes
attacking a man who was defending himself with nothing but a light
buckler and a Saracen scimitar. He stood at bay, with his back to
the wall in a corner of the court-yard, apparently protecting a girl
in Moorish dress, who lay fainting on the ground at his feet. The
gallant swordsman, who looked more like an Arab than a Roman, was now
bleeding from three wounds, and was nearly overpowered by the wild
fellows who had surrounded them. "Back, you ruffians!" he shouted in
Greek: "I tell you I am a Roman, and an officer on the staff of your
commander, and have been a prisoner here in the enemies' dungeon!"
But the Tartars, who knew no Greek and judged him by his look and
dress to be a Saracen, redoubled their strokes, and were on the point
of completing their work by slaughtering him and ravishing the girl.
What was the amazement of Nicephorus when, in spite of the blood on
the swordsman's face and his Saracen costume, he recognized his
beloved Digenes Akritas, whom he saved in the last moment, driving
back the Tartars with curses and threats.
"Arrest these miscreants!" he shouted to the provost-marshal, "who
dishonor the victory of Our Lord the King, and shame the favor of Our
Virgin Mistress in heaven. Take this girl, be she Moslem or
Christian, and treat her in all honor. My beloved brother-in-arms,
who art risen from the grave, they shall take you to my tent and
attend to your wounds. I must hasten forward to hold these demons in
hand. Carry my orders to my captains as peremptory on pain of death
to stay this massacre and prevent further plunder and riot, or Christ
above and His Immaculate Mother will visit us sorely, in that we have
turned the victory they have given us into abominations that the
infidels themselves could not surpass in sin."
XII
Digenes and Fatima: Roman or Saracen
The energy and stern determination of the lord general, whose iron
discipline was feared by the wildest Mongol horsemen in his motley
host, gradually restored order and regular government through the
vast encampment of the victorious Romans. The immense treasures
which Chandax contained, the plunder of a century and a half of rich
and beautiful cities on the Ægean coast and its islands, were placed
under adequate guards, and were carefully distributed into proper
departments for sale, reward, or display. A portion was reserved to
adorn the triumph of the general on his return to Constantinople.
Other portions were set apart for the prize of the various
commanders, squadrons, and soldiers who had actually taken part in
the late battles; but far the largest portion was sold by auction at
authorized marts for the benefit of the state, the officers, and the
forces engaged.
The general himself from time to time would ride round the lines of
cantonment to inspect the conduct of his officials and the behavior
of his men, and to satisfy himself that his orders were fulfilled to
the letter. His staff and orderlies followed him in a brilliant
cavalcade; and by his side was usually to be seen his beloved
Digenes, the warden of the marches, now almost restored from the many
wounds he had received from Saracen and from Roman, but still bearing
a scar across his chiselled cheek, and with his left arm suspended in
a silken scarf. Nicephorus glowed with pride as he passed from one
orderly camp to another, and noticed how completely the rage of
battle and the hurricane of license had given way to a scene of
peaceful business as regular as could be seen in the bazaars of the
capital itself. The military police patrolled every corner of the
encampment, and strong bodies of civilian merchants, salesmen,
experts, and traders, such as usually followed a great Roman army,
were busy appraising the booty, or putting it up for sale and
exchange. The immense stores of coin, nearly all of them golden
bezants from the Roman mints, which had been discovered in the vaults
of the Arab government, were now being registered and placed in safe
keeping for the use of the royal exchequer by skilled fiscal officers
of state. The gold and silver plate, the jewelled ornaments, and
many of the rarest embroideries, carpets, and tapestries--for the
most part plundered in piratical descents on seaboard cities of the
empire--these were reserved to be borne in procession when the
triumph in the Hippodrome was to be celebrated. And with these were
set apart for the same show specimens of arms and armor, jewelled
turbans with aigrettes and plumes set on steel helmets, chain
coats-of-mail, fringed pennons, kettle-drums and brass trumpets,
Bedouin chargers of rare beauty, snowy-white, with sweeping tails and
heads as delicate as those of a gazelle. Camels, and white asses of
rare Arabian breed, and Nubian slaves, gigantic in body and grotesque
in countenance, their ebon limbs circled with massive rings and
loosely clad in white tunics, formed many a fantastic and motley
group.
Abd-el-Aziz, the aged commander, or kouropas, as the Romans called
him, along with his son, the gallant Anemas, were set apart and
placed in tents beside headquarters, under the immediate supervision
of Nicephorus. They, too, were to be borne in the triumphal
procession and offered to the autocrat to await his good pleasure.
And with the venerable chief and his son were reserved for the same
occasion the most distinguished men and most beautiful youths and
maidens of his family and household, all of whom the general had
strictly ordered were to be treated with the utmost respect and
generosity, and provided with everything proper to their rank.
The ordinary survivors of the Saracen city, and the immense booty of
all kinds, which, in spite of the destruction, the fires, and ruin of
the three days of storm, had been collected by the officers charged
with the duty, were now being sold by auction. Garments, ornaments,
utensils, fabrics of every kind and of every factory, both of the
East and the West, were strewn about and held up for inspection in
picturesque confusion. A few of the wealthier officers gathered
round the platforms of the auctioneers to pick up any article which
took their fancy; some of the soldiers here and there thought they
could recognize an ornament plundered from a home they had once
known; but for the most part the buyers were professional traders
who, like vultures after a bloody field, had swooped down on the spot
from far and near: Jews from Syria and Egypt, Armenian brokers from
the Golden Horn, renegade Moslems from Damascus and Acre, exiled
Latins from Amalphi and Palermo, Hellenes from Corinth, Italians from
Venice and Bari, and Slavs from Adrianople and Dyrrachium.
It was not at all a mere auction of stuff, ornaments, and household
goods. The really useful beasts, whether camels, horses, or asses,
had been already requisitioned for the army by the imperial
officials. The refuse of the cattle, which was not worth the
transport, was offered to the highest bidder, and now could command
but trifling prices. But the bulk of the ordinary sales were those
of living prisoners of war. By the laws of war, as accepted in that
age between Christians and Moslems, the entire population of a city
taken by storm was destined to slavery. Certainly, slavery had been
the recognized lot of the Christian population that was not put to
death on capture of a city by the Saracens. An immense proportion of
the males able to bear arms in Chandax had been slaughtered in battle
and in the murderous scenes of the three days' storm. It was too
true, also, that no small part of the aged and infirm, the children
and infants of both sexes, had shared the same fate. There still
remained thousands upon thousands of women and girls who were worth
buying, and a certain number of youths who could command a price.
The Arab historians, with exaggeration characteristic of the age,
calmly record that two hundred thousand males were slaughtered, and
as many women and youths sold as slaves. But it cannot be denied
that, law and religion to the contrary, day by day, and week after
week, the sales of women, girls, and youths were continued, and that
of these all who had beauty, strength, and aptitude of any kind for
work, charm, or art, were eagerly contended for by the professional
merchants in human flesh.
One of the strange incidents of the sales, and the source of constant
disturbance, arose from the claim of many of the prisoners, both
girls and youths, that they were Christians and Romans who had been
abducted in childhood and sold as slaves. Many of these had, more or
less, lost the use of their Greek tongue, and in dress, manners, and
ideas, were practically naturalized Saracens. The plea was
continually resisted by the merchants, and was, no doubt, very often
used in fraud; but the vehemence of the protests, and the eagerness
of the captives to prove their Christian faith and their Roman birth,
gave rise to perpetual disputes. One of them was in full cry as the
general and his staff, with Digenes by his side, rode round the
principal slave mart in the camp. Seeing the general approach, a
beautiful girl, already set on the stage to be inspected by the
buyers, with loud shrieks invoked the protection of the chief. She
herself, her younger sister, and a brother, all three included in the
next lots, had been carried off from the island of Melos when it was
raided by a Saracen fleet fourteen years ago, in the reign of
Constantine. The girl had so far lost her Greek speech that it was
difficult to follow her at all; and her brother and sister had lost
it altogether. Nicephorus turned to Digenes to question the maiden
in Arabic and to ascertain if she were really of Roman birth and
Christian faith--a task which the lord warden, with his own mixed
blood and training, was peculiarly fitted to fulfil.
"What is your name, my daughter, your home, and your age?" asked the
lord warden, in a tone of paternal encouragement.
"I am Zoe, as my mother called me as a child--but they call me here
Zainab. I was seven years old, I think, when these cruel men carried
me off in a big ship, but I can remember my home by the sea-coast."
"Was it in the country or in a city, my daughter, that you dwelt?"
"In a city called Melos, that looked out towards the rising sun," she
said.
"And what could you see from your home?"
"Oh, I well remember how we would climb a hill behind our town and
see the sun rise over the pinnacles of many islands that seemed to
cover the sea like stars in the sky at night."
"Was the island flat, or full of hills and rocks?"
"Oh, I remember how we used to climb the rocks where goats fed and
where vines grew, and there was a large fountain of hot water, in
which we used to bathe, and the marble steps in a circle, which they
said the old Greeks built for shows, and caves in the rocks where we
would play at hide-and-seek. Yes, on clear days in the setting sun
we could see the far-off mountains. We were a day and a night in
that dreadful ship, lying in the hold without air or water, before
those savage men, who killed father and mother, brought us here."
"Enough!" said the lord warden, and he turned to the general: "This
girl clearly remembers Melos as her home; it is the westernmost of
the Cyclades, whence all these islands can be seen, and the main-land
of Greece in the far west; it has volcanic rocks and hot springs, for
I have touched on the island myself. No Saracen girl could know all
this. She and her little sister and brother must be all Christian
captives, for all her Saracen look and speech."
And so, amid the cries of joy of the rescued captives, the grumbling
and disputes of the captors, merchants, and auctioneers, and the
noisy gossip of the curious crowd, the general's cavalcade passed on.
And at every mart similar questions as to living or inert property,
angry altercations between soldiers and civilians, were brought
before the summary tribunal of the staff.
As they rode slowly back from the hubbub of the camp, Nicephorus
called Digenes to his side, out of hearing of his followers. "I have
now matured the scheme," he said, "on which I intend to despatch you
on a mission, my dear warden, as the man most fit to bring it to
success. As I told you, his Imperial Majesty has given me full
powers to send an embassy to the caliph of Spain to arrange a modus
vivendi, as our civil lawyers call it, in our respective conquests as
to our prisoners of war. Saracens have conquered and hold effective
possession of the noble island of Sicily, as we have now conquered
and hold possession of Crete. In both islands large masses of the
peasants and working-people belong to the race and creed of the
former masters, and in both islands there are tens of thousands of
men and women in slavery who have been struck down from freedom and
comfort by the fortune of war. The caliph of Cordova also holds tens
of thousands of our brethren. I have had a scheme prepared by
learned and adroit protocolists from Constantinople to arrange terms
of reciprocal treatment on an equal footing. And we shall begin by
an exchange of important prisoners. I have chosen you, my dear
akritas, to head the embassy, for you are not yet strong enough to
undertake any warlike service."
"My honored lord," cried Digenes in surprise, "if I am not fit to
hold a sword, I am the last man in the army to be intrusted with
protocols and imperial rescripts in vermilion text. Put the charge
on one of the imperial eunuchs from the Purple Chamber."
"My dear warden, I have cared for all that. The treaty and its
clauses and provisos will be the task of the civilian diplomats who
will be in your train. Your name, your birth, your knowledge of the
Saracen tongue and manners make you indispensable for this service.
The flower of our Roman chivalry will be persona grata in the
brilliant court of Abd-er-Rahman, the caliph at Cordova, and will
make the task of the diplomats more easy."
"And has the lord general, 'the victorious,' at last begun to see
some good things as possible in the blood of Hagar?" asked Digenes,
with an arch smile.
"I have never denied, my son, the courage or the devotion of the true
children of the False Prophet, even when I saw this courage and
devotion to be inspired by the author of all evil himself. They and
we must fight it out to the bitter end. But in this secular warfare
there are truces, settlements, and agreements inevitable and serving
the good purposes of God and the Mother of God, such as help to the
saving of many a soul. Our royal master himself has sent embassies
and made treaties with the great caliph, and I am obeying his orders
and following his example."
"But what particular part am I to bear in the mission?" said Digenes.
"You are to show these proud emirs of the East that they have nothing
to teach us Romans in all the courtesies of chivalry, or the romance
of knightly life. And there is another duty for which my courtly son
is specially fitted. Our mission will include, besides the customary
presents and offerings of horses, jewels, and robes, a select band
from the noblest of the Saracen families, both men and women, who are
to be restored to their Saracen kinsfolk in token of our honor and
good faith. Who so fit for a charge so delicate as the hero of the
eastern marches? The chief of these will be Fatima, the orphan
daughter of the giant emir, who fell by my hand in single combat.
She is to return to her people with a sister and a child brother,
with other kinsfolk of her own, and her women attendants and slaves."
"Choose some other as her guardian, my lord general," said Digenes,
rather shortly.
"St. George! what is this?" said the general, with a grim smile.
"Are you not old friends? Little as I know of young hearts myself, I
know that she saved your life and you saved hers. It is thought you
were lovers, you have been so much together, ever since the storming
of the city. But, in any case, there is no man on my staff to whom I
can so confidently intrust these noble women on an honorable mission
as my gallant Digenes Akritas. I have summoned them to my
headquarters to hear my purpose. It is a thing fixed," said
Nicephorus, in a tone that no man in all that host had ever ventured
to dispute.
"Lovers!" muttered the lord warden; "could I love any but a true
Christian, or any but--" and his lips moved silently.
When they returned to headquarters, the noble ladies were at once
introduced and presented to the general--Fatima, her sister and her
cousins, the daughters of the Saracen emirs, with their slaves and
attendants.
"Ladies," said Nicephorus through an interpreter, "it is the will of
our sovereign lord, Romanus, to send an embassy to treat of terms
with the illustrious Caliph Abd-er-Rahman at Cordova in Spain. With
that embassy we send you, to be returned to your own people in honor,
as a pledge of our good faith, and in proof that the servants of the
Immaculate Virgin Mother make no war upon her sex, and respect the
women of those whom they have conquered and slain."
At these words Fatima stood forward and spoke. She was dressed in
robes of deep mourning, and lightly veiled. Her whole bearing was
one of profound dejection and self-abandonment, and her voice
thrilled the circle of fierce soldiers by its tones of poignant
misery:
"The will of God be done," she sighed; "be it as my lord, the
general, orders. We are his captives; we listen and submit."
"What would you wish other, my daughter?" said Nicephorus, in some
surprise that Fatima should show so little joy at her return to a
Saracen court. "Where could you be so well bestowed?--not here in
Crete, nor in the empire of his Majesty?"
"I am content--and thank my lord," she said--and sighed.
"The mission," said the general, "will be under the command of the
lord warden of the marches, for whose safety the Roman army owes you
thanks, my daughter; and that noble officer, who can speak your own
tongue and has kinsmen in your own race, has personal charge of the
safe conduct of yourself and your ladies."
At this announcement the whole bearing of Fatima seemed to change.
Her veil hardly concealed her blushes or the joy that lit up her eyes.