Hunyades, closely muffled in his bear-skin disguise, returned to the
camp.
"A desperate adventure that of Castriot," thought he. "It is well that
he permits no voice but his own to speak his plans, and no ear but
mine to hear them.
"Hist!
"No; it is but the ice crackling from the balsams. Yet who knows what
interlopers there may have been? and if the brave Scanderbeg may not
be hamstrung before he reaches his own camp? The ride will be long and
rattling after he enters the Turkish lines. Will it excite no
suspicion? Nor his absence? Heaven guard the brave heart, for the very
mole holes in the ground are the Sultan's ears, into which he drinks
the secrets of his soldiers. By the way, I must lift the dirty cap
from the fellow who called me Kabilovitsch at the herdsman's fire; for
the messenger who brought me word surely said that only Castriot and
the two children were there. Who may this other one be? I must
discover; and if he knows aught he should not, he shall know no more
this side of hell-gate, or my dagger's point has grown so honest that
it has forgotten the way to a knave's heart."
Approaching the little group, Hunyades went behind them, that, if
possible, he might overhear some words before any persons there knew
of his presence.
Milosch had been ill at ease through the continued absence of his
friend Kabilovitsch, the peculiar action of the strange man who had
taken his place beneath the blanket, and the apparition of the one who
wore the cap and cape which he thought he could not mistake. There had
always been a mystery about Kabilovitsch's early life, which their
long and close neighborly relations upon the mountain had not enabled
him to solve. The girl, he often thought, was of too light a build and
too fair featured to be the child of the mountaineer. The story
Kabilovitsch often told about the early death of the child's mother,
Milosch's wife never heard without impatience and a shrug of the
shoulders. Who was the child? Could there be any plot to carry her
away among persons who knew the secret of her birth? Milosch could
reach one definite conclusion about the matter, and that was that he
ought to guard the child just now. So, with senses made alert by
suspicion, he heard the soft footfall of Hunyades through the
crust-broken snow; and though with head averted, noted his stealthy
approach. The caution observed by the stranger made Milosch feel
certain of the intended treachery. Loosening the short sheath-knife,
which hung by the ring in its bone handle from his girdle, he grasped
it tightly, and with a sudden bound faced the intruder.
"Your business, man?" said he, eyeing him as a hunter eyes a wolf to
anticipate the spring of the brute, that the knife may enter his
throat before the fangs strike.
"A rude greeting to a neighbor, that," was the quiet reply.
"A fair enough greeting to one who wears a neighbor's fleece, and
prowls by night about his flock. Stop! not a step nearer! or, by the
soul of Kabilovitsch, whom, for aught I know, you have murdered, I
will send you to meet him!"
A motion of the stranger toward his weapon was anticipated by the
mountaineer, who gripped the intruder with the strength of a bear,
pinioning his arms by his sides, and falling with him to the ground.
In an instant more, however, the dagger point of his antagonist began
to penetrate Milosch's thigh. Clenching tighter to prevent a more
deadly thrust, he felt beneath his opponent's rough outer robe the
hard corselet woven with links of iron--not the coarse fabric such as
was worn by common soldiers, but the lighter steel-tempered underwear
of knights and nobles.
"You have murdered another better than yourself, damned villain, and
have stolen his shirt. But it shall not save you this time."
As he let out these words one by one and breath by breath, Milosch
worked the knife into such a hold that he could press it into the back
of his antagonist. Slowly but surely the stout point made its way
between the hard links until the man's flesh quivered with the pain.
Then Milosch hissed through his clenched teeth:--
"Who are you? If you speak not, you die. If you lie, let the devil
shrive your black soul! for I'll send you to him on the knife point.
Speak!"
"I am General Hunyades," replied the almost breathless man.
The words relieved him from the pressure of the knife, but not from
the crunching hug of his captor.
"Prove it!" hissed Milosch. "I have heard that Hunyades has a scar on
the left side of the neck. Uncover your neck!"
Milosch released Hunyades' left hand sufficiently to allow him to
reach upward. In an instant the leathern string which bound the
bear-skin cape about his neck was broken, the lacings of a velvet
jacket loosened, and the fingers of Milosch led over the roughened
surface of the scarred skin.
The herdsman rose to his knees, and kissed the hand of the general.
"Strike thy dagger into me! for I have raised my hand against the
Lord's anointed," cried he in shame and fear.
"Nay, friend," said the chief; "the fault was mine, and yours shall be
the reward of the only man who ever conquered Hunyades. Your name, my
good fellow?"
"Milosch!"
"Milosch, the goatherd of the Pass? I have heard tell of your
strength; how you could out-crunch a bear; I believe it. You have been
faithful to your absent friend, as you have been severe with me."
"But what of my friend Kabilovitsch? You surely wear his gear," said
Milosch.
"Yes, I borrowed these of a passing stranger--I know not that he be
Kabilovitsch--with which I might pass disguised among the guards. The
owner of this cape and hood is keeping warm in a tent hard by until I
return. But whom have you here?"
"The lad is mine. The lass is my neighbor's. He calls her Morsinia, in
honor of your fair mother," replied Milosch.
"Then I must see her face. She should be fair with such a name."
As he raised the coarse-knit hood which closely wrapped her, a flicker
of the dying fire-light illumined for an instant the features of the
child. The uncombed mass of golden hair made a natural pillow in which
lay a face unsurpassed in balance of proportion and delicacy of detail
by any sculptor's art. Her forehead was high and full, but apparently
diminished by the wealth of curling locks that nestled upon brow and
temples; her nose straight and thin, typically Greek; her lips firm,
but arched, as with some abiding and happy dream; her skin, purest
white, tinged with the glow of youthful health, as the snow on the
Balkans under the first roseate gleam of the morning sun.
"A peasant's child?" asked the general. But without waiting for reply,
continued, "No, by the cheek of Venus! It took more than one
generation of noble culture, high thoughts and purest blood, to mould
such a face as that. She was not born in your neighbor's cot on the
mountains? Will you swear that she was? No? Then I will swear that she
was not. And the boy? Ah!" said he, scanning Constantine's face. "I
know his stock. He is a sprig of the same rough thorn-tree that came
near to tearing me to pieces just now. But his face is gentler than
yours. Yet, it is a strong one; very bold; broad-thoughted;
deep-souled; a sprig that may bear even better fruit than the old
one."
"Heaven grant it may!" said Milosch, fervently.
"Yes, if you will let me transplant it from these barren mountains to
the gardens of Buda and the banks of the Drave, it will get better
shelter than you can give it. The boy shall be my protégé for
to-night's adventure, if his father will enter my personal service.
You see, you gave me so warm a welcome that I am loath to part company
with you, my good fellow."
"Heaven bless you, Sire!" replied Milosch; "but my heart will cling to
these cliffs until I know that my faithful wife and other boy are no
longer among them."
"I shall give orders that the camp be searched," promised Hunyades.
"If they live, and have not been carried away by the Turks, they must
have sought refuge somewhere in the host. Farewell! When you will,
Hunyades shall stand the friend of Milosch."
The apparent old herdsman returned through the heart of the camp to
headquarters.
"Methinks, comrade, that you bandied words with a greater than you
knew, when you teased the old goatherd awhile ago," said a sentinel,
thrusting his thumb into the side of the spearman at the entrance to
the general's hut. "Do you note his mien as he comes yonder? That
crumpled old bear skin cannot hide his straight back; nor those shoes,
as big as Spanish galleons, break the firmness of his tread. If the
gust of wind should lift his cape you would see at least a golden
cross on his shoulders. You cannot hide a true soldier."
The bear-skin passed between the fluttering canvas without challenge.
Hunyades made a playful salute to Kabilovitsch, who rose to meet him.
"I found your camp. I have looked into the face of your little
daughter."
"Mary save her!" said the old man with gratified look.
"I say I saw your daughter, your _daughter_, you know," said the
general again, quizzing Kabilovitsch with his eyes.
"Ay, my daughter! and the Virgin Mother never sent a fairer child,
save Jesu himself, to prince or peasant."
"Come, now," said the general, "tell me, did the Holy Virgin send this
child to prince _or_ peasant?"
"Why?" said Kabilovitsch, "these horny hands should tell thee, Sire,
that I was not royal born."
"But the girl may be, if you were not. Is she your child?"
"Yes, my child, if heaven ever sent one to man."
"But, tell me," probed the general, "how did heaven send you the
maiden? Did the mother bring her, or did the angels drop her at your
door? For, if that girl be your child, heaven did not know you even by
sight; since it put not a freckle of your dark skin upon her fair
face, nor one of your bristles into her hair. The stars are not
begotten of storm-clouds; nor do I think she is your daughter."
To this the old man replied, more to himself than to his interrogator,
"If she is not mine by gift of nature, she is mine by gift of Him who
is above nature."
"I will not steal your secret," said Hunyades. "Her name has excited
my interest in her and her heaven-given or heaven-lent father. She
needs better protection than you can give her in the camp. I will send
her to headquarters."
"I would gratefully put her under your protection for a few days,"
said Kabilovitsch. "My duty takes me away from her for a while;
dangerous duty, Sire, and if I should fall--"
"If Kabilovitsch falls, Hunyades will be as true father to the lass.
Have you any special desire regarding her or yourself, my brave man?
You have but to name it."
"But one, Sire," replied Kabilovitsch. "That I may see her safely
conditioned at once. For it may be that before the day dawns I shall
be summoned. I serve a cause as mysterious as the Providence which
watches over it."
"An Albanian mystery? They are generally as inscrutable as a thunder
cloud; but are revealed when its lightning strikes!" replied Hunyades,
dismissing the old man, accompanied by two guards, who were
commissioned to obey implicitly any orders the herdsman might give
regarding the party of refugees by his camp-fire.