But while these refugees from the little hamlet on the mountains were
so favored of good Providence, what of the others? Our story must
return to the day of the battle in the Pass of Slatiza. Mother Helena
fell beneath the sword of a Turk while defending herself from his
insults. The boy, Michael, with arms bound above the elbows and drawn
back so that, while retaining the use of his hands, he could not free
himself, was driven along with others under guard of several soldiers.
As they descended the mountains the band of captives was steadily
increased by contributions from the cottages and hiding places along
the way. They were mostly boys and girls, the old men and women having
been slain or left to perish in the utter desolation which marked the
track of the army. Some of the captives were children too young to
endure the tramp, and were carried upon the horses of the mounted
soldiers. No one was treated unkindly. After the first day their bands
were untied so that they moved without weariness. They shared the best
of the soldiers' rations--sometimes feasting while their captors
fasted--and were snugly wrapped in the blankets by the camp-fires at
night. The daily march, after the Christian army had abandoned the
pursuit, was of but a few miles, with long intervals for rest. Indeed,
Michael thought that the troopers were more anxious about his being
kept in good condition, even in fresh and comely appearance, than
Mother Helena would have been. As they approached Philippopolis they
were all made to wash at a stream. Their matted locks were combed:--a
hard job with the mass of rebellious red bristles which stood about
Michael's head, like a nimbus on the wooden image of some Romish
saint. In some instances the captors went into the city and returned
with pretty skirts of bright colored wool or silk, and caps made of
shells and beads for the girls. Fantastic enough were the costumes and
toilets which the rough old troopers forced upon the little maidens;
but if they were pleasing to the captors they would prove, perhaps, as
pleasing to the rough slave buyers in the market square of
Philippopolis, who purchased the girls for disposal again at the
harems of the capital. An officer of excise presided over these sales,
and, before the property was delivered to the purchaser, retained
one-fifth the price as the share of the Sultan. If any of the girls
were, in the judgment of the officer, of peculiar beauty or promise,
they were reserved for the royal harem; the value of them being paid
to their captors out of the tax levied upon the others. This gave
occasion for the extravagant and often ludicrous costumes in which the
diverse tastes of the soldiers arrayed their captives for the contest
of beauty.
The boys, however, were not sold. They were the special property of
the Sultan, to be trained as Janizaries for military service, or
employed in menial positions about the royal seraglio. The captors
received rewards according to the number and goodly condition of the
lads they brought in.
The band of boys to which Michael was attached was marched at once to
Adrianople. Several hundreds were gathered in a great square court,
which was surrounded by barracks on three sides, and on the fourth
faced the river Marissa. A great soup kettle, the emblem of the
Janizary corps, was mounted upon a pole in the centre of the square,
and seemed to challenge the honors of the gilt star and crescent, the
emblem of royalty, that gleamed from the tall staff in an adjacent
court of the seraglio. There were scattered about utensils for
domestic use; the tools of carpenters, blacksmiths, armorers,
harness-makers and horse-shoers; old swords, battered helmets, broken
wagons, bow-guns, the figure heads of veteran battering rams; indeed
all the used and disused evidences that within these walls lived a
self-sustaining community, able to provide for themselves in war or in
peace.
For several days the new boys were fed with delicious milk and meats,
prepared by skilful hands of old soldiers, who knew the art of nursing
the sick almost as well as they knew that of making wounds. For a few
nights the lads slept upon soft divans, until every trace of weariness
from the journey had disappeared. They were then stripped naked and
examined carefully by the surgeons. If one were deformed, or
ill-proportioned, or failed to give promise of a strong constitution,
he was taken away to be trained as a woinak or drudge of the camps.
Perhaps three-fourths of the entire number in Michael's company were
thus branded for life with an adverse destiny.
The more favored lads were graded into ojaks, or messes; and among
them were daily contests in running and wrestling, according to the
results of which the ojaks were constantly changing their members; the
strongest and most agile living together in honorary distinction from
their fellows.
The officers in charge of these Janizary schools were old or crippled
men, whom years or wounds had rendered unfit for service in the field,
and who were assigned to the easier task in compensation for past
fidelity. The spirit of the veterans was thus infused into the young
recruits by constant contact and familiarity with them; and the rigid
habits of the after service were acquired almost insensibly through
the daily drill and discipline.
Michael's rugged health and mountain training enabled him to advance
rapidly through the various grades. Though almost the youngest in his
company, he was the first in the race, and no one could take him from
his feet in the wrestling match.
"A sturdy little Giaour," said old Selim, a fat and gouty Janizary,
the creases of whose double chin were good companions to the
sabre-scar across his cheek.
"Ay, tough and handy!" responded Mustapha, an old captain of the
corps, ogling Michael with his widowed eye, and stroking his beard
with his equally bereaved hand, as he watched the boy wriggling from
beneath to the top of a companion nearly double his size. "If the
little fellow is as agile in wit as he is in limb he will not long be
among the Agiamoglans.[23] A splendid build! broad in the shoulders;
deep-chested, but not flat; narrow loins; compact hips--just the make
of a lion. As lithe a lad as you were once, my now elephantine Selim,
when Bajazet stole you from your Hungarian home. Ah! you have changed
somewhat since the old Padishah had you for his page. I remember when
your waist was as trim as a squirrel's--but now--from the look of your
paunch I would think you were the soldier who drank up the poor
woman's supper of goat's milk, and had his belly ripped open by the
Padishah to discover his guilt.[24] Only goat's milk swells like that.
Let us see if some of the butter sticks not yet to your ribs," said
the old soldier, making a pass at his comrade's middle.
"That's not a true soldier's pass, to strike so low," said Selim,
laughing. "But you, Mustapha, were once a better runner than yon lad
will ever be."
"I was as good with my legs as with my arms," replied the veteran,
pleased with the compliment, and fondling his bare calves with his
hand. "But at what match did you see me run?"
"I only saw you run once," said Selim, "and that was at Angora, when
Timour the Lame[25] was after you to get your ugly head for the
pyramid of skulls he left there as a monument. But see the lad! He
tosses the big one as a panther topples an ox. We have not had his
match in the school since Scanderbeg was a boy."
"Poor Scanderbeg!" said Mustapha.
"How now!" inquired Selim, "is there any news from him?"
"Yes. He has met his first defeat. He was in command at the last
battle under the Balkans. Carambey got fast in a bog, in the first
battle, and Scanderbeg was unable to redeem the defeat in the second.
But he lived not to know it. He sent a host of gibbering Giaour ghosts
to hell while on his way to heaven. 'In the crossing of the cimeters
there is the gate of paradise,' says the Koran; and, though his body
could not be found, he went through the gate, beyond a doubt."
"That is a loss, comrade, the Padishah can never make good with any
man in the service. But have you not noted, Mustapha, that Scanderbeg
never fought so well against Christians as against the Caramanians,
the Kermians and rebellious Turks. In Anatolia I have seen his lips
burst with blood,[26] through sheer rage of fight; but in Servia he
seemed listless and without heart for the fray. The Grand Vizier has
noted it, and twitted him with remembering too well that he was
Christian born."
"And how did he take that?"
"Why, the color came to his face; his lips swelled; his whole body
shook;--just as I have seen him when compelled to restrain himself
from heading a charge, because the best moment for it had not
arrived."
"Did the Vizier take note of his manner?"
"Yes, and spoke of it to the Padishah. Amurath looked troubled, and I
overheard him say, 'I must not believe it, for I need him. No other
general can match Hunyades.' And the Padishah said well; and he had
done well if he had taken the Vizier's head from his shoulders for
such an insinuation. For Scanderbeg only half loyal were better than
all the rest of the generals licking the Padishah's feet. But,
Mustapha, we must train the little devil yonder to forget that he ever
heard the name of Jesu, Son of Mary, except from the Koran."
"Let us see if he has as much courage as he has cartilage," said
Mustapha. "The day is one fit for the water test. Let us have the
squad on the river's bank. If you will bring them, I will go and
arrange the test."
"It is too cold, and besides I do not like it," said Selim. "I have
known some of the best and hottest blood that ever boiled in a child's
veins to be chilled forever by it. It is too severe, except for
trout."
"But it is commanded. And to-day is as mild as we shall have for a
whole moon yet," was the reply, as Mustapha moved toward the water.
The river Marissa was covered with thin ice, not strong enough to bear
the weight of a person. A young woinak had attached a small red flag
to a block of wood, and whirled it out over the slippery surface some
three rods from the shore. The boys gathered naked and shivering at
the barrack doors, and, at a signal were to dash after the flag. All
hesitated at the strange and cruel command, until a whip, snapping
close to their bare backs, started them. Some slipped and fell upon
the rough and icy stones of the paving in the court. Others halted at
the river's edge. Only a few ventured upon the brittle ice; and they,
as it broke beneath them, scrambled back to the shore. One or two
fainted in the shock of the cold plunge, and were drawn in by the
woinaks. But three pressed on, breaking the ice before them with their
arms, or with the whole weight of their bodies, as they climbed upon
its brittle edge. Soon they were beyond their depth; one dared to go
no further, and, blue and bleeding, gave up the chase. The prize lay
between Michael and his companion. This boy was larger and older than
he; and finding that the ice would sustain his weight, stretched
himself on it, and crawled forward until he grasped the flag. But the
momentary pause, as he detached it from the wooden block and put it
between his teeth, was sufficient to allow the crackling bridge to
break beneath him; and he sunk out of sight. At the same instant
Michael disappeared. Though several yards from his companion, he
plunged beneath the ice, and reappeared carrying the flag in his teeth
and holding his comrade's head above the water until the woinaks could
reach and rescue them both.
"Bravo!" shouted the attendants. The boys were hurried into the
barracks, and given a hot drink made from a decoction of strong mints;
while the woinaks smeared their bodies with the same, and rubbed them
until the shock of their exposure was counteracted by the generous
return of the natural heat.
"I thought," said old Mustapha, "that we would have drowned some
to-day. It is a cruel custom; but it is worth months of other
practices to find out a lad's clear grit and power of endurance. The
two boys who got the flag will some day become as valiant as
ourselves, eh, Selim?" and the living eye of the veteran nodded to the
empty socket across his nose--the nearest approach to a wink he was
capable of.
"As the boys were floundering in the water," said Selim, "I thought of
a scene which I saw about at the same spot--now three score years have
gone since it--for it was just after I was brought into the Janizary's
school. Our Padishah's great grandfather, the first Amurath, had
erected a high seat or throne on the river's bank yonder. You know
that Saoudji, the Padishah's son, had joined the Greeks; but the young
traitor was captured. Well! old Amurath bade the executioner pass the
red hot iron before his son's eyes until the sight was dried up in
them. Then, while the blind prince was groping about and begging for
mercy, the Padishah, his father, commanded a circle of swordsmen to be
formed about him, swinging their cimeters, so that his head would fall
by the hand of him whom he chanced to approach. Thus it might be said,
that since he was a king's son, he had used the princely privilege of
selecting his own executioner. And having thus set them an example of
paternal duty, Amurath commanded the fathers of the Greek youths, whom
he had captured, to cut off the heads each of his own son. Those whose
fathers were not known or could not be found, were tied together in
groups and thrown into the stream; the Padishah betting heavily with
the Grand Vizier upon those who should float the longest. So, cruel
though our customs are, you see, Mustapha, we are not so barbaric as
our ancestors."
"Nor so abominably vicious as the Greeks," said Mustapha. "With them
the loving mothers put out the eyes of their children.[27] No, we are
quite gentle nurses of the lads committed to our charge, though
sometimes our tiger claws will prick through the velvet."
"Come, help me up! good Mustapha," said Selim, trying to rise from a
bench in the sunshine of the court where they were sitting. "The cold
stiffens my bones."
"Bah! comrade, you have no bones, only flesh and belly. How will you
balance your fat hulk on the bridge that is finer than a hair and
sharper than the edge of a sword that takes you over hell into
paradise? I fear me, Selim, that I shall have to content myself with
the company of the Prophet and the houris in heaven, for you will
never get there, unless I give you a lift across Al Sirat,"[28] said
Mustapha, giving his comrade a jerk which sent him far out into the
court, where with difficulty he kept his feet upon the slippery
stones.
The old fellow took the rough play good-naturedly, and replied,
"You will never see paradise, Mustapha. The houris will have nought to
do with so ugly a face as yours. It will turn them all squint-eyed to
look at you."
"Do you think I know not the art of love-making?" said Mustapha,
striking the attitude of a fashionable young man of the day.
Selim roared with laughter. "Mustapha making love? The thing is
impossible; since, if the houri be in the sunshine of your good eye,
you have no arm on that side to embrace her; and if you embrace her
with the arm you have got, you have no eye on that side to look upon
her beauty. Trust me, you old moulted peacock, that I shall get over
Al Sirat before Mustapha has found a houri----"
"Hist!" said Mustapha, pointing to the entrance of the square from the
seraglio court adjoining, and assuming an attitude of the gravest
dignity. In a moment more the two officers knelt, and resting their
foreheads on the ground, remained in that position until a lad of some
twelve years approached them and touched the head of each with his
foot, bidding them rise.
"I have come, good Selim, to see what new hounds you have for me,"
said the young Prince Mahomet.[29]
"Ah! my little Hoonkeawr![30] the Prophet, your namesake, has sent you
a fine one; as lithe as a greyhound and as strong as a mastiff; and,
if I mistake not, already trained for the game; for he came from the
Balkans, where foxes run wild when and where they will."
"That is capital. I shall like him," cried the prince, with delight.
"I must see him."
"Not to-day, your highness; for the boys are under the leech's charge.
They have been put to the water-test, and are all packed snugly in
their beds."
"The water-test, Selim, and you called me not?" said the boy, looking
furious in his rage. "You knew I wanted to see it; and you told me not
for spite. You will pay for this one day, you fat villain! And I want
the hunt now. I came for it; did I not, Yusef?" addressing a eunuch,
an old man with ashen face and decrepit body, but gorgeously arrayed,
who accompanied the prince as his constant attendant.
"We must wait, I suppose," said the man, with a supercilious tone and
toss of his head, as if to even speak in the presence of the soldiers
were a degradation to his dignity.
"To-morrow we will have the hunt in better style than we could arrange
it now were the boys able," said Selim, endeavoring to appease the
young tyrant.
The prince and his escort moved away without deigning a reply
"It is best not to insist," said the eunuch. "A wise maxim I will give
thee, my prince:--Beware of demanding the impossible--check back even
the desire of it. The rule of the Janizary school is that the boys
have rest after the water-test, and the Padishah would not allow even
his own son to break it. I would train thee to self-command; for the
time may come when thou shalt command the empire. Your brother,
Aladdin, is mortal."
"So you always interfere with me. You hate me, Yusef; I know you do. I
wish the boys had all been drowned in the river, and old Selim, and
you too," cried the royal lad, giving way to an outburst of childish
rage.
"Wait until thou canst get the bit between thy teeth before attempting
to run thine own gait," coolly replied the old eunuch.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] The Inexpert, or lower grade of Janizaries.
[24] An incident narrated in Turkish history.
[25] Timour-lenk or Timourlane; Timour the Lame.
[26] See old annals.
[27] Vide, the Greek Empress Irene and her son Constantine.
[28] The bridge over hell mentioned above.
[29] Afterward Sultan Mahomet II.
[30] Literally, Man of Blood, a title of the Sultan.