Weeks and months passed away, during which the physical exercises of
the lads in the Janizary school were varied with lessons in the
Turkish language; and, in the case of a select number, in the Arabic,
mastering it at least sufficiently to read the Koran, large sections
of which they were compelled to commit to memory.
The teachers in the Janizary schools were far from ordinary men. They
were highly learned, and, like most Orientals of education, gifted
with great eloquence. After the daily tasks had been accomplished the
boys were gathered in a semicircle upon the floor about the
instructor, who sat cross-legged among them, and narrated in glowing
language the history of the Prophet and his successors in the
khalifate; inflaming their young minds with the most heroic and
romantic legends of Arabia and Egypt, Algiers and Granada, where the
Koran had conquered the faith of the people whom the swords of the
true Moslems had subdued. Wild stories of the early days of the Turks,
before Ertoghral,[39] "The Right-hearted Man," led the tribes from the
banks of the Euphrates; and earlier still when Seljuk[40] led his
people from north of the Caspian; of the settlement of their remote
ancestors in Afghanistan, where the great chief was first called
Sultan;[41] of how they had once held the religious faith of
Zoroaster. Indeed, myths from the very dawn of known history, when the
Turkius did all sorts of valiant deeds in far-off China.[42]
The Christian books were made to appear to the young proselyte as but
imperfect suggestions of the completed teaching of the book of
Mahomet; while the peculiar dogmas of the Christians were restated
with such shrewd perversion that to the child's judgment they seemed
puerile or untrue.
"Behold the sky!" one would exclaim. "Is it not one dome, like the
canopy of one mighty throne? Behold the light! Does it not pour from
one sun and fill all space with one flood? Breathe the air! Is it not
the same over all lands and in all lungs? Do not all birds fly with
one mechanism of wings? and all men live by the same beating of the
heart? How then can there be three Gods, Allah, and Jesu and Mary, as
the Christians teach?[43] What does reason say? What does the universe
testify? What says the true and wise believer?"
"There is one God and Mahomet is His Prophet," would be the response
of the pupils, bowing their heads to the floor.
"Can the less contain or give out the greater? Can a stone bring forth
the orange tree? Can a stick give birth to the eagle? A worm be the
father of a man? How, then, can we say with the Christians, that Mary
of Bethlehem is the mother of God? What says the faithful and wise
believer?"
"There is one God, and Mahomet is His prophet," would be the choral
response.
"Is God weak? Can men thwart His plans? Shall we then believe that the
infidel Jews crucified the Son of God?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," would roll up from the
lips of the scholars.
"Shall we, then, kiss the toe of the pope because he calls himself the
grand vizier of Allah, when our Janizaries can cut the throats of his
soldiers, as our brethren of Arabia destroyed the crusaders? Or shall
we kiss the hand of the patriarch of the Greeks, who claims supremacy
in the name of Allah, when already our arms have shut up the whole
Greek empire within the walls of Constantinople? What says the
faithful and wise believer?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," is the reply.
"Who would cringe and beg forgiveness at the feet of a dirty priest,
when the sword of every Janizary may open for him who holds it the
gate of paradise?"
Not only such arguments, but every event of the day that could
emphasize or illustrate the superiority of the Moslem faith, was
skilfully brought to bear upon the susceptible minds of the youths.
And within the first year of Michael's cadetship one such significant
event occurred.
In the year of the Hegira 822,[44] six months after the flight of
Scanderbeg, it was solemnly agreed between Christian and Moslem that
the sword should have rest for ten years. A stately ceremony was made
to seal the compact. Vladislaus of Hungary represented in his person
the pledge of kingly honor. Hunyades gave the sanction of a soldier's
word. And Cardinal Julian was supposed to have added to the treaty the
confirmation of all that was sacred in the religion of which he was so
exalted a representative. On behalf of the Christians, the concord was
signalized by an oath upon the Gospels. On the other side, Sultan
Amurath, in the presence of his generals and the holiest of the Moslem
dervishes, swore upon the Koran. This compact, guarded by all that men
hold to be honorable on earth and sacred in heaven, lulled the
suspicions of the Turks. The rigid drill, the alert espionage, the
raids along the border gave way to the indolence of the barracks and
the pastimes of the camp. Thousands of horses and their riders were
returned to till the fields in the Timars, Ziamets and Beyliks[45]
scattered throughout distant provinces. The Sultan retired to meditate
religion, or devise the things belonging to permanent peace, in his
secluded palace at Magnesia in Asia Minor. The death of his eldest
son, Prince Aladdin, led him to put the crown of associate Padishah
upon the brow of the young Mahomet that in these quiet times the
prince might learn the minor lessons of the art of ruling.
But this sense of security among the Turks offered too strong a
temptation to the cupidity of the Christian leaders. King Vladislaus
opposed conscientious objections to any breach of the compact.
Hunyades maintained his personal honor by at first refusing to draw
his sword. But Cardinal Julian stood sponsor to a breach of faith,
and announced that principle which has, in the estimate of history,
made his scarlet robe the symbol of his scarlet sin--that no faith
need be kept with infidels; and, in the name of the Holy Father,
granted absolution to the chief actors for what they were about to do.
Without warning, the tide of Christian conquest poured from Servia
eastward until it was checked in that direction by the Black Sea. The
hordes of Europe then turned southward, seized upon Varna, and pitched
their camps amid the pennants of their ill-gotten victory near to its
walls. To human sight no power could avert irrevocable disaster to the
arms, if not the subversion of the entire empire of the Ottomans in
Europe.
In their extremity the lands of the Moslem made their solemn appeal to
Allah. Every mosque resounded with reiterated prayers. The camps
echoed the pious invocations with loud curses and the rattle of the
preparation of armor. Scurrying messengers flew from the centre to the
circumference of the Ottoman domain, and hastily gathered legions
concentrated for one supreme blow in retaliation for the grossness of
the insult, and in vindication of what they believed to be the cause
of honor and truth, which, in their minds, was one with that of Allah
and the Prophet.
The Sultan hurried from his retreat, and with marvellous celerity
marshalled the faithful against the invaders at Varna. Riding at the
head of the Janizaries, he caused the document of the violated treaty
to be held aloft on a lance-head in the gaze of the two armies, and
with a loud voice uttered this prayer--a strange one for a Moslem's
lips--
"O, Thou insulted Jesu, revenge the wrong done unto Thy good name, and
show Thy power upon Thy perjured people!"
Victory hovered long between the contending hosts, but at last rested
with the Moslems. To make the intervention of Allah more apparent, it
was told everywhere, how, when Amurath believed that he was defeated,
and had given the order for retreat, a soldier seized the bridle of
the Sultan's horse and turned him back again toward the enemy. The
very beast felt the inspiration of heaven, and led the assault upon
the breaking columns of the Christians, until the victors returned,
bearing upon spear-points the heads of Cardinal Julian and King
Vladislaus; while Hunyades fled in disgrace from the field.
It is not to be wondered at that such an event, which led many whole
communities to renounce their alliance with the Christian powers, and
many of the chiefs of Bosnia and Servia to accept the Moslem faith,
should have rooted that faith more deeply in the hearts of those who
already held it. A flame of fanaticism ran throughout the Mohammedan
world. The most rabid sects increased in the number and fury of their
devotees. Many who were engaged in useful occupations left them to
became Moslem monks, spending their lives in meditation, if perchance
they might receive more fully the blessings which heaven seemed ready
to pour upon every true believer; or to become preachers of the
jehad--the holy war against the infidels.
In the schools of the Janizaries the fanaticism was fed and fanned to
a flame of utmost intensity. The square court within their barracks
was transformed into a great prayer place of the dervishes. Here the
Howlers formed their circles, and swaying backward and forward with
flying hair and glaring eyes, grunted their talismanic words from the
Koran, until they fell in convulsions on the pavement. And the
Wheelers spun round and round in their mystic motions until, full of
the spirit they sought, they dropped in the dizzying dance. Learned
sheiks preached the gospel of the sword, and the imams watered the
seed thus sown with fervent prayers, until the ardent souls of the
youth seemed to have lost their human identity, and to be transformed
into sparks and flashes of some celestial fire which was to destroy
the lands of the Christians.
Michael's mind was not altogether unimpressed by the religious
fanaticism that raged around him. While in quiet moments he was
troubled with what he heard against the Christian faith which he had
been taught in his mountain home, at other times he was caught in the
tide of the general enthusiasm and felt himself borne along with it,
swirled around in the rings of the mad maelstrom; not unwilling to
yield himself to the excitement, and yet by no definite purpose
committing himself to it. If it requires all the strength of an adult
mind, with convictions long held and character well formed, to
maintain its faith and principles against the attrition of daily
temptation in a Christian land, we must not be surprised if the child
gave way to the incessant appeal of the Moslem belief, accompanied as
it was by extravagant promises of secular pleasure, and counteracted
by no word of Christian counsel.
But the spiritual impulse in Michael was less active than the martial
instinct; and this latter was stimulated to the utmost by the
associations of every day and hour. The battles which were fought on
the great fields were all refought in the vivid descriptions of the
Janizary teachers, and sometimes in the mimic rencounters of the
playground. Michael rebelled against his childish years which
prevented his joining some of the great expeditions that were fitted
out;--against the Greeks of the Peloponnesus, the Giaour lands to the
north, and the Albanians on the west, who, under Scanderbeg, had
become the chief menace against the Ottoman power.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] About 1280 A. D.
[40] About the end of the tenth century.
[41] Between 997 and 1030 A. D.
[42] Tribes of Turkius were mentioned by Pliny.
[43] This perversion of the Christian dogma of the Trinity was taught
by heretical sects in the time of the Prophet Mahomet, and is embodied
in the Koran.
[44] A. D., 1444.
[45] Fiefs or portions of conquered lands given to soldiers.