The valley in which the little hamlet lay, as well as the ravine by
which it was approached, was exceedingly tortuous. The stream which
seemed to have made these in its ceaseless windings, sometimes almost
doubled upon itself, as if the spirit of the waters were the prey of
the spirit of the hills that closed in upon its path, and thus it
sought to elude its pursuer. Though it was fully twenty miles from the
demolished konak to where the narrow valley debouched into the open
plain, it was not more than a quarter of this distance in a straight
line between those points. The interjacent space was, however,
impassable to any except those familiar with its trackless rocks. From
a distance the mountain lying between seemed a sheer precipice. But
Constantine knew every crevice up which a man could climb; the
various ledges that were connected, if not by balconies broad enough
for the foot, at least by contiguous trunks of trees, balustrades of
tough mountain laurel, or ropes of wild vine. He could cross this wall
of rock in an hour or two, but the Turkish raiders would occupy the
bulk of the day in making the circuit of the road. Indeed they would
in all probability not leave the security of the great ravine, and
strike the highway, until night-fall; for the terror of Scanderbeg's
ubiquity was always before the Turks. It was this thought that had
prompted Constantine's sudden action when he started up from his
despairing reverie amid the embers of his home.
It was still early in the afternoon when, having passed with the
celerity of a goat among the crags, he looked down from the further
side of the great barrier upon the Turkish company. He stood upon a
ledge almost above their heads; and never did an eagle's eye take in a
brood upon which he was about to swoop, more sharply than did
Constantine's observe the details of the camp below him.
There were the horses tethered. Yonder was a group of officers playing
at dice. In a circle of guards beyond, a few women and children; and
among them--could he mistake that form?
The soldiers were preparing their mess. Some were picking the feathers
from fowls; others building fires. Then his surmise had been correct,
that they would not leave the valley until night.
Constantine donned the Turkish uniform he had brought with him, and
climbed down the mountain. Sentinels were posted here and there upon
bold points from which they might get a view of the great plain
beyond. Toward this they kept a constant watch, as one of them
remarked to his comrade upon a neighboring pinnacle of rock: "Lest
some of Scanderbeg's lightning might be lying about loose." Posing
like a sentinel whenever he was likely to be observed, Constantine
passed through their lines, the guards being too far apart to detect
one another's faces. Hailed by a sentinel, he gave back the playful
salute with a wave of his hand.
Emboldened by the success of his disguise, he descended to a ledge so
near the group of officers that he could easily hear their
conversation. They did not use the pure Turkish speech, but sometimes
interspersed it with Servian, for many of the officers, as well as the
men, in the Sultan's armies were from the provinces where the Turkish
tongue was hardly known. The common soldiers in this group Constantine
observed used the Servian altogether.
"Good!" said he to himself, "point number one in my plot."
"The highest throw wins the choice of the captives," cried one of the
officers. "What say you, Oski?"
"Agreed," replied the one addressed, "but she will never be your houri
in paradise, Lovitsch?"
"Why not?"
"Because the Koran forbids casting lots?"
"Well," replied his comrade. "I will take my beauty now, in this
world, rather than wait for the next. So here goes!"
"By Khalif Omar's big toe! You have won, Oski. Which will you take?"
"The little one with the bright black eyes," replied Oski; "unless you
can prevail upon Captain Ballaban to give me his. The man who owns
that girl will never have any houris in paradise. They would all die
for jealousy."
"Captain Ballaban is his name," murmured Constantine to himself.
"Good! Point number two in my plot."
"I would not have her for a gift," said Lovitsch, "for she has a
strange eye--the evil eye perhaps--at least there is something in it I
cannot fathom. She looks straight through a man. I touched her under
the chin, when those gentle blue orbs burst with fire. There was as
much of a change in her as there is in one of our new-fashioned cannon
when it is touched off; quiet one moment, and sending a bullet through
you the next. She's the daughter of the devil, sure."
"You are a bold soldier, Lovitsch, to be afraid of a girl," laughed
his comrade. "I would like the chance of owning that beauty. If I
could not manage her I could sell her. She would bring a bag of gold
at Adrianople. Captain Ballaban will probably give her as a present to
Prince Mahomet. He can afford to do so, for the prince has shown him
wonderful favors. Think of a young Janizary, who has not seen nineteen
summers, with a captain's rank, and commanding such greybeards as we!"
"No doubt the prince favors him," replied Lovitsch, "but that will not
account for his advance in the Janizary's corps. Nothing but real grit
and genius gets ahead among those fellows. The prince can give his
jewels and gold, but he could not secure a Janizary's promotion to a
soldier any more than he could bring him to disgrace without the
consent of the Aga. No, comrade, Ballaban was born a soldier, and has
won every thread in his captain's badge by some exploit or sage
counsel. But I wish he was back with us. I like not being left in
charge of such a motley troop as this. If Scanderbeg should close up
the mouth of this ravine with a few score of his spavined cavalry, we
would be like so many eggs in a bag, to be smashed together, without
Ballaban's wit to get us out."
"I think the captain has returned, for, if I mistake not, I saw his
red head a little while ago glowing like a sunset on the crag yonder,"
replied Oski, looking up toward the spot where Constantine was
sitting.
----"Good! said Constantine, holding his council of war with his own
thoughts. "The captain looks like me before sunset. Perhaps I can look
like him after sunset. One advantage of having a head tiled in red!
But I will not show it again. Point number three in my plot."----
"Quite likely the captain has returned, and is prowling about,
inspecting everything, from the horses'-tails to our very faces, that
he may read our thoughts. That is his way," said Lovitsch, glancing
around.
"Which way did he go?"
"You might as well ask which track the Prophet's horse took through
the air when he carried his rider on the night journey to heaven. A
messenger from the chief Aga met him just as we were finishing the
fight last night, and, with a word turning over the command to me, he
mounted his horse and was off. Perhaps he heads some other raid
to-night; or, for aught I know, may be conferring with Scanderbeg in
the disguise of a Frankish general; for that Ballaban's brain is as
prolific of schemes and tricks as this ant's nest is full of
eggs"--turning over a stone as he spoke.
The afternoon waned, and, as the night fell, preparations were made
for the march. When it was dark a light bugle note called in the
sentinels, and the company moved forward.