"Who comes here?" cried the sentinel at the bottom of the steep road
which led up to the gate at the rear of the town of Sfetigrade.
The man thus challenged made no reply except to speak sharply to a
large hound he was leading, and which was struggling to break away
from him. In his engrossment with the brute he did not seem to have
heard the challenge. As he came nearer the sentinel eyed him with a
puzzled, but half-comical look, as he soliloquized,--
"Ah, by the devil in the serpent's skin, I know him this time. He is
the Albanian Turk we were nigh to hamstringing. If I mistake that red
head again it will be when my own head has less brain in it than will
balance it on a pike-staff, where Colonel Kabilovitsch would put it if
I molested this fellow again. I'll give him the pass word, instead of
taking it from him; that will make up for past mistakes."
The sentinel saluted the new comer with a most profound courtesy, and,
shouldering his spear, marched hastily past him, ogling him with a
sidelong knowing look.
"Tako mi Marie!"[60]
"Tako mi Marie!" responded the man, adding to himself, "but this is
fortunate; the fellow must be crazy. I thought I should have had to
brain him at least."
As he passed by, the sentinel stood still, watching him, and muttered,
"How should I know but Castriot himself is in that dog's hide."
The dog turned and, attracted by the soldier's attitude, uttered a low
growl.
"Tako mi Marie! and all the other saints in heaven too, but I believe
it is the general in disguise," said the sentinel.
"Tako mi Marie!" said the stranger saluting the various guards, whom
he passed without further challenge, through the town gates and up to
the main street.
The great well, from which the beleaguered inhabitants of Sfetigrade
drew the only water now accessible, since the Turks had so closely
invested the town, was not far from the citadel. It was very deep,
having been cut through the great layers of rock upon which the upper
town stood. Above it was a great wheel, over the outer edge of which
ran an endless band of leather; the lower end dipping into the water
that gleamed faintly far below. Leathern sockets attached to this belt
answered for buckets, which, as the wheel was turned, lifted the water
to the top, whence it ran into a great stone trough. The well was
guarded by a curb of stones which had originally been laid compactly
together; but many of them had been removed, and used to hurl down
from the walls of the citadel upon the heads of the Turks when they
tried to scale them.
The dog, panting with the heat, mounted one of the remaining stones,
and stretched his long neck far down to sniff the cool water which
glistened a hundred feet below him. The man shouted angrily to the
beast, and so clumsily attempted to drag him away that both dog and
stone were precipitated together into the well.
"A grapple! a rope!" shouted the man to a crowd who had seen the
accident from a distance. "Will no one bring one?" he cried with
apparent anger at their slow movements--"Then I must get one myself."
The crowd rushed toward the well. The man disappeared in the opposite
direction.
It was several hours before the dead dog was taken from the polluted
water. The Dibrian soldiers refused to drink from it. The superstition
communicated itself like an epidemic, to the other inhabitants. For a
day or two bands sallied from Sfetigrade, and brought water from the
plain: but it was paid for in blood, for the Turkish armies, aware of
the incident almost as soon as it occurred, drew closer their lines,
and stationed heavy detachments of Janizaries at the springs and
streams for miles around. The horrors of a water-famine were upon the
garrison. In vain did the officers rebuke the insane delusion. The
common soldiers, not only would not touch the water, but regarded the
accident as a direct admonition from heaven that the town must be
surrendered. Appeals to heroism, patriotism, honor, were less potent
than a silly notion which had grown about the minds of an otherwise
noble people--as certain tropical vines grow so tough and in such
gradually lessening spirals about a stalwart tree that they choke the
ascending sap and kill it. They who would have drunk were prevented
by the others who covered the well with heavy pieces of timber, and
stood guard about it.
FOOTNOTE:
[60] Help me, Mary!