The siege and capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, was,
with the exception of the discovery of America, the most significant
event of the fifteenth century. The Eastern Roman Empire then
perished, after eleven centuries of glory and shame; of heroic
conquests, and pusillanimous compromises with other powers for the
privilege of existence; exhibiting on its throne the virtues and
wisdom of Theodosius and Justinian, and the vices and follies of
emperors and empresses whose names it were well that the world should
forget.
But the historic importance of the siege was matched by the thrilling
interest which attaches to its scenes.
The last of the Constantines, from whose hands the queenly city was
wrested, was worthy the name borne by its great founder, not, perhaps,
for his display of genius in government and command, but for the pious
devotion and sacrificial courage with which he defended his trust. A
band of less than ten thousand Christians, mostly Greeks, and a few
Latins whose love for the essential truth of their religion was
stronger than their bigotry for sect, withstood for many weeks the
horrors which were poured upon them by a quarter of a million Moslems.
These foes were made presumptuous by nearly a century of unchecked
conquest; their hot blood boiled with fury and daring excited by the
promises of their religion, which opened paradise to those that
perished with the sword; and they were led by the first flashings of
the startling genius and audacity of Mahomet II.
The Bosphorus was blockaded six miles above the city by the new
fortress, Rumili-Hissar, the Castle of Europe; answering across the
narrow strait to Anadolu-Hissari--the Castles of Asia.
A fleet of three hundred Moslem vessels crowded the entrance to the
Bosphorus, to resist any Western ally of the Christians that might
have run the gauntlet of forts which guarded the lower entrance to
Marmora. At the same time this naval force threatened the long water
front of the city with overwhelming assault. The wall which lay
between the sea of Marmora and the Golden Horn, and made the city a
triangle, looked down upon armies gathered from the many lands between
the Euphrates and Danube;--the feudal chivalry from their ziamets
under magnificently accoutred beys; the terrible Akindji, the mounted
scourge of the borders of Christendom; the motley hordes of Azabs,
light irregular foot-soldiers,--these filling the plains for miles
away:--while about the tents of the Sultan were the Royal Horse
Guards, the Spahis, Salihdars, Ouloufedji and Ghoureba, rivals for the
applause of the nations, as the most daring of riders and most skilful
of swordsmen: and the Janizaries, who boasted that their tread was as
resistless as the waves of an earthquake.
Miners from Servia were ready to burrow beneath the walls. A great
cannon cast by Urban, the Dacian, who had deserted from the Christian
to the Moslem camp, gaped ready to hurl its stone balls of six hundred
pounds weight. It was flanked by two almost equally enormous
fire-vomiting dragons, as the new artillery was called: while fourteen
other batteries of lesser ordnance were waiting to pour their still
novel destruction upon the works. Ancient art blended with modern
science in the attack; for battering rams supplemented cannon, and
trenches breast-deep completed the lines of shields. Moving forts of
wood antagonized, across the deep moat, the old stone towers, which
during the centuries had hurled back their assailants in more than
twenty sieges. The various hosts of besiegers in their daily movements
were like the folds of an enormous serpent, writhing in ever
contracting circles about the body of some helpless prey. From dawn to
dark the walls crumbled beneath the pounding of the artillery; but
from dark to dawn they rose again under the toil of the sleepless
defenders.
Thousands, impelled by the commands of the Sultan, and more, perhaps,
by the prospect of reward in this world, and in another, out of which
bright-eyed houris were watching their prospective lords, mounted the
scaling ladders only to fill with their bodies the moat beneath. At
the point of greatest danger the besieged were inspired with the
courage of their Emperor, and by the aid of the bands of Italians whom
the purse and the appeals of John Giustiniani had brought as the last
offering of the common faith of Christendom upon the great altar
already dripping with a nation's blood.
Sometimes when the Christians, whose fewness compared with the
assailants compelled them to serve both day and night, were
discouraged by incessant danger and fatigue, a light form in helmet
and breastplate moved among them, regardless of arrows and bullets of
lead: now stooping to staunch the wounds of the fallen; now mounting
the parapet, where scores of stout soldiers shielded her with their
bodies, and hailed her presence with the shout of "The Albanian! The
Albanian!" The reverence which the soldiers gave to the devoted nuns,
who were incessant in their ministry of mercy, was surpassed by that
with which they regarded Morsinia. She had become in their eyes the
impersonation of the cause for which they were struggling.
The interruption by the war of the negotiations with the Emir of
Trebizond, whose daughter had been selected as the imperial spouse,
revived the rumors which had once associated the fair Albanian's name
with that of his Majesty; and gave rise to a nick-name, "the Little
Empress," which, among the soldiers, came to be spoken with almost as
much loyalty of personal devotion, as if it had received the imperial
sanction.
Constantine's solicitude led him to remonstrate with Morsinia for the
exposure of her person to the dangers of the wall: but she replied--
"Have you not said, my dear brother, that the defence is hopeless?
that the city must fall? What fate then awaits me? The Turks have
service for men whom they capture, which, though hard, is not damning
to body and soul. What if they send you to the mines, to the galleys?
What if they slay you? You can endure that. Yet I know that you
yourself would perish in the fight before you would submit to even
such a fate. But what is the destiny of a woman who shall fall into
their hands? It is better to die than to be taken captive. And is not
yonder breach where the men of the true God are giving their lives for
their faith, as sacred as was ever an altar on earth? Is not the crown
of martyrdom better than a living death in the harem of the infidel?
The arrow that finds me there on the wall shall be to me as an angel
from heaven; and a death-wound received there will be as painless to
my soul as the kiss of God."
"But this must not be!" cried Constantine. "Our valor, if it does not
save the city, may lead to surrender upon terms which shall save all
the lives of the people."
"It is impossible," replied she. "His Majesty informed me yesterday
that Mahomet had pledged to his soldiers the spoil of the city, with
unlimited license to pillage."
Constantine was silent, but at length added. "If worst comes, it will
then be time enough to expose your life."
"But the end is near, dear Constantine. The city is badly provisioned.
The poor are already starving. The garrison is on allowance which can
sustain it but a few days. Besides, as you have told me, the Italians
are at feud with the Greeks, and ready to open the gates if famine
presses upon them."
"Yes, curses on the head of that monk Gennadius, who sends insult to
our allies every day from his cell!" muttered Constantine. "But I
cannot see you in danger, Morsinia. Promise me--for your life is
dearer to me than my own--that you will not go upon the walls. I need
not the solemn oath to our brave Castriot, and that to our father
Kabilovitsch, that I will guard you. But, if not for my sake, then for
their sake, take my counsel. I know that you are under the special
care of the Blessed Jesu. Has He not shielded us both--me for your
sake--many times before?"
"Your words are wise, my brother. You need not urge the will of
Castriot and father Kabilovitsch, for your own wish is to me as sacred
as that of any one on earth," said she, looking him in the eyes with
the reverence of affection, and yielding to his embrace as he kissed
her forehead.
"But," added she, "I must exact of you one promise."
"Any thing, my darling, that is consistent with your safety," was the
quick reply.
"It is this. Promise me, by the Virgin Mother of God, that you will
not allow me to become a living captive to the Turk."
"Not if my life can shield you. This you know!"
"Yes, I would not ask that, but something harder than that you should
die for me."
A pallor spread over the face of Constantine, for he suspected her
meaning, yet asked, "And what--what may that be?"
"Take my life with your own hand, rather than that a Turk should touch
me," said Morsinia, without the slightest tremor in her voice.
Constantine stood aghast. Morsinia continued, taking his strong right
hand in hers, and raising it to her lips--
"That were joy, indeed, if the hand of him who loves me, the hand
which has saved me from danger so often--could redeem me from this
which I fear more than a thousand deaths! Promise me for love's sake!"
"I may not promise such a thing," said the young lover, with a voice
which showed that her request had cut him to the heart.
"Then you love me not," said the girl, turning away.
But the look upon Constantine's face showed the terrible tragedy which
was in his soul, and that such an accusation brought it too near its
culmination. Instantly she threw herself into his arms.
"Forgive me! forgive me!" cried she. "I will not impugn that love
which has proved itself too often. But let us speak calmly of it. Why
should you shrink from this?" she asked, leading him to a seat beside
her.
"Because I love you. My hand would become paralyzed sooner than touch
rudely a hair of your head."
"Nay, in that you do not know yourself," said Morsinia. "Would you not
pluck a mole from my face if I was marred by it in your eyes!"
"But that would be to perfect, not to harm you," said Constantine.
"And did you not hold the hand of the poor soldier to-day, while the
leech was cutting him, lest the gangrene should infect his whole body
with poison? And would you not have done so had he been your long lost
brother, Michael, whom you loved? And would you not have done it more
willingly because you loved him?"
"Yes," said Constantine, "but that would be to save life, not to
destroy it."
"But what, my brother dear, is the fairness of a face compared with
the fairness of honor? What the breath of the body, when both the body
and the soul in it are threatened with contamination of such an
existence as every woman receives from the Turk?"
"I cannot argue with you, Morsinia. My nature rebels against the deed
you propose."
"But," replied she, "is not love nobler, and should it not be
stronger, than nature? If nature should rebel against love, let love
crush the rebellion, and show its sovereignty. If my hand should
tremble to do aught that your true service required, I would accuse my
hand of lack of devotion. But I think that men do not know the fulness
of love as women do."
"Let me ask the question of you, Morsinia," replied the young lover
after a pause. "Could you take my life as I lie here? Will your hand
mix the poison to put to my lips in the event of the Turk entering the
city? My life will be worse than death in its bitterness if you are
lost to me."
Morsinia pondered the question, growing pale with the fearfulness of
the thought. For a while she was speechless. The imagination started
by Constantine's question seemed to stun her. She stared at the vague
distance. At length she burst into tears, and laying her head upon her
companion's shoulder, said:
"I love you too dearly, Constantine, to ask that of you which you
shrink from doing. There is another who can render me the service."
"Who would dare?" said Constantine, rising and gazing wildly at her.
"Who would dare to touch you, even at your own bidding?"
"I would," said Morsinia quietly. "And this I shall save for the
moment when I need the last friend on earth," she added, drawing from
her dress the bright blade of an Italian stiletto. "Perhaps, my heart
would tremble, and my flesh shrink from the sharp point, though I love
not myself as I love you."
"Let us talk no more of this," said Constantine, "but leave it for the
hour of necessity, which happily I think will not soon come. I must
tell you now for what I sought you. I have been ordered this very
night to aid in a venture which, heaven grant! shall re-provision the
city. Several large galleys, laden with corn and oil, are now coming
up the sea from Genoa. If they see the cordon of the enemy's ships
drawn across the harbor, not knowing the extremity to which the city
is reduced, they may return without venturing an encounter. I am to
reach them, and, if possible, induce them to cut their way through.
The great chain at the entrance to the Golden Horn will be lowered at
the opportune moment, and all the shipping in the harbor will make an
attack upon the enemy's fleet. Of this our allies must be informed. As
soon as it is dark I shall drift in a swift little skiff between these
Turkish boats; and before the dawn I shall be far down on Marmora.
To-morrow night, if your prayers are offered, Jesu will grant us
success."
With a kiss he released himself from her embrace and was gone.