Night brought little sleep to the Turkish host. Though danger was
past, a sense of humiliation and chagrin was shared by officers and
men, as they realized that their defeat was due to their own folly
more than to the strength of their foe. In every tentless group the
men disturbed the quiet of the night with their ceaseless quarrels.
Members of the different commands, hopelessly confused in the general
flight, rivalled one another in the rancor and contempt of their
mutual recriminations as much as they ever emulated one another in the
courage and prowess of a well fought field. Among those of highest
rank bitter and insulting words were followed by blows, as if the
general disgrace could be washed out by a gratuitous spilling of their
own blood.
But a different interest kept Ballaban waking. Beneath the great tree,
which had been designated as the headquarters of the Janizaries, and
from a limb of which was suspended the symbolic kettle, his prisoner
had been awaiting the Chief Aga. The glimpse of his face at the time
of the capture had awakened in the Janizary more than a suspicion of
the personality of the captive; while the name of Ballaban, which he
had heard from the soldiers, revealed to the Albanian that of his
captor. With impatience the Aga conversed with the various commanders
who thronged him, and as soon as possible dismissed them. When they
were alone Constantine rose, and, without completing his salâm,
exclaimed,
"You play more roughly, Michael, than when last we wrestled together
among the rocks of Slatiza."
"Ah, my brother Constantine, I thought of you when you gripped me in
the fight to-day; for it was the same old hug with which we rolled
together long ago. I would have known you, had you only given me time
to think, without your raising the visor."
The brothers stood for a moment in half embrace, scanning each other's
face and form. An onlooker would have noted that their mutual
resemblance was not in the details of their features, so much as in
certain marked peculiarities; such as the red and bristling hair,
square face, prominent nose and chin. Constantine's forehead was
higher than Michael's, which had more breadth and massiveness across
the brows. In speaking, Constantine's eye kindled, and his plastic
lips gave expression to every play of sentiment: while Michael's face
was as inflexible as a mask; the deep light of his glance as
thoroughly under control of his will as if it were the flash of a dark
lantern; his appearance revealing not the shadow of a thought, not the
flicker of an emotion, beyond that he chose to put into words. This
physiognomical difference was doubtless largely due to the training of
years. The Janizary's habit of caution and secretiveness evolved, as
it were, this invisible, but impenetrable, visor. The custom of
unquestioning obedience to another, and that of the remorseless
prosecution of whatever he regarded as politic for the service, gave
rigidity to the facial muscles; set them with the prevalent purpose;
stereotyped in them the expression of determination. A short beard
added to the immobile cast of his countenance. Thus, though when
separated the two men might readily be taken the one for the other,
when together their resemblance served to suggest as wide contrasts.
The entire night was spent by the brothers in mutual narrations of
their eventful lives. Though their careers had been so distinct, in
different lands, under rival civilizations, in the service of
contending nations, and inflamed by the incentives of antagonistic
religions, yet their roads had crossed at the most important points in
each. They learned to their astonishment that the most significant
events, those awakening the deepest experience in the one life, had
been due to the presence of the other. As Michael told of his raid
upon the Albanian village, Constantine supplied the key to the mystery
of the escape of his fair captive, and the arrest of Michael for
having at that time deserted his command. Then Michael in turn
supplied the key to Constantine's arrest by Colonel Kabilovitsch's men
as a Turkish spy. Constantine solved the enigma of Amesa's overtures
to Michael in reference to the Dodola Elissa; and Michael solved that
of Constantine's rough handling by the garrison of Sfetigrade for
having dropped the dog into the well. Constantine unravelled the
diabolical plot which had nearly been tragic for Michael in the old
reservoir at Constantinople; and Michael as readily unravelled that of
the serio-comic drama in the tent of Mahomet, when Constantine's life
was saved through the assumption that he was his lunatic brother.
Constantine supplied to Michael the missing link in the story of
Morsinia's escape from Constantinople; and Michael supplied that
which was wanting of Constantine's knowledge of the story of her
escape from death in the horrors of the scene in St. Sophia after the
capture of the city. They had, under the strange leadings of what both
their Christian and Moslem faith recognized as a Divine Providence,
been more to each other than they could have been had their lives
drifted in the same channel during all these years. In the old boyhood
confidence, which their strange meeting had revived, Michael did not
withhold the confession of Morsinia's influence upon him, though she
had been to him more of an ideal than a real person, a beautiful
development to his imagination out of his childhood memory of his
little playmate in the Balkans. Nor did Constantine hesitate to
declare the love and betrothal by which he held the charming reality
as his own. He told, too, of her real personality as the ward of
Scanderbeg, and the true heir of the splendid estates until recently
held by Amesa.
The dawn brought duties to the Aga which precluded further conference
with Constantine.
"We must part, my dear brother," said Michael. "Our armies will
probably return through Macedonia, and abandon the campaign: for such
is the unwise determination of our commander Isaac. You must escape
into your own lines. That can be easily arranged. We may not meet
again soon; but I swear to you, by the memory of our childhood, that
your personal interest shall be mine. Aside from the necessities of
the military service, we can be brothers still. And Morsinia, that
angel of our better natures; you must let me share with you, if not
her affection, surely her confidence. I could not woo her from you if
I would; but assure her that, though wearing the uniform of an enemy,
I shall be as true in my thoughts of her as when we played by the old
cot on the mountains; and as when I pledged my life to serve her while
she was in the harem at Stamboul."
"But why must this war against Castriot continue? I would that our
compact were that of the armies to which we belong," said Constantine.
"It is impossible for a Janizary to sheath the sword while Scanderbeg
lives," replied the Aga. "Our oath forbids it. He once was held by the
vow of the Prophet's service, and deserted it. I know his temptation
was strong. In my heart I might find charity for him." The speaker
hesitated as if haunted by some troublesome memory, then
continued--"But a Janizary may show no charity to a renegade. Besides,
he is the curse of Albania. But for his ambition, these twelve years
of blood would have been those of peace and happiness through all
these valleys, under the sway of our munificent and wise Padishah."
"Your own best thoughts, Michael, should correct you. What are peace
and its happy indolence compared with the cause of a holy faith?"
"You speak sublimely, my brother," replied Michael, "but your faith
gains nothing by this war. Under our Padishah's beneficence the
Giaours are protected. The Greeks hold sufficient churches, even in
Stamboul, for the worship of all who remain in that faith. Indeed, I
have heard Gennadius the monk of whom you were speaking awhile
ago--say that he would trust his flock to the keeping of the Moslem
stranger sooner than to the Pope of Rome. I have known our Padishah
defend the Greek Giaours from the tyranny of their own bishops. He
asks only the loyalty of his people to his throne, and awaits the will
of Allah to turn them to his faith; for the Book of the Prophet says
truly, Allah will lead into error whom he pleaseth and whom he
pleaseth he will put in the right way.[109] Believe me, my brother,
Albania's safety is only in submission. The Fate that directs all
affairs has indubitably decreed that all this vast peninsula between
Adria and Ægea shall lie beneath the shadow of the Padishah's sceptre;
for he is Zil-Ullah, the shadow of God. Who can resist the conqueror
of the capital of your Eastern Christian Empire; the conqueror of
Athens, and of the islands of the sea?"
"Let us then speak no more of this," said Constantine. "Our training
has been so different, that we can not hope to agree. But we can be
one in the kindliness of our thoughts, as we are of one blood. Jesu
bless you, my brother!"
"Allah bless you, Constantine!" was the hearty response, as the two
grasped hands. Eyes which would not have shown bodily pain by so much
as the tremor of their lids, were moist with the outflow of those
springs in our nature that are deeper than courage--springs of
brotherly affection, fed by hallowed memories of the long ago.
Two Janizaries accompanied Constantine beyond the Turkish lines.
"What new scheme has the Aga hatched in his brain now?" said one of
them, as they returned.
"He has twisted that fellow's brain so that he will never serve
Scanderbeg truly again," was the knowing reply. "The Aga is the very
devil to throw a spell over a man. They say that when he captured the
fellow yesterday, he had only to squint into his face a moment, when,
as quick as a turn of a foil, the man changed his looks, and was as
much like the Aga as two thumbs."
FOOTNOTE:
[109] Koran, Chapter VI.