CHAPTER XXI.
"Has Captain Ballaban any explanation of this conspiracy against him?"asked one.
"None!" was the laconic reply. But after a moment's pause he added:"Perhaps there was no conspiracy, except as our jealous neighbors arewilling to take advantage of every unseemly circumstance that can betwisted to point against any of the Yeni-Tscheri. This may explainsomething. The girl that I captured at the Giaour village was nocommon peasant, by the cheek of Ayesha! Her face, as lit by theblazing konak, was of such beauty as I have never seen except in somedreams of my childhood. Her voice and manner in commanding me toliberate her were those of one well-born or used to authority. It waswell that I bethought me to give her into the keeping of thatdull-headed Koremi, or she might have bewitched me into obeying herand letting her go. My belief is that the girl was rescued. It may bethat our men were heavily bribed to give her up, or that some onepersonated myself and demanded her, and that the story of my returnmay be thus accounted for, but I cannot see any treachery in Koremi'smanner. If she was of any special value to Scanderbeg he would findsome way of running her off, though he had to make a league with thedevil and assume my shape to do it. The Arnaouts, you know, believethat the Vili are in collusion with Scanderbeg, and that one of them,a he-vili, Radisha, or some such sprite, is his body servant. Thatwill account for it all," added he, laughing at the conceit.
"But," said the second Aga, "Caraza-Bey's insult was none the less, ifyour surmise be true. We must wash it out in the blood of a hundred orso of his hirelings to-morrow."
The chief shook his head.
"But," continued the second Aga, "the jealousy of our corps must bepunished. You see how near it came to losing for us the life of one ofour bravest. Caraza-Bey must fight me to-morrow."
"Bravo!" cried all; while one added, "And let the challenge be public,that the entire force of the Yeni-Tscheri be on hand and all thetroops of the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, and--" lowering his voice-- "wecan manage it so that the fight become general, and teach thesereptiles of Asiatics that the Yeni-Tscheri are the right hand and thebrain of the empire."
"Ay, _are_ the empire!" said another. "Let us have a scrimmage thatwill be interesting. The war with Scanderbeg is getting monotonous.One day he comes into our camp, like a butcher into a slaughter pen,and the next day we are marched out to him, to be slaughteredelsewhere. It requires one to be full of Islam, the Holy Resignation,to stand this sort of life. Yes! let's do a little fighting in our ownway and get rid of some of this soldier spawn which the Padishah hasbrought with him from across the Bosphorus!"
"But you forget, my brothers," said Ballaban, "that this fight withthe Sanjak Bey does not belong to any one beside myself. His lie wasabout me. I then am the man to take off his head; and I think I can doit with as good grace as the executioner was nigh to taking off minejust now."
"No, Captain!" said the chief. "Your rank is as yet below the Bey's,and he would make that an excuse for declining the gage. Besides,"said he, lowering his voice, "I have special service for youelsewhere, which cannot be delayed."
When the agas, making the low courtesy, retired, the chief walked withBallaban.
"Captain, I have heard no report of the errand upon which you weresent."
"No, Sire, I was arrested the moment I returned to camp."
"You succeeded, I know, from the movements of the enemy: although theslowness of the Padishah in ordering an advance, when Scanderbeg wasdiverted by your ruse, prevented our taking advantage of it."
"Yes," said Ballaban, "I succeeded as well as any one could, not beingseconded from headquarters. But I did some service incidentally, andpicked up some helpful information. The night after leaving the hamletwe fired, I fell in with a company of Arnaouts who were coming to therescue. They would have got into the narrow valley before our men gotout, had I not managed to trick them. I was in disguise and readilypassed for an Arnaout lout, giving them false information about thedirection our party had taken, and so lost them an hour or two, andsaved the throats of Lovitsch's fellows, a mere rabble, good enoughfor a raid, but not to be depended upon for a square fight. But wemust have no more raids. Scanderbeg has means of communication asquick and subtle as if the clouds were his signals and the stars werehis beacons.
"I then came upon a Dibrian settlement, pretending to be a fugitivefrom the valleys to the north; and entertained the villagers withbug-a-boo stories about the hosts of men with turbans on their headsand little devils on their shoulders who had destroyed all thatcountry, and were now pouring down toward the south.
"By the way," continued Ballaban laughing, "there was an old fellowthere, very lame, with a patch over one eye, who could hardly standleaning on his staff, he was so palsied with age. But the one eye thatwas open was altogether too bright for his years; and his legs didn'tshake enough for one who rattled his staff so much. So I put him downas one of Scanderbeg's lynxes--they are everywhere. I described to himthe Moslem movements in such a way as to let a trained soldier believethat we had entirely changed front, with the prospective raising ofthe siege of Sfetigrade and alliance with the Venetians for carryingthe war farther to the north. The old codger took the bait, and askedfifty questions in the tone of a fellow whose head had been used for amush-pot instead of a brain-holder; but every question was in itsmeaning as keen as a dagger-thrust into the very ribs of the militarysituation. Well! I helped him to all the information he wanted; whenwith a twinkle in his eye, he hobbled away, as wise as an owl when afresh streak of day-light has struck him: and before night the wholecountry to the borders of Sternogovia was alive with Scanderbeg'sscouts; and every cross-path was a rendezvous of his broken-windedcavalry.
"I saw one thing which gave me a hint I may use some day. At a villagethe women were carrying water from a spring far down in a ravine,though there was a fine flowing fountain quite near them. It seemsthat a dog had got into the fountain about a month before, and wasdrowned. These Dibrians believe that, if any one should drink thewater of such a spring before as many days have passed as the dog hashairs on his tail, the water will make his bowels rot, and his soul gointo a dog's body when he dies.
"The next night I spent inside the walls of Sfetigrade."
"No!" cried the chief. "Why, man, you must fly the air with thewitches!"
"Not at all, I have some acquaintances in that snug little place; andwhen they go to bed they hang the key of the town on a moonbeam forme. If it is not there, I have only to vault over the walls, or sailover them on the clouds, or burrow under them with the moles, or holdmy breath until I turn into a sprite, like the wizards on the Ganges,and lo! I am in. Well! that night I lodged with a worthy family ofSfetigrade, pretending that I was a poor fugitive from the very townwe had raided a few nights before. And, by the hair of the beautifulMalkhatoon![52] I saw there the very captive I had taken. She layasleep on a cot just within a doorway--unless I was asleep myself anddreaming, as I half believe I was."
"Yes, it was a dream of yours, no doubt, Captain," said the chief,"for when a young fellow like you once gets a fair woman in his arms,as you say you had her in yours the night of the raid, she never getsout of the embrace of his imagination. He will see her everywhere, andgo about trying to hug her shadow. Beware illusions, Captain! They useup a fellow's thoughts, make him too meek-eyed to see things as asoldier should. The love passion will take the energy out of the bestof us, as quickly as the fire takes the temper out of the bestDamascene blade."
"I thank you for your counsel, Aga," replied Ballaban, his facecoloring as deep as his hair. "But there was one thing I saw with awaking eye."
"And what was that?"
"That there was but one well of water in the town of Sfetigrade; theone in the citadel court. But another thing I didn't see, though Isearched the place for it;--and that was a dog to throw into the well;or I would have thirsted the superstitious garrison out. They haveeaten up the last cur."
"Then the surrender must come soon," said the Aga.
"No," replied Ballaban,
"for the voivode Moses Goleme came into thetown as I was leaving, driving a flock of sheep which he had stolenfrom us; for he had cut off an entire train of provisions which hadbeen sent to our camp from Adrianople."
"Then I must have you off at once on another errand, Captain. You seeyonder line of mountains off to the northwest. It may be necessary toshift the war to that region for a while. Ivan Beg,[53] thebrother-in-law of Scanderbeg, has raised a pack of wild fiends amongthose hills of his, and is driving out all our friends. Nothing canstand against him unless it be the breasts of the Yeni-Tscheri.Scanderbeg may compel us to raise the siege of Sfetigrade, for hebleeds us daily like a leech. A diversion after Ivan Beg will at leastbe more honorable than a return to Adrianople. Now I would knowexactly the passes and best places for fortification in Ivan'scountry; and you, Captain, are the man to find them out. You should beoff at once. Take your time and spy thoroughly, making a map andtransmitting to me your notes. And while there feel the people. It isrumored that the young voivode, Amesa, is restless under theleadership of Scanderbeg. If a dissension could be created among theseArnaouts, it would be well. Amesa has a large personal following inthat north country; for his castle is just on the border of it."
"But," replied Ballaban, "I must first pluck the beard of thatcowardly Caraza-Bey!"
"No! I forbid it. Your blood is worth more in your own veins thananywhere else. I should not consent to your risking a drop of it inpersonal combat with any one except Scanderbeg himself."
The fight between the second Aga and Caraza-Bey did not take place.That worthy was conveniently sent by Sultan Amurath, who had learnedof the feud, to look after certain turbulent Caramanians; and leavingbehind him a wake of curses upon all Janizaries from the chief to thepot-scourers, he took his departure for the Asiatic provinces.
Had he remained, the Turks would have had enough to occupy themwithout this gratuitous melee. For during the night scouts broughtword that Scanderbeg had massed all his forces, that were not behindthe walls of Sfetigrade, at a point to the right of the Turkish lines.Hardly had the army been faced to meet this attack, when scouts camefrom the left, reporting serious depredations on that flank. Amurath,in the uncertainty of the enemy's movement, divided his host. TheAsiatics were given the northern and the Janizaries the southerndefence; either of them outnumbering any force Scanderbeg could sendagainst them. But, as a tornado cuts its broad swath through a forest,uprooting or snapping the gigantic trees, showing its direction onlyby the after track of desolation, which it cuts in almost unvaryingwidth, while beyond its well defined lines scarcely a branch is brokenor a nest overturned among the swaying foliage--so Scanderbeg swoopedfrom east to west through the very centre of the Turkish encampment,gathering up arms and provisions, and strewing his track with thebodies of the slain. By the time that the Moslems were sufficientlyconcentrated to offer effective resistance the assailants were gone.
At the head of the victorious band Scanderbeg rode a small andungainly, but tough and tireless animal--like most of the Albanianhorses, which were better adapted to threading their way down thepathless mountain sides, than to curveting in military parade--theirlack of natural ballast being made up by the enormous burdens theywere trained to carry.
The figure and bearing of Scanderbeg, however, amply compensated thelack of martial picturesqueness in his steed. He was in full armor,except that his sword arm was bared. His beard of commingled yellowand gray fell far down upon the steel plates of his corselet. A helmetstuck far back upon his head, showed the massive brow which seemed ofampler height, from the Albanian custom of clipping short, or shavingthe hair off from the upper forehead.
Wheeling his horse, he engaged in conversation with a stout, butawkward soldier.
"You and your beast are well matched, Constantine. You both needbetter training before you are fit to parade as prisoners of Amurath.You sit your horse as a cat rides a dog, though you do hold on as wellwith your heel as she with her claws. Your short legs would do betterto clamp the belly of a crocodile."
"Yes, we are both accustomed to marching and fighting in our own way,rather than in company," replied Constantine. "But the beast has notfailed me by a false step; not when we leaped the fallen oak andlanded in the gulch back yonder. The beast came down as safely andsoftly as on the training lawn."
"And you have done as well yourself," replied the general. "That was abad play though you had with the Turk as we cut our way through thelast knot of them. But for a side thrust which I had time to give atyour antagonist, while waiting for the slow motions of my own, I fearthat your animal would be lighter now by just your weight. You strikepowerfully, but you do not recover yourself skilfully. A goodswordsman would get a response into your ribs before you could dealhim a second. Here, I will show you! Now thrust! Strike! No, not so;but hard, villainously, at me, as if I were the Turk who stole yourgirl! So! Again! Again!--Now learn this movement"--pressing his ownsword steadily against his companion's, and bending him back until hewas almost off his horse. "And this," dealing so tremendous a slashwith the back of the sword that Constantine's arm was almost numbed bythe effort to resist it.--"And this!" transmitting a twisting motionfrom his own to his opponent's weapon, so that for one instant theyseemed like two serpents writhing together; but at the nextConstantine's sword was twirled out his hand.
"You will make a capital swordsman with practice, my boy. And thegirl? Keep a sharpened eye for her; and tell me if so much as a newspider's web be woven at her door."
A peasant woman stood by the path as they proceeded, holding out herhand for alms, as she ran beside the general's horse. He leaned towardher to give something; but, as his hand touched hers, she slipped abit of white rag into it:
"The map of the roads, Sire, twixt this and Monastir!"
"And your son, my good woman?" inquired the general kindly.
"Ah! the Virgin pity me, Sire, for he died. We could not stop thebleeding, for the lance's point had cut a vein. But I have a daughterwho can take his place. She knows the signals--for he taught them toher--and can make the beacon as well as he; and is as nimble of footto climb the crag. But please, Sire, the child did not remember if theenemy going west was to be signalled by lighting the beacon before orafter the bright star's setting."
"Just after, good mother. If they go to the east and cross themountain, fire the beacon just before the star sets. And the brightestof all stars be for your own hope and comfort!"
"And for dear Albania's and thine own!" replied the woman,disappearing in the crowd, as a man dashed close to Scanderbeg on awell-jaded steed.
"The Turkish auxiliaries will be at the entrance to the defile inthirty hours."
"Your estimate of their number, neighbor Stephen?"
"From three to five thousand."
"Not more?"
"Not more in the first detachment. A second of equal size follows, buta day in the rear."
"Good! Take with you our nephew, Musache de Angeline, and five hundredEpirots each. This will be sufficient to prevent the first detachmentgetting out of the pass. I will strike the second from the rear assoon as they enter the pass. They can not manoeuvre in that crookedand narrow defile, and we will destroy them at our leisure. Strikepromptly. Farewell!"
"Miserable sheep!" he muttered, "why will these Turks so tempt me toslaughter them?"
FOOTNOTES:
[52] Bride of Othman.
[53] Ivo, the Black, or Tsernoi, from whom the mountain country to thenorth of Albania was called Tsernogorki, or, in its Latinized form,Montenegro.
The Captain of the Janizaries Page 21
