CHAPTER XXXI.
One evening the lower Bosphorus and the Golden Horn were alive withbarges and skiffs, which cut the glowing water with their spray-plumedprows and flashing blades. Thus the tired day toilers were accustomedto seek rest, and the idlers of fashion endeavored to quicken theirblood in the cool wind which, from the heights of the PhrygianOlympus, poured across the sea of Marmora. The Emperor, attended byone of his favorite pages, appeared upon the rocky slope which is nowknown as Seraglio Point. A number of boats, containing the ladies andgentlemen of the court, drew near to the shore. It was the custom ofhis majesty to accept the brief hospitality of one and another ofthese parties, and for the others to keep company with him; so thatthe evening sail was not unlike a saloon reception upon the water. Thedais of Phranza's boat was, on the evening to which we refer,occupied by Morsinia alone; and, as the rowers raised the oars insalute of his majesty, he waved his hand playfully to the others,saying:
"The chamberlain is so occupied to-day that he has no time to attendto his own household. I will take his place, with the permission ofthe dove of Albania."
"Your Majesty needs rest," said Morsinia, making place for him at herside on the dais, which filled the stern of the barge, and over whichhung a silken awning. "Your face, Sire, betokens too much thoughtto-day."
Throwing himself down, he replied lazily: "I would that our boat wereseized by some sea sprite, and borne swift as the lightnings to wherethe sun yonder is making his rest, beyond the Hellespont, beyond thepillars of Hercules, beyond the world! But you shall be my sprite forthe hour. Your conversation, so different to that of the court, yourcharming Arnaout accent, and thoughts as natural as your mountainflowers, always lead me away from myself."
"I thank heaven, Sire, if Jesu gives to me that holy ministry,"replied she blushing deeply and diverting the conversation. "But whyare you so sad when everything is so beautiful about us? Is it rightto carry always the burden of empire upon your heart?"
"Alas!" replied he, "I must carry the burden while I can, for the timemay not be far distant when I shall have no empire to burden me.Events are untoward. While Sultan Amurath lives our treaty willprevent any attack upon the city. But if another should direct theMoslem affairs, our walls yonder would soon shake with the assault ofthe enemy of Christendom. Nothing but the union of the Christianpowers can save us."
"And you have the union with Rome?" suggested Morsinia.
"A union of shadows to withstand an avalanche," replied the Emperor."The Pope is impotent. He can only promise a score of galleys and hisgood offices with the powers. At the same time our monks have almostraised an insurrection against the throne for listening to theproposition of alliance to which my lamented brother subscribed duringthe last days of his reign."
"But God," replied Morsinia, "is wiser than we, and will not allow thethrone of the righteous to be shaken. I have looked to-day at themarvellous dome of St. Sophia. As I gazed into its mighty vault, andthought of the great weight of the stones which made it, I lookedabout to see upon what it rested. The light columns and walls, farspread, seemed all insufficient to support it. As I stood looking, Iwas at first so filled with fear that I dared not linger. But then Iremembered that a great architect had made it; and that so it hadstood for many centuries, and had trembled with songs of praise frommillions upon millions of worshippers who in all these generationshave gathered under it. Then I stood as quietly beneath it as I am nowunder the great vault of the sky. And surely, Sire, this Christianempire was founded in deeper wisdom than that of the architect. Arenot the pillars of God's promises its sure support? Have not holy mensaid that so long as the face of Jesu[67] looks down from above thegreat altar, the sceptre shall not depart from him who worships beforeit?"
"But," said Palaelogus, "God rejects His people for their sins. Theempire's misfortunes have not been greater than its crimes. As therising mists return in rain, so the sins of Constantinople, rising forcenturies, will return with storms of righteous retribution. And Ifear it will be in our day; for the clouds hang low, and mutterominously, and there is no bright spot within the horizon."
"Say not so, my Emperor!" cried Morsinia earnestly. "A breath of windis now scattering yonder cloud over Olympus; and the lightest movingof God's will can do more. Do you not remember the words of a holyfather, which I have often heard one of our Latin priests repeat tothose fearful because of their past lives;--'Beware lest thou carrycompunctions for the past after thou hast repented and prayed. That isto doubt God's grace.' But I am a child, Sire, and should not speakthus to the Emperor."
"A child?" said his majesty, gazing upon her superb form and strongwomanly features. "Well! a child can see as far into the sky as themost learned and venerable; and your faith, my child, rests me morethan all the earth-drawn assurances of my counsellors. Where have youlearned so to trust? I would willingly spend my days in the convent ofAthos or Monastir to learn it! But I fear me the holy monks have itnot of so strong and serene a sort as yours."
"I have learned it, Sire, as my heart has read it from my own life. Myyears are scarcely more numerous than my rescues have been, when tohuman sight there was no escape from death, or what I dreaded worsethan death. I have learned to hold a hand that I see not; and it hasnever failed. Nor will it fail the anointed of the Lord; for such thouart. But see! yonder comes my brother Constantine. I know him from hisrowing. They who learn the oars on mountain lakes never get the strokethey have who learn it at the sea."
The Emperor turning in the direction indicated, frowned, and saidangrily,
"Your brother has forgotten the regulations, and is in danger ofdiscipline for rowing within the lines allowed only to the court."
The boat came nearer; not steadily, but turning to right and left,stopping and starting as if directed by something at a distance whichthe rower was watching.
The Emperor's attention was turned almost at the same instant to alight boat shooting toward them from an opposite direction. Theoccupant of this was a monk. His black locks, mingled with his blackbeard, gave a wildness to his appearance, which was increased by theexcited and rapid manner of his propelling the craft.
"Something unusual has occurred, or they would wait the finding ofanother messenger than he," said the Emperor.
The monk's boat glided swiftly. When within a few yards of the bargein which the Emperor was the man stood up, his eyes flashing, and hiswhole attitude that of some vengeful fiend. "Hold!" shouted the rowersof the royal barge, endeavoring to turn the craft so as to avoid acollision.
"The man is crazed!" said Morsinia.
But at the instant when the two boats would have come together,another, that of Constantine, shot between them and received the blow.Its thin sides were broken by the shock.
The monk who had come to the very prow, and drawn a knife from hisbosom, cried out, "To the devil with the Prince of the Azymites."[68]
He leaped upon Constantine's boat in order to reach that containingthe Emperor: but was caught in the strong arms of Constantine who fellwith him into the water. The monk gripped with his antagonist so thatthey sank together. In a few seconds, however, Constantine emerged. Athin streamer of blood floated from him. He was drawn upon the barge.Morsinia's hand tore off the loose gold-laced jacket, and found thewound to be a deep, but not dangerous flesh cut across the shoulder.It was several moments before the monk appeared. He gasped and sankagain forever.
Constantine stated that the day before, while aiding in the erectionof a platform for some small culverin that Urban had cast, the latterspoke to him of the marvellous mosaic ornamentation in the vestibuleof the little church just beyond the walls, and took him thither. Themonk was there, and passed in and out, evidently demented, andmuttering to himself curses upon the Latinizers. Constantine thoughtlittle of this at the time; for a mad monk was not an uncommon sightin the city. But observing the same man at the quay hiring a boat, hedetermined to watch him. Hence the sequel.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] A face of Christ was w
rought in mosaic in the wall above thechancel of St. Sophia. The Turks still have a traditional saying thatthe Christian shall not again possess Constantinople until the face ofJesus appears visibly in St. Sophia. At the time of its capture by theMoslems this picture of Christ was painted over. It is now again dimlydiscerned through the fading and scaling paint.
[68] The "Azymites" were those who used unleavened bread in thesacrament, and at the time of which we are writing the word was usedamong the Greeks as a term of reproach to the Latinizers, that is,those who favored union with the Latin Church.
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