The Captain of the Janizaries
Page 42
CHAPTER XLII.
Constantine, after his escape from the Sultan's tent, where he hadbeen taken for the demented Ballaban, was unable to enterConstantinople before it fell. His heart was torn with agonizingsolicitude for the fate of Morsinia. He knew too well thedetermination of the dauntless girl in the event of her falling intothe hands of the Turks. Filling his dreams at night, and rising beforehim as a terrible apparition by day, was that loved form, a suicideempurpled with its own gore. Yet love and duty led him to seek her, orat least to seek the certainty of her fate. He therefore disguisedhimself as a Moslem and mingled with the throng of soldiers andadventurers who entered the city under its new possessors. He wanderedfor hours about the familiar streets, that, perchance, he might comeupon some memorial of her. The secrets of the royal harem he could notexplore, even if suspicion led his thought thither. The proximity ofthe residence of Phranza was guarded by the immediate servants of theSultan, so that he was deprived of even the fond misery of visitingthe scenes so associated with his former joy.
In passing through one of the narrowest and foulest streets--the onlyones that had been left undisturbed by the Vandalism of theconquerors--he came upon an old woman, hideous in face and decrepit,whom he remembered as a beggar at the gate of Phranza. From her helearned many stories of the last hours of the siege.
According to her story she had gone among the first to St. Sophia.When the Moslems entered they tied her by a silken girdle to theperson of the Grand Chamberlain, and, amid the jeers of the soldiers,marched them together to the Hippodrome. She remembered the Sultan ashe rode on his horse,--how he struck with his battle hammer one of thesilver heads of the bronze serpents, and cried: "So I smite the headsof the kingdoms!" Just as he did so he turned, and saw her in her ragstied to the courtly-robed lord, and in an angry voice commanded thatthe princely man be loosed from contact with the filthy hag. Phranzawas taken away: but nobody cared to take her away. She was trampled bythe crowd, but lived. And nobody thought of turning her out of herhovel home. She was as safe as is a rat when the robbers have killedthe nobler inmates of a house.
The woman said that she had heard that the daughter of Phranza wassent away somewhere to an island home. But the AlbanianPrincess,--Yes, she knew her well; for no hand used to drop sobountifully the alms she asked, or said so kindly "Jesu pity you, mygood woman!" as did that beautiful lady. The beggar declared that shestood near her by the altar in St. Sophia. "She looked so saintlythere! There was a real aureole about her head as she prayed, so shewas a saint indeed. Then she raised her dagger!" But the wretchedwatcher could watch no longer, though she heard her cry, so wild thatshe would never cease to hear it.
The beggar ceased her story; all her words had cut through herlistener's heart as if they had been daggers.
"It is well!" he said, "I will go to Albania. Among those who lovedher I will worship her memory; and, under Castriot, I will seek myrevenge."