Part 6 (1/2)

”But the girl may be, if you were not. Is she your child?”

”Yes, my child, if heaven ever sent one to man.”

”But, tell me,” probed the general, ”how did heaven send you the maiden? Did the mother bring her, or did the angels drop her at your door? For, if that girl be your child, heaven did not know you even by sight; since it put not a freckle of your dark skin upon her fair face, nor one of your bristles into her hair. The stars are not begotten of storm-clouds; nor do I think she is your daughter.”

To this the old man replied, more to himself than to his interrogator, ”If she is not mine by gift of nature, she is mine by gift of Him who is above nature.”

”I will not steal your secret,” said Hunyades. ”Her name has excited my interest in her and her heaven-given or heaven-lent father. She needs better protection than you can give her in the camp. I will send her to headquarters.”

”I would gratefully put her under your protection for a few days,”

said Kabilovitsch. ”My duty takes me away from her for a while; dangerous duty, Sire, and if I should fall--”

”If Kabilovitsch falls, Hunyades will be as true father to the la.s.s.

Have you any special desire regarding her or yourself, my brave man?

You have but to name it.”

”But one, Sire,” replied Kabilovitsch. ”That I may see her safely conditioned at once. For it may be that before the day dawns I shall be summoned. I serve a cause as mysterious as the Providence which watches over it.”

”An Albanian mystery? They are generally as inscrutable as a thunder cloud; but are revealed when its lightning strikes!” replied Hunyades, dismissing the old man, accompanied by two guards, who were commissioned to obey implicitly any orders the herdsman might give regarding the party of refugees by his camp-fire.

CHAPTER VII.

The Christian host prolonged the festival of the Nativity from day to day, until the mustering forces of the Ottomans summoned them from dangerous inactivity again to the march and the battle. The latter they found at Mount Cun.o.bizza, where the enemy had ma.s.sed an enormous force. The Christian army, with its splendid corps of Hungary, Poland, Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia, Italy and Germany, was not a more magnificent array than that of their Moslem opponents. For the most part of the day the field was equally held, but in the afternoon the Turkish left seemed to have become inspired with a strange fury. The Janizaries, at the time renowned as the best disciplined and most desperate foot-soldiers in the world, were rivalled in celerity and intrepidity, in skilful manoeuvring and the tremendous momentum with which they struck the foe, by other Moslem corps; such as the squadrons of cavalry collected from distant military provinces, each under its Spahi or fief-holder; and the irregular Bas.h.i.+-Bazouks, who seemed to have sprung from the ground in orderly array. Their diverse accoutrements, complexions, and movements suggested the hundred arms of some martial Briareus, all animated by a single brain. The war cry of ”The Prophet!” was mingled with that of ”Iscanderbeg!” In the thickest of the fight appeared the gigantic form of the circ.u.mcised Albanian, his gaudy armor flas.h.i.+ng with jewels,[17] his right arm bared to the shoulder, his cimeter glancing as the lightning. The Italian legions opposite him, upon the Christian left, were hurled back again and again from their onslaught, and were pressed mile after mile from the original battle site. Hunyades inflicted a compensatory punishment upon the Moslem left, shattering its depleted ranks as a battering ram crashes through the tottering walls of a citadel. The chief of the Christians saw clearly Scanderbeg's plan[18] to leave the victory in his hands, and at the opportune moment he wheeled his squadrons to the a.s.sistance of King Vladislaus, thus combining in overwhelming odds against the enemy's centre, which Scanderbeg had effectually drained of its proper strength. As soon, however, as it was evident that the Christians were the victors, Scanderbeg, by superb generals.h.i.+p, interposed the Janizaries between the enemy and the turbaned heads that, but for this, were being whirled in full flight from the field. The rout was changed into orderly retreat.

Hunyades found it impossible to press the pursuit, and muttered,

”Scanderbeg commands both our armies to-day. We can only take what he is minded to give.”

At length night looked down upon the camps. Few tents were erected.

Hunyades sat for hours beneath a tree, waiting for he knew not what developments. On the Turkish side even the Beyler Beys, the highest commanders, were content to stretch their limbs with no other canopy than the three horse-tails at the spear-head, the symbol of their rank and authority. Far in the rear were the few pavilions of the suite of the Grand Vizier, who represented the absent Sultan Amurath. Late into the night the Vizier sat in counsel with the Sultan's Reis Effendi or chief secretary, to whom was entrusted the seal of the empire. He was enstamping the many despatches which fleetest hors.e.m.e.n carried to distant Spahis, summoning them with their reserves to rally for the defence of Adrianople.

Just before the dawn the secretary was left alone. Even he, and, in his person, the empire, must catch an hour's sleep before the exciting and exacting duties of the new day. He reclined among his papers. But a summons awakened him: the messenger announcing Scanderbeg. The guards withdrew to a respectful distance from the outside of the tent.

”Do not rise,” said the general, gently pressing the secretary back to his reclining posture. ”I only need the imperial seal to this order.”

The secretary scanned the paper with incredulous eyes. It was a firman, or decree of the Sultan, pa.s.sing the government of Albania from General Sebaly to Scanderbeg, with absolute powers, and ordering the commandant of the strong fortress of Croia to place all its armament and that of adjacent strongholds in Scanderbeg's hand as the viceroy of the Sultan. As the secretary lifted his face to utter an inquiry for the relief of his amazement, knowing that the Sultan, then absent in Asia, could not have ordered such a doc.u.ment, the strong hand of Scanderbeg gripped his throat, and his poniard threatened his heart.

”The mark!” whispered the a.s.sailant.

The terrified man tremblingly reached the seal, and pressed it against the wax. The weapon then did its work, and so suddenly that the secretary had no time for even an outcry. Then silently, so that the guards, who were but a few paces distant, heard no commotion, he laid the lifeless form on the divan, and covered it with the embroidered cloak it had worn when living.[19]

Pa.s.sing out, Scanderbeg gave orders that the tent should not be entered by the guards until morning, that the secretary might rest. He gave the pa.s.sword, ”The Kaaba,” as sharply as if his lips would take vengeance on the once sacred, but now hated sound. His military staff joined him at a little distance. Vaulting into the saddle he led the way toward the north. At the edge of the camp by a rude bridge he halted, and said to his attendants,

”I meet at this point the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, whose staff will be my escort to his camp. The Padishah's cause needs closest conference of all the commanders; for treason is abroad. Ah! I hear the escort.

Return to quarters, gentlemen!”