Part 18 (1/2)
Had he remained, the Turks would have had enough to occupy them without this gratuitous melee. For during the night scouts brought word that Scanderbeg had ma.s.sed all his forces, that were not behind the 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 came from the left, reporting serious depredations on that flank. Amurath, in the uncertainty of the enemy's movement, divided his host. The Asiatics were given the northern and the Janizaries the southern defence; either of them outnumbering any force Scanderbeg could send against them. But, as a tornado cuts its broad swath through a forest, uprooting or snapping the gigantic trees, showing its direction only by the after track of desolation, which it cuts in almost unvarying width, while beyond its well defined lines scarcely a branch is broken or a nest overturned among the swaying foliage--so Scanderbeg swooped from east to west through the very centre of the Turkish encampment, gathering up arms and provisions, and strewing his track with the bodies of the slain. By the time that the Moslems were sufficiently concentrated to offer effective resistance the a.s.sailants were gone.
At the head of the victorious band Scanderbeg rode a small and ungainly, but tough and tireless animal--like most of the Albanian horses, which were better adapted to threading their way down the pathless mountain sides, than to curveting in military parade--their lack of natural ballast being made up by the enormous burdens they were trained to carry.
The figure and bearing of Scanderbeg, however, amply compensated the lack of martial picturesqueness in his steed. He was in full armor, except that his sword arm was bared. His beard of commingled yellow and gray fell far down upon the steel plates of his corselet. A helmet stuck far back upon his head, showed the ma.s.sive brow which seemed of ampler height, from the Albanian custom of clipping short, or shaving the hair off from the upper forehead.
Wheeling his horse, he engaged in conversation with a stout, but awkward soldier.
”You and your beast are well matched, Constantine. You both need better 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 well with your heel as she with her claws. Your short legs would do better to 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 not failed me by a false step; not when we leaped the fallen oak and landed in the gulch back yonder. The beast came down as safely and softly as on the training lawn.”
”And you have done as well yourself,” replied the general. ”That was a bad play though you had with the Turk as we cut our way through the last knot of them. But for a side thrust which I had time to give at your antagonist, while waiting for the slow motions of my own, I fear that your animal would be lighter now by just your weight. You strike powerfully, but you do not recover yourself skilfully. A good swordsman would get a response into your ribs before you could deal him 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 your girl! So! Again! Again!--Now learn this movement”--pressing his own sword steadily against his companion's, and bending him back until he was almost off his horse. ”And this,” dealing so tremendous a slash with the back of the sword that Constantine's arm was almost numbed by the effort to resist it.--”And this!” transmitting a twisting motion from his own to his opponent's weapon, so that for one instant they seemed like two serpents writhing together; but at the next Constantine's sword was twirled out his hand.
”You will make a capital swordsman with practice, my boy. And the girl? Keep a sharpened eye for her; and tell me if so much as a new spider's web be woven at her door.”
A peasant woman stood by the path as they proceeded, holding out her hand for alms, as she ran beside the general's horse. He leaned toward her to give something; but, as his hand touched hers, she slipped a bit 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 the bleeding, for the lance's point had cut a vein. But I have a daughter who can take his place. She knows the signals--for he taught them to her--and can make the beacon as well as he; and is as nimble of foot to climb the crag. But please, Sire, the child did not remember if the enemy going west was to be signalled by lighting the beacon before or after the bright star's setting.”
”Just after, good mother. If they go to the east and cross the mountain, fire the beacon just before the star sets. And the brightest of 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 a well-jaded steed.
”The Turkish auxiliaries will be at the entrance to the defile in thirty 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, but a day in the rear.”
”Good! Take with you our nephew, Musache de Angeline, and five hundred Epirots each. This will be sufficient to prevent the first detachment getting out of the pa.s.s. I will strike the second from the rear as soon as they enter the pa.s.s. They can not manoeuvre in that crooked and narrow defile, and we will destroy them at our leisure. Strike promptly. Farewell!”
”Miserable sheep!” he muttered, ”why will these Turks so tempt me to slaughter them?”
FOOTNOTES:
[52] Bride of Othman.