Captain Ballaban was recalled from the raid by our brother Sinam, aga of the division to which the captain belongs. But, alas! the sword of Scanderbeg has loosed Sinam's soul for flight to paradise, and he could not testify to this man's fidelity. But I know the order of Sinam; in this very tent it was written. And though the faithful messenger who carried it was slain in after conflict, the order was executed by Captain Ballaban to every letter: every moment of his absence from the raid is accounted for on my tablets"--tapping his forehead as he spoke.

A loud shout burst from the crowd which made the tent shake as if filled with a rising wind.

"Ballaban! Ballaban!" cried the mult.i.tude, lifting the brave fellow upon their shoulders.

"Take that for your grin when you thought he was guilty!" shouted one, as he delivered a tremendous blow upon the face of another.

"Death to Caraza-Bey! Down with the lying villain!" rose the cry, the crowd beginning to move, as if animated by a common spirit, to seek the envious commandant of the neighboring corps. But they halted at the tent side waiting for the sign of permission from their chief, who, by the motion of his hand forbade the a.s.sault which would have brought on a terrific battle between the Janizaries and their rivals throughout the army.

"We shall deal with Caraza-Bey hereafter, if his shame does not send him skulking from the camps," said the chief, resuming his sitting posture, and restoring order about him.

"Summon the witnesses again," he proceeded.

"You Lovitsch testified truly as to Captain Ballaban's absence, and may go. But you twin rascals who swore to his escape with the girl, your heads shall go to Caraza-Bey, and your black souls to the seventh h.e.l.l.[51] Executioner, do your office!"

"Hold!" cried Ballaban, as the man drew his cimeter. "Upon my return to the company I found my fair captive gone, and under such strange circ.u.mstances that I can see that these good fellows may be honest in what they have stated. I bespeak thy mercy, Sire, for them."

"Captain Ballaban's will shall be ours," replied the chief, with a wave of his hand dismissing the a.s.semblage. As the crowd withdrew, he said, "My brothers, the agas, will remain, and Captain Ballaban."

The sides of the tent were put up. The guard patrolled without at a distance of sixty paces, that no one might overhear the conversation in the council.

FOOTNOTES:

[49] Two horse-tails; the symbol of a Beyler Bey, a chief bey of Europe or Asia.

[50] A t.i.tle of Janizaries given them by the dervish who blessed the order at its inst.i.tution in the days of Orchan.

[51] According to the Moslems, h.e.l.l is divided into seven stories or cellars, the lowest being reserved for hypocrites.

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 are willing to take advantage of every unseemly circ.u.mstance that can be twisted to point against any of the Yeni-Tscheri. This may explain something. The girl that I captured at the Giaour village was no common peasant, by the cheek of Ayesha! Her face, as lit by the blazing konak, was of such beauty as I have never seen except in some dreams of my childhood. Her voice and manner in commanding me to liberate her were those of one well-born or used to authority. It was well that I bethought me to give her into the keeping of that dull-headed Koremi, or she might have bewitched me into obeying her and letting her go. My belief is that the girl was rescued. It may be that our men were heavily bribed to give her up, or that some one personated myself and demanded her, and that the story of my return may be thus accounted for, but I cannot see any treachery in Koremi's manner. If she was of any special value to Scanderbeg he would find some way of running her off, though he had to make a league with the devil and a.s.sume my shape to do it. The Arnaouts, you know, believe that the Vili are in collusion with Scanderbeg, and that one of them, a he-vili, Radisha, or some such sprite, is his body servant. That will account for it all," added he, laughing at the conceit.

"But," said the second Aga, "Caraza-Bey's insult was none the less, if your surmise be true. We must wash it out in the blood of a hundred or so of his hirelings to-morrow."

The chief shook his head.

"But," continued the second Aga, "the jealousy of our corps must be punished. You see how near it came to losing for us the life of one of our 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 the troops of the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, and--" lowering his voice-- "we can manage it so that the fight become general, and teach these reptiles of Asiatics that the Yeni-Tscheri are the right hand and the brain of the empire."

"Ay, _are_ the empire!" said another. "Let us have a scrimmage that will 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 slaughtered elsewhere. 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 own way and get rid of some of this soldier sp.a.w.n which the Padishah has brought with him from across the Bosphorus!"

"But you forget, my brothers," said Ballaban, "that this fight with the Sanjak Bey does not belong to any one beside myself. His lie was about me. I then am the man to take off his head; and I think I can do it with as good grace as the executioner was nigh to taking off mine just 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 you elsewhere, which cannot be delayed."

When the agas, making the low courtesy, retired, the chief walked with Ballaban.

"Captain, I have heard no report of the errand upon which you were sent."

"No, Sire, I was arrested the moment I returned to camp."

"You succeeded, I know, from the movements of the enemy: although the slowness of the Padishah in ordering an advance, when Scanderbeg was diverted by your ruse, prevented our taking advantage of it."

"Yes," said Ballaban, "I succeeded as well as any one could, not being seconded from headquarters. But I did some service incidentally, and picked up some helpful information. The night after leaving the hamlet we fired, I fell in with a company of Arnaouts who were coming to the rescue. They would have got into the narrow valley before our men got out, had I not managed to trick them. I was in disguise and readily pa.s.sed for an Arnaout lout, giving them false information about the direction our party had taken, and so lost them an hour or two, and saved the throats of Lovitsch's fellows, a mere rabble, good enough for a raid, but not to be depended upon for a square fight. But we must have no more raids. Scanderbeg has means of communication as quick and subtle as if the clouds were his signals and the stars were his beacons.

"I then came upon a Dibrian settlement, pretending to be a fugitive from the valleys to the north; and entertained the villagers with bug-a-boo stories about the hosts of men with turbans on their heads and little devils on their shoulders who had destroyed all that country, and were now pouring down toward the south.

"By the way," continued Ballaban laughing, "there was an old fellow there, very lame, with a patch over one eye, who could hardly stand leaning on his staff, he was so palsied with age. But the one eye that was open was altogether too bright for his years; and his legs didn't shake enough for one who rattled his staff so much. So I put him down as one of Scanderbeg's lynxes--they are everywhere. I described to him the Moslem movements in such a way as to let a trained soldier believe that we had entirely changed front, with the prospective raising of the siege of Sfetigrade and alliance with the Venetians for carrying the war farther to the north. The old codger took the bait, and asked fifty questions in the tone of a fellow whose head had been used for a mush-pot instead of a brain-holder; but every question was in its meaning as keen as a dagger-thrust into the very ribs of the military situation. Well! I helped him to all the information he wanted; when with a twinkle in his eye, he hobbled away, as wise as an owl when a fresh streak of day-light has struck him: and before night the whole country to the borders of Sternogovia was alive with Scanderbeg's scouts; and every cross-path was a rendezvous of his broken-winded cavalry.

"I saw one thing which gave me a hint I may use some day. At a village the women were carrying water from a spring far down in a ravine, though there was a fine flowing fountain quite near them. It seems that a dog had got into the fountain about a month before, and was drowned. These Dibrians believe that, if any one should drink the water of such a spring before as many days have pa.s.sed as the dog has hairs on his tail, the water will make his bowels rot, and his soul go into 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 the witches!"

"Not at all, I have some acquaintances in that snug little place; and when they go to bed they hang the key of the town on a moonbeam for me. If it is not there, I have only to vault over the walls, or sail over them on the clouds, or burrow under them with the moles, or hold my 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 of Sfetigrade, pretending that I was a poor fugitive from the very town we had raided a few nights before. And, by the hair of the beautiful Malkhatoon![52] I saw there the very captive I had taken. She lay asleep on a cot just within a doorway--unless I was asleep myself and dreaming, 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 gets out of the embrace of his imagination. He will see her everywhere, and go about trying to hug her shadow. Beware illusions, Captain! They use up a fellow's thoughts, make him too meek-eyed to see things as a soldier should. The love pa.s.sion will take the energy out of the best of us, as quickly as the fire takes the temper out of the best Damascene blade."

"I thank you for your counsel, Aga," replied Ballaban, his face coloring as deep as his hair. "But there was one thing I saw with a waking eye."

"And what was that?"

"That there was but one well of water in the town of Sfetigrade; the one in the citadel court. But another thing I didn't see, though I searched the place for it;--and that was a dog to throw into the well; or I would have thirsted the superst.i.tious garrison out. They have eaten up the last cur."

"Then the surrender must come soon," said the Aga.

"No," replied Ballaban, "for the voivode Moses Goleme came into the town as I was leaving, driving a flock of sheep which he had stolen from us; for he had cut off an entire train of provisions which had been sent to our camp from Adrianople."

"Then I must have you off at once on another errand, Captain. You see yonder line of mountains off to the northwest. It may be necessary to shift the war to that region for a while. Ivan Beg,[53] the brother-in-law of Scanderbeg, has raised a pack of wild fiends among those hills of his, and is driving out all our friends. Nothing can stand against him unless it be the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Yeni-Tscheri.

Scanderbeg may compel us to raise the siege of Sfetigrade, for he bleeds us daily like a leech. A diversion after Ivan Beg will at least be more honorable than a return to Adrianople. Now I would know exactly the pa.s.ses and best places for fortification in Ivan's country; and you, Captain, are the man to find them out. You should be off at once. Take your time and spy thoroughly, making a map and transmitting to me your notes. And while there feel the people. It is rumored that the young voivode, Amesa, is restless under the leadership of Scanderbeg. If a dissension could be created among these Arnaouts, it would be well. Amesa has a large personal following in that north country; for his castle is just on the border of it."

"But," replied Ballaban, "I must first pluck the beard of that cowardly Caraza-Bey!"

"No! I forbid it. Your blood is worth more in your own veins than anywhere else. I should not consent to your risking a drop of it in personal 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 learned of the feud, to look after certain turbulent Caramanians; and leaving behind him a wake of curses upon all Janizaries from the chief to the pot-scourers, he took his departure for the Asiatic provinces.