"I deny nothing. Nor need I confess anything, since you say I am known."

"Shall we be friends?" asked Amesa, cautiously lowering his arm.

"You made war, and can withdraw its declaration, or take the consequences," was the reply.

The two men put up their weapons.

"So good a soldier as you are should not be here guarding a girl,"

said Amesa.

"Guarding a girl?" said the man in amazement, but, recollecting himself, added, "And why not guard a girl?"

"Come," replied Amesa, "you and I can serve each other. You can do that for me which no other man can; and I can give to you more gold than any other Albanian can."

"And when you are king of Albania, Prince Amesa, you can reward me with high appointment," said the stranger with a slight sneer, which, however, Amesa did not notice, at the moment thinking of what the stargeshina had said of the man's interest in the movement against his uncle's leadership.

"You have but to ask your reward when that event comes," he replied.

"I will swear to serve Amesa against Scanderbeg to the death," said the man offering his hand.

"You know the girl's true story?" asked Amesa.

"Of course," was the cautious reply. "But of that I may not speak a word. I can leave his service whose man you say I am, but I cannot betray anything he may have told me. As you know the girl's story it is needless to tempt me to divulge it," added he, with shrewd non-committal of himself to any information that the other might recognize as erroneous.

"You speak n.o.bly for a Servian," said the voivode.

"How do you know I am a Servian?" asked the stranger.

"Partly from your accent. You have not got our pure Albanian tongue, though it is now six years you have been talking it. And then Arnaud--Colonel Kabilovitsch--came back as a Servian. Is it not so?"

asked Amesa, noticing the surprised look which the mention of Kabilovitsch's name brought to the man's face.

For a while the stranger was lost in thought; but with an effort throwing off a sort of reverie, he said:

"Pardon my silence. I have been thinking of your proposal. May I follow you to the village after a little? I would think over how best I can meet your proposition, my Prince Amesa."

"I will await you at the konak. But first let us swear friendship!"

said the voivode.

"Heartily!" was the response. "With Amesa as against Scanderbeg."

"You will induce the girl to go with me to my castle. She will fare better there than here, playing Dodola to these ignorant peasants."

"It is agreed."

As Amesa disappeared, the man sat down upon a huge root of a tree, which for lack of earth had twined itself over the rock. He buried his face in his hands--

"Strange! strange! is all this. Kabilovitsch? the girl? Not my little playmate on the Balkans--sweet faced Morsinia. The Dodola here is not she. If Uncle Kabilovitsch is Colonel Kabilovitsch, or this Arnaud he speaks of, then this treacherous Amesa is on the wrong track. Can it be that Constantine--dear little Constantine--is in Albania, and that I am mistaken for him? No, this is impossible. But still I must be wary, and not do that which would harm a golden hair of Morsinia's head, if she be living, or Constantine's, or Uncle Kabilovitsch's.

There's some mystery here. Only one thing is certain--Amesa mistakes this pretty impudent Dodola girl for somebody else. To get her off with him may serve that somebody else: for the voivode is a villain: that much is sure. The cursed Giaour serpent! I will help him to get this saucy belle of the hamlet, and so save somebody else, whoever she may be who is the game for which he lays his snares."

An hour later the Dodola, whose name was Elissa, pa.s.sed Amesa and blushed deeply.

The family at whose house the girl was living made no objection to Amesa's request that she should be transferred to the protection of the voivode. The elders of the village acquiesced; for, said one,

"We do not know who she is, and may get into difficulty through harboring her."

Another averred his belief that she was possessed of the evil eye; for he had observed her staring at the olive tree the day before it was struck by lightning; and he declared that half the young men of the hamlet were bewitched with her.

A sharp-tongued dame remarked that some of the older men would rather listen to the merry tattle of the sprite than to the most serious and wholesome counsel of their own wives.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Still noted by travellers on this river.

[57] An Albanian t.i.tle of Elijah.

[58] The Albanians regard Mary as the sender of lightning.

[59] Tsigani; a word by which Slavic people designate the gypsies, who are supposed by them to have come from India in the time of Tamerlane.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Do you know the mind of Gauton who commands at the citadel in Sfetigrade?" asked Amesa of his new confederate, as they parted.

"I have talked with him," replied the man. "He is very cautious."

"Discover his opinion on the matter of my advancement," said Amesa.

"Send him some gift," suggested the man, "I will take it to him. He is very fond of dogs, and I learn that he has just lost a valuable mastiff. Could you replace it from your kennels at the castle?"

"No, but I have a greyhound, of straight breed since his ancestors came out of the ark. His jaws are as slender as a heron's beak: chest deep as a lion's: belly thin as a weasel's: a double span of my arms from tip to tail. To-morrow night meet me at the castle. Should I not have arrived, this will give you admission," presenting him with a small knife, on the bone handle of which was a rude carving of the crest of Amesa. "Give it to the warden. He will recognize it."

Long before the arrival of Amesa and Drakul at the castle in company with Elissa, the stranger, whom the reader will recognize as Captain Ballaban dressed as an Albanian peasant, had been admitted. He had wandered about the court, mounted the parapet, inspected the draw-bridge and portcullis, clambered down and up again the almost precipitous scarp of the rock, and asked a hundred questions of the servants regarding the paths by which the castle was approached. The old warden entertained him with stories of Amesa's early life, his acquisition of the estate, and his prowess in battle; in all of which, while the warden intended only the praise of his master, he discovered to the attentive listener all the weaknesses of the voivode's character.

Upon Amesa's arrival late in the day, Ballaban avoided much intercourse with him, except in relation to the selection of the dog.

To Elissa he gave a few words of advice, to the effect that she was now the object of the young lord's adoration; and that, in order to secure her advantage, she should make as much as possible a mystery of her previous life. With this council--which was as much as he dared to venture upon in his own ignorance of the exact part he was playing--Ballaban departed, leading a magnificent hound in leash. A little way from the castle he sat down, and drawing from his breast a roll of paper, added certain lines and comments, as he muttered to himself,--

"I have made neater drawings than this for old Bestorf in the school of the Yeni-Tscheri, but none that will please the Aga more. There is not a goat path on the borders that I have not got. A sudden movement of our armies, occupying ground here and here and here, where I have blazed the trees, would hold this country against Ivan Beg and Scanderbeg. And with this black-hearted traitor, Amesa, in my fingers!--Well! Let's see! I will force him into open rebellion against Scanderbeg, unless he is deeper witted than he seems. But which plan would be best in the long run?--to stir up a feud between him and Scanderbeg, and let them cut each other's throats? Or, inveigle him to open alliance with our side, under promise of being made king of Albania? That last would settle all the Moslem trouble with these Giaours. And it could be done. The Padishah offered Scanderbeg the country on condition of paying a nominal tribute, and would offer the same to Amesa. And Amesa would take it, though he had to become Moslem. I will leave these propositions with the Aga," said he, folding up the papers, and putting them back into his bosom. "In either case I shall keep my vow with Amesa to help him against Scanderbeg. But the devil help them both!"

Whistling a s.n.a.t.c.h of a rude tune, part of which belonged to an Albanian religious hymn he had heard in his rambles, and part to a Turkish love song--swinging his long arms, and striding as far at each step as his short legs would allow him, he went down the mountain.

CHAPTER XXV.