No habitue of the court knew less of this gossip than Morsinia herself; nor did she suspect any unusual attention paid her by the emperor to be other than an expression of regard for Castriot, whose ward she was known to be. Or if, when they were alone, his manner betrayed a fondness, she attributed it to his natural kindliness of disposition, or to that desire for recreation which persons in middle life, burdened with cares, find in the society of the young and beautiful; for no purpose of modesty could hide from Morsinia the knowledge which her mirror revealed. She had, too, the highest respect for the piety of the emperor; the deepest sympathy with him in his distress for the evils which were swarming about his realm; and a true admiration for the courage of heart with which he bore up against them. It was therefore with a commingling of religious, patriotic, and personal interest that she gave herself up to his entertainment whenever he sought her society. That she might understand him the better, and be able to converse with him, she learned from Phranza much of the history of recent movements, both without and within the empire. So expert had she become in these matters that the chamberlain playfully called her his prime minister.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

One evening the lower Bosphorus and the Golden Horn were alive with barges and skiffs, which cut the glowing water with their spray-plumed prows and flashing blades. Thus the tired day toilers were accustomed to seek rest, and the idlers of fashion endeavored to quicken their blood in the cool wind which, from the heights of the Phrygian Olympus, poured across the sea of Marmora. The Emperor, attended by one of his favorite pages, appeared upon the rocky slope which is now known as Seraglio Point. A number of boats, containing the ladies and gentlemen of the court, drew near to the sh.o.r.e. It was the custom of his majesty to accept the brief hospitality of one and another of these parties, and for the others to keep company with him; so that the evening sail was not unlike a saloon reception upon the water. The dais of Phranza's boat was, on the evening to which we refer, occupied by Morsinia alone; and, as the rowers raised the oars in salute of his majesty, he waved his hand playfully to the others, saying:

"The chamberlain is so occupied to-day that he has no time to attend to his own household. I will take his place, with the permission of the dove of Albania."

"Your Majesty needs rest," said Morsinia, making place for him at her side on the dais, which filled the stern of the barge, and over which hung a silken awning. "Your face, Sire, betokens too much thought to-day."

Throwing himself down, he replied lazily: "I would that our boat were seized by some sea sprite, and borne swift as the lightnings to where the sun yonder is making his rest, beyond the h.e.l.lespont, beyond the pillars of Hercules, beyond the world! But you shall be my sprite for the hour. Your conversation, so different to that of the court, your charming Arnaout accent, and thoughts as natural as your mountain flowers, always lead me away from myself."

"I thank heaven, Sire, if Jesu gives to me that holy ministry,"

replied she blushing deeply and diverting the conversation. "But why are you so sad when everything is so beautiful about us? Is it right to carry always the burden of empire upon your heart?"

"Alas!" replied he, "I must carry the burden while I can, for the time may not be far distant when I shall have no empire to burden me.

Events are untoward. While Sultan Amurath lives our treaty will prevent any attack upon the city. But if another should direct the Moslem affairs, our walls yonder would soon shake with the a.s.sault of the enemy of Christendom. Nothing but the union of the Christian powers can save us."

"And you have the union with Rome?" suggested Morsinia.

"A union of shadows to withstand an avalanche," replied the Emperor.

"The Pope is impotent. He can only promise a score of galleys and his good offices with the powers. At the same time our monks have almost raised an insurrection against the throne for listening to the proposition of alliance to which my lamented brother subscribed during the last days of his reign."

"But G.o.d," replied Morsinia, "is wiser than we, and will not allow the throne of the righteous to be shaken. I have looked to-day at the marvellous dome of St. Sophia. As I gazed into its mighty vault, and thought of the great weight of the stones which made it, I looked about to see upon what it rested. The light columns and walls, far spread, seemed all insufficient to support it. As I stood looking, I was at first so filled with fear that I dared not linger. But then I remembered that a great architect had made it; and that so it had stood for many centuries, and had trembled with songs of praise from millions upon millions of worshippers who in all these generations have gathered under it. Then I stood as quietly beneath it as I am now under the great vault of the sky. And surely, Sire, this Christian empire was founded in deeper wisdom than that of the architect. Are not the pillars of G.o.d's promises its sure support? Have not holy men said that so long as the face of Jesu[67] looks down from above the great altar, the sceptre shall not depart from him who worships before it?"

"But," said Palaelogus, "G.o.d rejects His people for their sins. The empire's misfortunes have not been greater than its crimes. As the rising mists return in rain, so the sins of Constantinople, rising for centuries, will return with storms of righteous retribution. And I fear it will be in our day; for the clouds hang low, and mutter ominously, and there is no bright spot within the horizon."

"Say not so, my Emperor!" cried Morsinia earnestly. "A breath of wind is now scattering yonder cloud over Olympus; and the lightest moving of G.o.d's will can do more. Do you not remember the words of a holy father, which I have often heard one of our Latin priests repeat to those fearful because of their past lives;--'Beware lest thou carry compunctions for the past after thou hast repented and prayed. That is to doubt G.o.d's grace.' But I am a child, Sire, and should not speak thus to the Emperor."

"A child?" said his majesty, gazing upon her superb form and strong womanly features. "Well! a child can see as far into the sky as the most learned and venerable; and your faith, my child, rests me more than all the earth-drawn a.s.surances of my counsellors. Where have you learned so to trust? I would willingly spend my days in the convent of Athos or Monastir to learn it! But I fear me the holy monks have it not of so strong and serene a sort as yours."

"I have learned it, Sire, as my heart has read it from my own life. My years are scarcely more numerous than my rescues have been, when to human sight there was no escape from death, or what I dreaded worse than death. I have learned to hold a hand that I see not; and it has never failed. Nor will it fail the anointed of the Lord; for such thou art. But see! yonder comes my brother Constantine. I know him from his rowing. They who learn the oars on mountain lakes never get the stroke they have who learn it at the sea."

The Emperor turning in the direction indicated, frowned, and said angrily,

"Your brother has forgotten the regulations, and is in danger of discipline for rowing within the lines allowed only to the court."

The boat came nearer; not steadily, but turning to right and left, stopping and starting as if directed by something at a distance which the rower was watching.

The Emperor's attention was turned almost at the same instant to a light boat shooting toward them from an opposite direction. The occupant of this was a monk. His black locks, mingled with his black beard, gave a wildness to his appearance, which was increased by the excited and rapid manner of his propelling the craft.

"Something unusual has occurred, or they would wait the finding of another messenger than he," said the Emperor.

The monk's boat glided swiftly. When within a few yards of the barge in which the Emperor was the man stood up, his eyes flashing, and his whole att.i.tude that of some vengeful fiend. "Hold!" shouted the rowers of the royal barge, endeavoring to turn the craft so as to avoid a collision.

"The man is crazed!" said Morsinia.

But at the instant when the two boats would have come together, another, that of Constantine, shot between them and received the blow.

Its thin sides were broken by the shock.

The monk who had come to the very prow, and drawn a knife from his bosom, cried out, "To the devil with the Prince of the Azymites."[68]

He leaped upon Constantine's boat in order to reach that containing the Emperor: but was caught in the strong arms of Constantine who fell with him into the water. The monk gripped with his antagonist so that they sank together. In a few seconds, however, Constantine emerged. A thin streamer of blood floated from him. He was drawn upon the barge.

Morsinia's hand tore off the loose gold-laced jacket, and found the wound to be a deep, but not dangerous flesh cut across the shoulder.

It was several moments before the monk appeared. He gasped and sank again forever.

Constantine stated that the day before, while aiding in the erection of a platform for some small culverin that Urban had cast, the latter spoke to him of the marvellous mosaic ornamentation in the vestibule of the little church just beyond the walls, and took him thither. The monk was there, and pa.s.sed in and out, evidently demented, and muttering to himself curses upon the Latinizers. Constantine thought little of this at the time; for a mad monk was not an uncommon sight in the city. But observing the same man at the quay hiring a boat, he determined to watch him. Hence the sequel.

FOOTNOTES:

[67] A face of Christ was wrought in mosaic in the wall above the chancel of St. Sophia. The Turks still have a traditional saying that the Christian shall not again possess Constantinople until the face of Jesus appears visibly in St. Sophia. At the time of its capture by the Moslems this picture of Christ was painted over. It is now again dimly discerned through the fading and scaling paint.

[68] The "Azymites" were those who used unleavened bread in the sacrament, and at the time of which we are writing the word was used among the Greeks as a term of reproach to the Latinizers, that is, those who favored union with the Latin Church.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

The members of Phranza's family were dining, as was their custom on pleasant days, under the great fig tree in the garden; a favorite spot with the chamberlain when allowed that privacy of life and domestic retirement which were seldom enjoyed by one whose duty it was to show the courtesies of the empire to amba.s.sadors and distinguished visitors from the ends of the earth.

"I would willingly exchange conditions with old Guerko, the gate keeper, to-day," said Phranza, pushing from him the untasted viands.

"The gate-keeper of an empire has less liberty and rest."

"What new burden has the council put upon you, my lord?" said his wife.

"Remember that your little prime minister will help you," interposed Morsinia playfully.

Phranza glanced with a kindly but troubled look at her----

"The wheels of the public good grind up the hearts of individuals remorselessly," continued the good man. "Here am I with a spouse as fair as Juno; yet I must leave her for months, and maybe years, that I may seek a spouse for the Emperor. I am to make a tour of all Christian courts; sampling delicate bits of female loveliness, and weighing paternal purses. But sacred policy takes the place of holy matrimony among the great. An emperor and empress are not to be man and wife, but only the welding points of two kingdoms, though their hearts are burned and crushed in the nuptials. I had hoped that his majesty would a.s.sert his sovereignty sufficiently to declare that, in this matter, he would exercise the liberty which the commonest boor possesses, and choose who should share his couch, and be the mother of his children. But the very day after his escape from the mad monk, he put the keeping of his royal heart into the hands of his ministers.

The shock of the attempt upon his life, or something else (glancing at Morsinia), seems to have turned his head with fear for the succession.

So, to-morrow I sail to the Euxine to inspect the Circa.s.sian beauties, who are said to bloom along its eastern sh.o.r.e. But my dear wife will be consoled for my absence by the return of our nephew Alexis, who, I learn from my letters, is already at Athens, having wearied of his sojourn among the Italians, and will be with you before many days.

Heaven grant that he has not become tainted with the vices of the Italians, which are even worse than those of the Byzantines. I trust he will find his aunt's care, and the sisterly offices of our Albanian daughter, more potently helpful than my counsel would have been."

The magnificent retinue, the splendid galleys, the untold treasures sc.r.a.ped from the bottom of the imperial coffers, with which, on the following day, the chamberlain sailed away through the Bosphorus to the Euxine, were but poor compensation to his loving household for his prolonged absence. Nor was his place adequately filled by Alexis with his fine form and western elegance of manners. In one respect Phranza's wish was met; for if the care of his aunt was not appreciated by the young man, the sisterly offices of the fair Albanian were.

Morsinia's respect for the absent Phranza led her to allow more attention from Alexis than her heart, or even her judgment, would have suggested. The young n.o.bleman soon entangled himself in the web of her unconscious fascination. It was not until with pa.s.sionate ardor he told his love, that Morsinia realized her fatal power over him. But with a true woman's frankness and firmness, she endeavored to dispel the illusion his ardent fancy had created.

"If I have not yet won you," cried the impetuous youth, "do not tell me that my suit is hopeless. It was folly in me to dream that you would see in me anything worthy of your love, so soon as your transcendent beauty of face and soul made me feel that you were all worthy of mine. Let me prove myself by months or years of devotion, if you will. If I do not now merit your esteem, surely the charm of daily looking upon you will make me better; the sweetness of your spirit will change mine; then as you see in me some impression of your own goodness, you will not scorn and repel me. I beg that you will make of me what you will, and love me as you can. I am not harder than the marble of which Pygmalion made the statue he loved. Mould me, Morsinia!"

"It is not that you are not worthy of me, Alexis. The nephew of Phranza need not humiliate himself at the feet of any king's daughter.

But--but--it may not be! It cannot be!" and, gently releasing the hand she had allowed him to seize, she withdrew to her own chamber.

Alexis stood for a moment as if stupefied with his disappointment.