CHAPTER IV.

The company which Kabilovitsch and the children had joined was halted at the edge of the great camp. Other peasants and non-combatants crowded in from their desolated homes; but neither Milosch's face, nor Helena's, nor yet little Michael's, were among those they anxiously scanned. The command of King Vladislaus secured for the three favored refugees every comfort which the rude soldiers could furnish. The boy and girl were soon asleep by a fire, while the old man lay close beside them, that no one could approach without arousing him. He, however, could not sleep. On the one side was the noisy revelry of the victors; on the other, the darkness of the plain. Here and there were groups of soldiers, and beyond them an occasional gleam of the spear-head of some sentinel, who, saluting his comrade, turned at the end of his beat.

The dusky form of a huge man attracted Kabilovitsch's eye. As the stranger drew near, his long bear-skin cape terminating above in a rough and ungraceful hood, and his long pointed shoes with blocks of wood for their soles, indicated that he was some peasant. He seemed to be wandering about with no other aim than to keep himself warm. Yet Kabilovitsch noted that he lingered as he pa.s.sed by the various groups, as if to scan the faces of his fellow-sufferers.

"Heaven grant that all his kids be safe to-night!" muttered the old man.

As the walking figure pa.s.sed across the line of a f.a.got fire, he revealed a splendid form; too straight for one accustomed to bend at his daily toil.

"A mountaineer? a hunter?" thought Kabilovitsch, "for the field-tillers are all round of shoulder, and bow-backed. But no! His tread is too firm and heavy for that sort of life. One's limbs are springy, agile, who climbs the crags. A hunter will use the toes more in stepping."

Kabilovitsch's curiosity could not keep his eyes from growing heavy with the cold and the flicker of the fire light, when they were forced wide open again by the approach of the stranger. The old man felt, rather than saw, that he was being closely studied from behind the folds of the hood which the wanderer drew close over his face, to keep out the cutting wind which swept in gusts down from the mountains. He pa.s.sed very near, and was talking to himself, as is apt to be the custom of men who lead lonely lives.

"It is bitter cold," he said, with chattering teeth, "bitter cold, by the beard of Moses!"

The last words startled Kabilovitsch so that he gave a sudden motion.

The stranger noticed it and paused. Gazing intently upon the old man, who had now a.s.sumed a sitting posture, he addressed him--

"By the beard of Moses! it's an awful night, neighbor."

"Ay, by the beard of Moses! it is; and one could wear the beard of Aaron, too, with comfort--Aaron's beard was longer than Moses' beard; is not that what the priest says?" said Kabilovitsch, veiling his excitement under forced indifference of manner, at the same time making room for the visitor, who, without ceremony stretched himself by his side, bringing his face close to that of the old man, and glaring into it. Kabilovitsch returned his gaze with equal sharpness.

"What know you of the beard of Moses?" said the stranger. "Was it gray or black?"

"Black," said Kabilovitsch, studying the other's face with suspicion and surprise. "Black as an Albanian thunder cloud, and his eye was as undimmed by age as that of the eagle that flies over the lake of Ochrida."[14]

"You speak well," replied the stranger, pushing back his hood.

His face was ma.s.sive and strong. No peasant was he, but one born to command and accustomed to it.

"You are----Drakul?" asked the man.

"No."

"Harion?"

"No."

"Kabilovitsch?"

"Ay, and you?"

"Castriot."

Kabilovitsch sprang to his feet.

"Lie down! Lie down! Let me share your blanket," said the visitor.

"This air is too crisp and resonant for us to speak aloud in it; and waking ears at night-time are over quick to hear what does not concern them. We can m.u.f.fle our speech beneath the blanket."

Kabilovitsch felt the hesitation of reverence in a.s.suming a proximity of such intimacy with his guest; but also felt the authority of the command and the wisdom of the precaution. He obeyed.

"I feared that I should find no one who recognized our pa.s.sword. I must see General Hunyades to-night; yet must not approach his quarters. Can you get to his tent?"

"Readily," said Kabilovitsch. "During the day my little la.s.s yonder won the attention of King Vladislaus, and he gave me the pa.s.sword of the camp to-night for her safety. '_Christus natus est_'."

"You must go to him at once, and say that I would see him here. You will trust me to keep guard over these two kids while you are away? I will not wolf them."

"Heaven grant that you may shepherd all Albania,"--and the old man was off.

"I knew that the prodigal Prince George would come back some day,"

said he to himself. "Many a year have I kept my watch in the Pa.s.s, and among the mountains of Albania. And many a service have I rendered as a simple goatherd which I could not have done had I worn my country's colors anywhere except in my heart. And, 'by the beard of Moses!'

During some weeks now I have carried many a message, had some fighting and hard scratching which I did not understand, except that it was 'by the beard of Moses!' And now Moses has come; refused at last to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and will free his people. G.o.d will it! And George Castriot has lain under my blanket! I will hang that blanket in the church at Croia as an offering to the Holy Virgin.--But no, it belongs to the trooper. Heaven keep me discreet, or, for the joy of it, I cannot do my errand safely. I'll draw my hood close, lest the moon yonder should guess my secret."

Kabilovitsch was challenged at every turn as he wound between the hundreds of camp-fires and tents; but the magic words, "Christus natus est," opened the way.

A circle of splendid tents told him he drew near to headquarters. In the midst of them blazed an immense fire. Camp-tables, gleaming with tankards and goblets of silver, were ranged beneath gorgeous canopies of flaxen canvas, which were lined with blue and purple tapestries. A mult.i.tude of gaily dressed servitors thronged into and out of them.

Here was the royal splendor of Hungary and Poland; there the pavilion of the Despot of Servia; there the glittering cross of Rome; and, at the extreme end of this extemporized array of palatial and courtly pride, the more modest, but still rich, banner of the White Knight.

Kabilovitsch approached the latter.

"Your errand, man?" said the guard, holding his spear across the flapping doorway of the tent.

"Christus natus est!" was the response.

"That will do elsewhere, but not here," rejoined the guard.

"My business is solely with General Hunyades," said Kabilovitsch.

"It cannot be," said the spearman. "He has no business with any one but himself. If you are a shepherd of Bethlehem come to adore the Infant Jesu--as you look to be--you must wait until the morning."

"My message is as important to him as that of the angels on that blessed night," said the goatherd, making a deep obeisance and looking up to heaven as if in prayer, as he spoke.

"Then proclaim your message, old crook-staff! we have had glad tidings to-day, but can endure to hear more," said the guard, pushing him away.

"No ear on earth shall hear mine but the general's," cried the old man, raising his voice: "No! by the beard of Moses! it shall not."

"A strange swear that, old leather-skin! Did you keep your sheep in Midian, where Moses did, that you know he had a beard. Your cloak is ragged enough to have belonged to father Jethro; and I warrant it is as full of vermin as were those of the Egyptians after the plague that Moses sent on them. But the ten plagues take you! Get away!"

"No, by the beard of Moses!" shouted Kabilovitsch.

"Let him pa.s.s!" said a voice from deep within the tent.

"Let him pa.s.s!" said another nearer.

"Let him pa.s.s!" repeated one just inside the outer curtain.

The goatherd pa.s.sed between a line of sentinels, closely watched by each. The tent was a double one, composing a room or pavilion, enclosed by the great tent; so that there was a large s.p.a.ce around the private apartment of the general, allowing the sentinels to patrol entirely about it without pa.s.sing into the outer air.