"But the girl may be, if you were not. Is she your child?"

"Yes, my child, if heaven ever sent one to man."

"But, tell me," probed the general, "how did heaven send you the maiden? Did the mother bring her, or did the angels drop her at your door? For, if that girl be your child, heaven did not know you even by sight; since it put not a freckle of your dark skin upon her fair face, nor one of your bristles into her hair. The stars are not begotten of storm-clouds; nor do I think she is your daughter."

To this the old man replied, more to himself than to his interrogator, "If she is not mine by gift of nature, she is mine by gift of Him who is above nature."

"I will not steal your secret," said Hunyades. "Her name has excited my interest in her and her heaven-given or heaven-lent father. She needs better protection than you can give her in the camp. I will send her to headquarters."

"I would gratefully put her under your protection for a few days,"

said Kabilovitsch. "My duty takes me away from her for a while; dangerous duty, Sire, and if I should fall--"

"If Kabilovitsch falls, Hunyades will be as true father to the la.s.s.

Have you any special desire regarding her or yourself, my brave man?

You have but to name it."

"But one, Sire," replied Kabilovitsch. "That I may see her safely conditioned at once. For it may be that before the day dawns I shall be summoned. I serve a cause as mysterious as the Providence which watches over it."

"An Albanian mystery? They are generally as inscrutable as a thunder cloud; but are revealed when its lightning strikes!" replied Hunyades, dismissing the old man, accompanied by two guards, who were commissioned to obey implicitly any orders the herdsman might give regarding the party of refugees by his camp-fire.

CHAPTER VII.

The Christian host prolonged the festival of the Nativity from day to day, until the mustering forces of the Ottomans summoned them from dangerous inactivity again to the march and the battle. The latter they found at Mount Cun.o.bizza, where the enemy had ma.s.sed an enormous force. The Christian army, with its splendid corps of Hungary, Poland, Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia, Italy and Germany, was not a more magnificent array than that of their Moslem opponents. For the most part of the day the field was equally held, but in the afternoon the Turkish left seemed to have become inspired with a strange fury. The Janizaries, at the time renowned as the best disciplined and most desperate foot-soldiers in the world, were rivalled in celerity and intrepidity, in skilful manoeuvring and the tremendous momentum with which they struck the foe, by other Moslem corps; such as the squadrons of cavalry collected from distant military provinces, each under its Spahi or fief-holder; and the irregular Bashi-Bazouks, who seemed to have sprung from the ground in orderly array. Their diverse accoutrements, complexions, and movements suggested the hundred arms of some martial Briareus, all animated by a single brain. The war cry of "The Prophet!" was mingled with that of "Iscanderbeg!" In the thickest of the fight appeared the gigantic form of the circ.u.mcised Albanian, his gaudy armor flashing with jewels,[17] his right arm bared to the shoulder, his cimeter glancing as the lightning. The Italian legions opposite him, upon the Christian left, were hurled back again and again from their onslaught, and were pressed mile after mile from the original battle site. Hunyades inflicted a compensatory punishment upon the Moslem left, shattering its depleted ranks as a battering ram crashes through the tottering walls of a citadel. The chief of the Christians saw clearly Scanderbeg's plan[18] to leave the victory in his hands, and at the opportune moment he wheeled his squadrons to the a.s.sistance of King Vladislaus, thus combining in overwhelming odds against the enemy's centre, which Scanderbeg had effectually drained of its proper strength. As soon, however, as it was evident that the Christians were the victors, Scanderbeg, by superb generalship, interposed the Janizaries between the enemy and the turbaned heads that, but for this, were being whirled in full flight from the field. The rout was changed into orderly retreat.

Hunyades found it impossible to press the pursuit, and muttered,

"Scanderbeg commands both our armies to-day. We can only take what he is minded to give."

At length night looked down upon the camps. Few tents were erected.

Hunyades sat for hours beneath a tree, waiting for he knew not what developments. On the Turkish side even the Beyler Beys, the highest commanders, were content to stretch their limbs with no other canopy than the three horse-tails at the spear-head, the symbol of their rank and authority. Far in the rear were the few pavilions of the suite of the Grand Vizier, who represented the absent Sultan Amurath. Late into the night the Vizier sat in counsel with the Sultan's Reis Effendi or chief secretary, to whom was entrusted the seal of the empire. He was enstamping the many despatches which fleetest hors.e.m.e.n carried to distant Spahis, summoning them with their reserves to rally for the defence of Adrianople.

Just before the dawn the secretary was left alone. Even he, and, in his person, the empire, must catch an hour's sleep before the exciting and exacting duties of the new day. He reclined among his papers. But a summons awakened him: the messenger announcing Scanderbeg. The guards withdrew to a respectful distance from the outside of the tent.

"Do not rise," said the general, gently pressing the secretary back to his reclining posture. "I only need the imperial seal to this order."

The secretary scanned the paper with incredulous eyes. It was a firman, or decree of the Sultan, pa.s.sing the government of Albania from General Sebaly to Scanderbeg, with absolute powers, and ordering the commandant of the strong fortress of Croia to place all its armament and that of adjacent strongholds in Scanderbeg's hand as the viceroy of the Sultan. As the secretary lifted his face to utter an inquiry for the relief of his amazement, knowing that the Sultan, then absent in Asia, could not have ordered such a doc.u.ment, the strong hand of Scanderbeg gripped his throat, and his poniard threatened his heart.

"The mark!" whispered the a.s.sailant.

The terrified man tremblingly reached the seal, and pressed it against the wax. The weapon then did its work, and so suddenly that the secretary had no time for even an outcry. Then silently, so that the guards, who were but a few paces distant, heard no commotion, he laid the lifeless form on the divan, and covered it with the embroidered cloak it had worn when living.[19]

Pa.s.sing out, Scanderbeg gave orders that the tent should not be entered by the guards until morning, that the secretary might rest. He gave the pa.s.sword, "The Kaaba," as sharply as if his lips would take vengeance on the once sacred, but now hated sound. His military staff joined him at a little distance. Vaulting into the saddle he led the way toward the north. At the edge of the camp by a rude bridge he halted, and said to his attendants,

"I meet at this point the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, whose staff will be my escort to his camp. The Padishah's cause needs closest conference of all the commanders; for treason is abroad. Ah! I hear the escort.

Return to quarters, gentlemen!"

Riding forward alone in the direction of the noise, he cried, "Who comes?"

"The Kaaba at Mecca," was the response.

"Well, if the Kaaba takes the trouble to come to me it is a good omen, by the beard of Moses!"

"By the beard of Moses!" murmured a group of hors.e.m.e.n, bowing their turbaned heads in the first gray light of the approaching day. The cavalcade closed around the fugitive chieftain, and moved along in silence, except to respond to the sentinels. As they pa.s.sed the extreme picket of the Turks they halted. A wardrobe had been secreted in a cave beyond a copse near the road. Dismounting, the men exchanged their turbans for caps of wolf or beaver skin. Their gaily trimmed jackets, such as were worn by the Turkish foot-soldiers, gave place to short fur sacks. Their flowing, bag-bottomed trousers were kicked off, leaving abbreviated breeches of leather. In a few moments the splendidly uniformed suite of a Moslem bey was transformed into a rough, but exceedingly unique-looking, band of Albanian guerillas.

Scanderbeg a.s.sumed a helmet, the summit of which carried as a device the head and shoulders of a goat--since the times of Alexander the Great the symbol of the powers in, or bordering upon, Macedonia. The Turkish uniforms were bundled upon the cruppers for future use.

The men stood for a moment, each by the side of his horse. At a motion of the officer in charge they gave the salute; touching their bared foreheads, and bowing to the ground. The officer then approached Scanderbeg, and, presenting his sword, said:

"Sire! to thee, as the son of our Duke John, we give our swords together with our hearts and our lives." Instantly every sword was laid upon the ground; and the crisp air rattled with the cry, "Long live Duke George! A Castriot forever!"

Scanderbeg gazed silently for a moment upon the faithful group. There was no doubt of their loyalty: for they had proved it by an adventure of rare daring in penetrating the Turkish camp. The face of the great general, usually masking so completely his strongest feelings, lost now its rigidity. His eyes were moist; his lips trembled; every lineament was eloquent with the emotion he could neither conceal nor tell in words. After a few moments' impressive silence, he returned the sword to the officer, and, pointing westward, cried,

"Forward to Albania!"

FOOTNOTES:

[17] The old chronicles admit, as one weakness of Scanderbeg, a fondness for personal decoration.

[18] The author adds these lines to the meagre details of this battle as known, for the purpose of accounting for its immediate issue, and for the subsequent events.

[19] Some historians represent Scanderbeg as having had Albanian accomplices in this murder.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Thank Heaven! the plan did not fail," said the chief officer, riding by the side of the fugitive general.

"In no particular has it failed, Colonel," replied Scanderbeg. "And for this every praise is due your wise precautions. I have never known better work of brain or nerve. With such grand soldiers as you and your men, I fear nothing for Albania. But your name, Colonel?"

"Moses Goleme," replied the officer courteously.

Scanderbeg reined his horse, and gave him his hand heartily. "A man as grand as he is brave! And do I really look into the face of him whom I was to have sought out in Dibria, that I might tell him his words had been to me like a voice from heaven? Heaven reward you, good Moses!

But you must vow to stand by me yet as patiently as you have done hitherto--during my apostasy. I shall need your charity still; for I am but a returning prodigal; a half-Christian; a man of strange ways; of a temper which I understand not myself, and which will disappoint you. Pledge me that you will be my good angel. Counsel me frankly, fearlessly, as a man should always counsel a man. Rebuke me freely: but bear with me in your heart, as you would with a child."

"I may not advise the most capable general in the world," replied Moses Goleme. "I vow to obey. Let that be my part. As I have already imperilled my estates by open opposition to the Turkish rule, and given my life to the liberty of my country, so I offer all to thee, Sire, the sovereign of my heart, until you shall be acknowledged the sovereign of Albania, and a new empire be founded on the east of the Adriatic which shall take the place of the decaying powers of Italy on the west."

"The task your patriotism proposes is vast," replied Scanderbeg; "too vast for one man and one lifetime."

"Too great for any but the great Castriot!" was the answer, evidently as honest as it was reverent. "But you do me too much honor, General, in praising my plan of meeting you. I was ably seconded by my men, and especially by two of them. One of them was wounded."

"I trust you speak not of a brave fellow who brought me the time and place of the rendezvous: for I never saw such strength and daring in my life."

"The same, I fear," said Moses. "A Servian, whom I had not known before yesterday. But he was boiling over with rage for the slaughter of his family, and commended to me by our most trusted scout."