The Captain of the Janizaries Part 15

"You will pardon me, Captain," continued the soldier. "You are welcome back, for we are in better heart when you are with us."

"Thanks, good fellow," said Constantine, "but I have not returned yet--at least my return must not be known to the troops until the morning. We will take your tongue out if you tell any one I am back without bidding."

The man gave a quick glance as if perplexed. Constantine's hand was upon his dagger. But the soldier's doubt was relieved as he seemed to be confident of the familiar form of his captain; and he explained his apparent suspicion by quickly adding--

"You speak the Servian excellent well, Captain."

"One must get used to it, and every other tongue, in commanding such a mixed crew as the Sultan gathers into his army," said Constantine.

"You Janizaries are wonderful men," replied the soldier. "You know all languages. There was the little Aga I once"--

"No matter about that now," said Constantine, interrupting him. "I want you for a special duty. Can I trust you to do me an errand? If you do it well you will be glad of it hereafter."

"Ay, ay, Sire! with my life; and my lips as mute as the horse's."

"I captured a girl last night. She knows something I would find out by close questioning. I must have her brought to the rear."

"Ay! the girl Koremi holds?"

"Yes, tell Koremi to loiter a little with her until I come up. We must not go far from this defile before I find out what she knows, if I have to discover it with my dagger in her heart; for there are traitors among us. Last night there were Arnaouts dressed as Moslems in the fight."

"That I know," said the soldier, "for I tripped over a fellow myself, hiding in the bushes, who swore at me in as good round Arnaout tongue as they speak in h.e.l.l. I ran him through and found a Giaour corslet under his jacket. If there are traitors among us we will broil them over our first camp-fire, that they may scent h.e.l.l before they get there."

"You see then why I must find out what I can at once," said the a.s.sumed captain. "Some of our men are in league with the Arnaouts. I can find out from that girl every one of them. Impress this upon Koremi; and if he hesitates to let the girl drift to the rear, you can tell him that he will be suspected of being in league with the rascals."

Constantine took the ropes which held the horses the man was leading; and, bidding him to haste, but be cautious that no one but Koremi should know the message, followed slowly behind.

It was nearly an hour later when the form of the soldier appeared in the road just before him.

"Right!" said Constantine.

"Right!" was the response, first to the a.s.sumed captain, then repeated to some one behind him. Two other forms appeared; one of them a woman.

Antic.i.p.ating his orders, the second trooper untied a rope from about his own waist, and handed it, together with the rein of the horse the woman rode, to Constantine. Then, making a low obeisance, the two troopers withdrew a little distance to the rear.

The other end of the rope which Constantine held was about the waist of the captive. Drawing the led horse close to his own, and dropping his turban more over his face, Constantine closely scrutinized the features of the woman. She was Morsinia. It was difficult for him to repress the excitement and delay the revelation of his true person, but the hazard of the least cry of surprise or recognition on her part nerved him to coolness.

"Where are you taking me? If you have the courage, kill me," said the girl.

Constantine replied only by whistling a s.n.a.t.c.h of an Albanian air.

"Are you an Albanian renegade?" continued the girl. "Could you not be content to sell yourself to fight for the Turk against other enemies, but must be a double traitor, and kill and kidnap your own kind?"

The whistling continued. But as the soldiers were a little removed, he said in a low voice, disguising his natural tones:

"I am an Albanian, and if you will not speak, but only obey, I can save you."

"Jesu grant you are true!" was the tremulous response.

"This will prove it," muttered he, reaching toward her, and with his knife cutting a broad strap which bound her limbs to the saddle. "If tied elsewhere, here is the knife."

The way, which had been narrowed by the projection of the mountains on either side, now widened a little. Constantine knew the spot well.

There had once been a mill and peasant's hut there, and now quite a plat of gra.s.s was growing from the soft soil. The eye could not discern it, for the darkness was rayless. But Constantine remembered the gra.s.sy stretch was just round the point of rock they were pa.s.sing.

The horses were walking slowly, being allowed by their riders to pick their way along the stony road. As they turned the rock a strong wind rushed through the ravine, wailing a requiem over the now deserted settlement and the dead leaves of last year, which it whirled in eddies; and singing a lullaby through the trees to the new-born leaves of the spring time, which were rocked on the cradling branches. This, together with the clatter of the horses' feet before and behind them, enabled Constantine to draw the captive's horse and his own upon the soft turf without being heard. Halting them at a few yards' distance, they allowed the men who had followed them to pa.s.s by, and sat in silence until the lessening sound told them that the soldiers had made another turn in the road. Then, wheeling the horses, Constantine gave loose rein back over the track they had come. After a short ride he dismounted, and closely examining the way, led the horses to one side, up a path, and down again to a little plateau, perhaps a furlong from the main road, where a grazing patch would keep them from being betrayed by the neighing. He dreaded the fatigue of further journey to his comrade; for even his own ordinarily tireless frame was beginning to feel the drain of the terrible night and day they had pa.s.sed through.

Constantine threw off his turban and stretched his strong arms to lift the captive from her horse, exclaiming with delight in his own familiar tones,--

"I am no Albanian, dear Morsinia, but--"

"Constantine!" she cried.

He laid an almost lifeless form upon the turf, for the shock of the revelation had been too much for her jaded nerves and excited brain.

Unrolling the cloth of his turban he spread it over her person, while his own breast was her pillow. Slowly she recovered strength and self-command.

In a few words the mutual stories of the hours of their separation were told. Morsinia had been treated with exceeding kindness and respect, as the captive of the chief officer of the expedition, who seemed to be a person of some distinction, though she had not seen him. Constantine insisted upon his companion's seeking sleep, but by his inquiries, did as much as her own thoughts to keep her awake; so that at the dawn they confessed that the eyes of neither had been closed. The necessity of procuring food led them to start at daybreak for the nearest settlement. They descended to the road and retraced the course of the preceding night; for it was useless to return to the wrecked hamlet. They had gone but a short distance when they heard the sound of a body of cavalry directly in front of them, riding rapidly up the valley. There was no time to avoid the approaching riders either by flight or concealment. Constantine said hastily,

"Remember, if they are Turks, I too am a Turk, and you are my captive.

If they are friends, all is well. Stay where you are, and I will ride forward to meet them."

CHAPTER XIX.

The newcomers proved to be a detachment of Albanians. Constantine was instantly captured notwithstanding his declaration that his dress was only a.s.sumed.

"Aha! you are a Christian now in a Turk's skin, are you? But yesterday you were a Turk in a Christian's feathers," was the taunt with which he was greeted by one of the foremost riders, who continued his bantering. "Your face is honest, if your heart is not, you Moslem devil; for your ugly features will not lie though your tongue does. I would know that square jaw and red head equally well now, were it under the tiara of the pope instead of under the turban; and I would cut your throat if you carried St. Peter's key in your girdle; you change-skinned lizard!"

"Who is he?" cried the hors.e.m.e.n, gathering about.

"Why! the very knave who escaped us about sundown yesterday, after spying our camp; and he has the impudence to ask us to take him prisoner that he may spy us again."

"Let us hamstring him!" cried another, "and, unless St. Christopher has turned Moslem in paradise and helps the rascal, he will find no legs to run away with again."

"Set him up for a mark when we halt," proposed a third. "A ducat to him whose arrow can split his ear without tearing the cheek at forty paces!"

Constantine was helpless as they adjusted a halter about his neck, with which to lead him at the side of a horseman, the b.u.t.t of the scurrilous wit and sharper spear-points of his half mad and half merry captors.

They had gone but a few paces when the colonel commanding the detachment made his way through the troopers to the front. He was a venerable man with long flowing white beard. His bodily strength seemed to come solely from the vitality of nerve and the dominance of his spirit; for he was well worn with years.

"What is this noise about?" he asked sternly.

Before any could reply he stared with a moment's incredulity and wonder at Constantine, who relieved his doubts by recognizing him.

"Colonel Kabilovitsch!" cried he, doffing his turban as if it had been a Christian cap.[48] "Your men are playful fellows, as frolicksome as a cat with a mole."

"But why are you here, my boy? and why this disguise?" interrupted Kabilovitsch.