The Captain of the Janizaries Part 38

He was losing his ambition for distant service, and found himself often loitering in the vicinity of the Phranza palace.

This feeling which, perhaps, is experienced by most men, at least once in life, as the spell of a fair face is thrown over them, was a.s.sociated with a deeper and more serious one in Captain Ballaban.

From the day of her capture until now he had felt almost confident of her ident.i.ty with his little playmate in the mountain home. She thus linked together his earliest and later life; and, as he thought of her, he thought of the contrast in himself then and now. The things he used to muse about when a child, his feelings then, his purposes, his religious faith, all came back to him, and with a strange strength and fascination. He began to realize that, though he was an enthusiast for both the Moslem belief and the service of the Ottoman, yet he had become such, not in his own free choice, but by the overpowering will of others. At heart he rebelled, while he could not say that he had come to disbelieve a word of the Koran, and was not willing to harbor a purpose against the sovereignty of the Padishah. Still he was compelled to confess to himself that, if the fair woman were indeed his old play-mate, and there was open a way by which he could release her from her captivity, he would risk so much of disloyalty to the Sultan as the attempt should require. Indeed, he argued to himself that, except in the mere form of it, it would not be disloyalty; for what did Mahomet care for one woman more or less in his harem? And was this woman not, after all, more his property than she was that of the Padishah? He had captured her; perhaps twice; and had saved her life in St. Sophia, for only his hand caught her dagger. She was his!

Then he became fond of indulging a day dream. The Sultan sometimes gave the odalisks to his favorite pashas and servants. What if this one should be given to him?

He had gone so far as once to say in response to the Sultan, who twitted him for being in love, that he imagined such to be the case, and only needed the choice of His Majesty to locate the pa.s.sion. But he did not dare to be more specific, lest he might run across some caprice of the Sultan; for he felt sure that so beautiful an odalisk as his captive would not long be without the royal attention.

Old Kala Hanoum's information regarding the fair odalisk allayed the turmoil in Ballaban's breast, in that it gave certainty to his former suspicions. For her words about the stars above the Balkans, the snows of Slatiza, and Elizabeth Morsiney, were not accidental. He had no doubt that the Albanian odalisk was the little lady to whom he once made love in the bowers of blackberry bushes, and vowed to defend like a true knight, waving his wooden sword over the head of the goat he rode as a steed. In the midst of such thoughts and emotions, Captain Ballaban awoke to full self-consciousness, and said to himself----

"I am in love! But I am a fool! For a man with ambition must never be in love, except with himself. Besides, this woman I love is perhaps half in my imagination; for I never yet caught a full view of her face. As for her being my little Morsinia--Illusion! No! this is no illusion! But what if she be the same! Captain Ballaban, are you going to be a soldier, or a lover? Take your choice; for you can't be both, at least not an Ottoman soldier and a lover of a Christian girl."

Rubbing his hand through his red hair, as if to pull out these fantasies, he strode down to the water's edge, and, tossing a Kaikji a few piasters, was in a moment darting like an arrow across the harbor;--a customary way the captain had of getting rid of any vexation. The cool evening breeze wooed the over-thoughtfulness from his brain, or he spurted it out through his muscles into the oar blades, which dropped it into the water of oblivion.

He was scarcely aware that he was becoming more tranquil, when a quick cry of a boat keeper showed that he had almost run down the old tower of white marble which rises from a rocky islet, just away from the mainland on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus.

"Kiss-Koulessi, the Maiden's Tower, this," he muttered. "Well, I have fled from the fortress of one maiden to run against that of another.

Fate is against me. Perhaps I had better submit. Why not? Wasn't Charis a valiant general of the old Greeks, who sent him here, once on a time, to help the Byzantines? Well! He had a wife, the fair Boiidion, the 'heifer-eyed maiden.' And here she lies beneath this tower. The world would have forgotten General Charis, but for his wife Damalis, whom they have remembered these two thousand years. A wife _may_ be the making of a man's fame. If the Sultan would give me my pick of the odalisks I think I would venture."

These thoughts were not interrupted, only supplemented, by the sun's rays, now nearly horizontal, as striking the water far up the harbor of Stamboul, they poured over it and made it seem indeed a Golden Horn, the open end of which extended into the Bosphorus. The ruddy glow tipped the dome of St. Sophia as with fire; transformed the gray walls of the Genoese tower at Galata into a huge porphyry column, sparkling with a million crystals; and made the white marble of the Maiden's Tower blush like the neck of a living maiden, when kissed for the first time by the hot lips of her lover.

So the Captain thought: and was reminded to inspect the silken treasure he had purchased. He would look through the phials, as--who knows--he might see the face of her who sent them. If looking at the red orb of the sun, just for an instant, made his eyes see a hundred sombre suns dancing along the sky, it would not be strange if his long meditation upon a certain radiant maiden should enable him to see her, at least in one shadowy reproduction of his inner vision.

He drew the silken case from his pocket. It was wrought with real skill, and worth the lira, even if it had contained nothing, and meant nothing. The little phials were held up one by one, and divided the sun's beams into prismatic hues as they pa.s.sed through the twisted gla.s.s. In each was a drop or two of sweet essence, like an imprisoned soul, waiting to be released, that it might fly far and wide and distill its perfume as a secret blessing.

"But this one is imperfect," muttered the Captain, as he held up a phial that was nearly opaque. It was larger than the others, and contained a tightly wrapped piece of paper. "The clue!" said he, and, after a moment's hesitation, broke the phial. Unwinding the paper, he read:

"You are Michael, son of Milosch. I am Morsinia, child of Kabilovitsch. For the love of Jesu! save me from this h.e.l.l. We can communicate by this means."

It was a long row that Captain Ballaban took that night upon the Bosphorus. Yet he went not far, but back and forth around the new seraglio point, scarcely out of sight of the clear-cut outline of the Phranza Palace, as it stood out against the sky above the ordinary dwellings of the city. The dawn began to peer over the hills back of Chalcedon, and to send its scouts of ruddy light down the side of Mt.

Olympus, when he landed. But the length of the night to him could not be measured by hours. He had lived over again ten years. He had gone through a battle which tired his soul as it had never been tired under the flas.h.i.+ng of steel and the roar of culverin. Only once before, when, as a mere child he was conquered by the terrors of the Janizaries' discipline, had he suffered so intensely. Yet the battle was an undecided one. He staggered up the hill from the landing to the barracks with the cry of conflict ringing through his soul. "What shall I do?" On the one side were the habit of loyalty, his oath of devotion to the Padishah, all his earthly ambition which blazed with splendors just before him--for he was the favorite of both the Sultan and the soldiers--and all that the education of his riper years had led him to hope for in another world. On the other side were this new pa.s.sion of love which he could no longer laugh down, and the appeal of a helpless fellow creature for rescue from what he knew was injustice, cruelty and degradation;--the first personal appeal a human being had ever made to him, and he the only human being to whom she could appeal. To heed this cry of Morsinia he knew would be treason to his outward and sworn loyalty. To refuse to heed it he felt would be treason to his manhood. What could he do? Neither force was preponderating.

The battle wavered.

What did he do? What most people do in such circ.u.mstances--he temporized: said, "I will do nothing to-day." Like a genuine Turk he grunted to himself, "Bacaloum!" "We shall see!"

But though he arranged and ordered an armistice between his contending thoughts, there was no real cessation of hostilities. Arguments battered against arguments. Feelings of the gentler sort mined incessantly beneath those which he would have called the braver and more manly. And the latter counter-mined: loyalty against love: ambition against pity.

But all the time the gentler ones were gaining strength. On their side was the advantage of a definite picture--a lovely face; of an immediate and tangible project--the rescue of an individual. The danger of the enterprise weighed nothing with him, or, at least, it was counter-balanced by the inspiriting antic.i.p.ation of an adventure, an exploit:--the very hazard rather fascinating than repelling. Yet he had not decided.

FOOTNOTES:

[97] Koran, Chapter IV. "When you are saluted with a salutation, salute the person with a better salutation, or at least return the same."

[98] According to the Koran the houris perspire musk.

[99] About an English pound sterling.

[100] Kaikji; a common boatman.

CHAPTER XLVII.

Captain Ballaban was summoned by the Sultan.

"Well, comrade," said Mahomet, familiarly throwing his arm about his friend, much to the disgust of the Capee Aga, the master of ceremonies, through whom alone it was the custom of the Sultans to be approached.

"Well! comrade, I gave a necklace worth a thousand liras to a girl who pleased me in the harem."

"Happy girl, to have pleased your Majesty. That was better than the necklace," replied Ballaban.

"Think you so? Let me look you through and through. Think you there is nothing better in this world than to please the Padishah? Ah! it is worth a kingdom to hear that from a man like you, Ballaban. Women say it; but they can do nothing for me. They dissipate my thoughts with their pleasuring me. They make me weak. I have a mind to abolish the whole harem. But to have a man, a strong man, a man with a head to plot for empire and to marshal armies, a man with an arm like thine to make love to me! Ah, that is glorious, comrade. But let me make no mistake about it. You love me? Do you really think no gold, no honors, could give you so much pleasure as pleasing me? Swear it! and by the throne of Allah! I will swear that you shall share my empire. But to business!" dropping his voice, and in the instant becoming apparently forgetful of his enthusiasm for his friend.

"We make a campaign against Belgrade. I must go in person. Yet Scanderbeg holds out in Albania. It is useless meeting him in his stronghold. You cannot fight a lion by crawling into his den. He must be trapped. Work out a plan."

"I have one which may be fruitful," instantly replied Captain Ballaban.

"Ah! so quick?"

"No, of long hatching, Sire. I made it in my first campaign in Albania with your royal father. The young Voivode Amesa is nephew to Scanderbeg. He is restless under the authority of the great general: has committed some crime which, if known, would bring him to ruin: is popular with the people of the north."

"Capital!" said Mahomet eagerly. "I see it all. Work it out! Work it out! He may have anything, if only Scanderbeg can be put out of the way, and the country be under our suzerainty. Work it out! And the suzerain revenues shall all be yours; for by the bones of Othman!

there is not a province too great for you if only you can settle affairs among the Arnaouts.

"And now a gift! I will send you the very queen of the harem."

"My thanks, Padishah, but I----" began Ballaban, when he was cut short by the Sultan.

"Not a word! not a word! I know you decline to practice the softer virtues, and prefer to live like a Greek monk. But you must take her.

If you like her not, drown her. But you shall like her. By the dimple in the chin of Ayesha! she is the most perfect woman in the empire."

"But," interposed Ballaban, "I am a Janizary, and it is not permitted a Janizary to marry."

"A fig for what is permitted! When the Padishah gives, he grants permission to enjoy his gifts. Besides, you need not marry. You can own her; sell her if you don't like her. But you must take her."

"Of what nation is she? Perhaps I could not understand her tongue,"

objected Ballaban.

"So much the better," said Mahomet. "Women are not made to talk. But this woman is an Arnaout, from Scanderbeg's country."

Captain Ballaban could scarcely believe his ears.

This then is Morsinia! To have her, to save her without breach of loyalty! This was too much. With strangely fluttering heart he acquiesced, and his thanks were drawn from the bottom of his soul.

The next day he sought Kala Hanoum, and sent by her to Morsinia a gem enclosed in a pretty casket, with which was a note, reading,--