The Captain of the Janizaries Part 36

"Sire, I have obeyed," said she, making the obeisance which in form was obsequious, but which she executed with such dignity that even the dull wit of the reveller felt that she had not really humbled herself before him by so much as the shadow of a thought.

"Disrobe her!" cried the monarch.

The woman stepped back, as if to avoid the contact of her person with the black eunuch; but as suddenly threw off the feridje herself. If she had seemed a gloomy prophetess before, her appearance now would have suggested to an ancient Greek the apparition of Pudicitia, the G.o.ddess of modesty. Her gown of rich pearl-tinted cloth covered her shoulders; and, though opened upon the bosom, it was to show only the thick folds of white lace which embraced the throat in a ruffle, and was clasped with a single gem--a cameo presented to her by the Greek Emperor.

The bearing of the woman gave a temporary check to the abominable rage of the royal wretch, and recalled him to his better judgment. For it was a peculiarity of Mahomet that no pa.s.sion or debauch could completely divert him from carrying out any plan he had devised pertaining to his imperial ambition. As certain musicians perform without the sacrifice of a note the most difficult pieces, when too drunk to hold a goblet steadily to their lips, and as certain noted generals have staggered through the battle without the slightest strategic mistake, so Mahomet never lost sight of a political or military purpose he had formed. While sleeping and waking, in the wildest revelry and in the privacy of his unspeakable sensuality, that project blazed before him like a strong fire-light through the haze.

"Take her away! Take her away!" said he to the eunuch, recollecting his purpose of using her in his negotiations with Scanderbeg; and covering his retreat from his original command by the remark, "She is the woman who thinks, I want none such to put her head against my heart. She might discover my thoughts; and by the secrets of Allah!

if a hair of my beard knew one of my thoughts I would pluck it out and burn it."[96]

As Morsinia withdrew, a eunuch approached and whispered to the Sultan.

"Ah! it is good! good!" cried the Monarch. "My Lord, the Grand Duke Notaras, will revisit his mansion. For him we have provided a feast such as his master Palaeologus never gave him. Ah! my lovely Arnaout shall sit at my right hand--for the queen of beauty has precedence to-day," said he, addressing Elissa. "And the Egyptian shall make me merry with the music of her voice, which I doubt not is sweeter than the strains of her native Memnon. And, Tamlich, you shall do me the honor of representing the king of Nubia, and lie there opposite."

The eunuch stood bewildered; for never before had a Moslem proposed to introduce into his harem the person of any man, as now the Duke of Notaras was to look upon the beauties who should be reserved solely for the feasting of the Padishah's eyes.

Mahomet, knowing his thoughts, bade him obey, and cried,

"Let the fair houris veil their faces with their blushes. Bring in Notaras!"

Three blacks entered, each bearing a great salver, on which was a covered dish of gold.

"To Tamlich I demit the honors of the board," said he, waving the foremost waiter toward the eunuch, whose face almost blanched at the strange turn affairs were taking, or perhaps with the suspicion that to-morrow his head would fall from his shoulders as the penalty of having witnessed the Padishah disgrace himself.

The attendants placed the dishes before the eunuch and the two favored beauties. The covers removed revealed the ghastly sight of three human heads, their unclosed eyes staring upward from their distorted faces and gory locks. The eunuch leaped from the divan. The women fell back shrieking and fainting. They were the heads of the Grand Duke Notaras and his two children.

Well did the Sultan need the strong diversion of the drunken revelry to drown the thoughts of what he knew to be transpiring at the hour.

In spite of his royal word to the distinguished captive who had made his submission absolute, except to the extent of seeing his children dishonored to the vilest purposes, Mahomet had ordered that Notaras should be beheaded at the Hippodrome, having been first compelled to witness the decapitation of his family.

Even Mahomet was sobered by the horrid ghoulism he had devised, and dismissed the terror-stricken revelers with a volley of curses.

FOOTNOTES:

[91] Porphyry column; now the famous Burnt Column.

[92] Staff of Moses; one of the relics held sacred by the Greeks at the time.

[93] Gibbon's statement of Mahomet II's. opinion.

[94] Punishment of those in h.e.l.l, according to Koran.

[95] See effigy in the museum of the Elbicei-Atika at Constantinople.

[96] A similar remark was made afterward by Mahomet II. to a chief officer who asked him his plans for a certain campaign.

CHAPTER XLV.

The courage of Morsinia when she appeared before Mahomet had been stimulated by an event which occurred a little before her summons.

She was sitting by the latticed window in the house of Phranza. It overlooked the wall surrounding the garden, which on that side was a narrow enclosure. This had been her favorite resort in brighter days.

From it she could see what pa.s.sed in the broad highway beyond, while the close latticed woodwork prevented her being seen by those without.

While musing there she was strangely attracted by an officer who frequently pa.s.sed. His shape and stature reminded her strongly of Constantine. As he turned his face toward the mansion the features seemed identical with those of her foster brother. Recovering from the stroke of surprise this apparition gave her, Morsinia rubbed her eyes to make sure she was not dreaming, and looked again. He was in conversation with another. It could not be Constantine, for, aside from the general belief in Constantine's death before the termination of the siege, this person was saluted with great reverence by the soldiers who pa.s.sed by, and approached with familiarity by other officers of rank.

The sight brought into vivid conviction what had long been her day dream, namely, that Michael, her childhood playmate, might be living, and if so, would probably be among the Turkish soldiers; for his goodly physique and talent, displayed as a lad, would certainly have been cultivated by his captors. She now felt certain of her theory. So strong was the impression, and so active and exciting her thoughts as she endeavored to devise a way by which the discovery might be utilized to the advantage of both, that even the loathsome splendor of the Sultan's garden party, had not impressed her as it otherwise would have done.

For several days after she was almost oblivious to the monotony of the harem life; so busy was she with her new problem. She determined that, at any cost, she would bring herself into communication with the officer, and, if her theory should be confirmed, declare herself, and boldly propose that he should rescue her. For she could not conceive that, however much he had become accustomed to Turkish life, he had lost all yearning for his liberty and all impression of his Christian faith.

But how could she convey any intelligence to him? Except through the eunuchs, the inmates of the harem had little communication with the outer world. The customs of life there were as inflexible as the walls.

To her natural ingenuity, now so quickened by necessity and hope, there at length appeared an end thread of the tangle. The women of the harem relieved the tedium of their existence by making various articles, the construction of which might not mar the delicacy of their fingers; such as needlework upon their own clothing, coverings for cus.h.i.+ons, curtains, tapestried hangings, spreads for couches, cases in which the Koran could be kept so that even when being read it need not be touched by the fingers, bags of scented powders, and the like. Many of these articles were disposed of at the bazaars of the city, and the proceeds spent by the odalisks at their own caprice; generally for confections and gew-gaws. At the time there was quite a demand for articles made in the harem. Many thousands of Moslems had been imported from Asia Minor to take the place of the rapidly disappearing Greek population. Large stores of articles were sent from the great harem at Adrianople, and sold for fabulous prices in the bazaars of Stamboul, as the new capital was called by the Turks. The agents for the sale of these things were generally the female attendants at the harem, who had free a.s.sociation with the bazaar keepers. Sometimes these women sold directly to the individual purchasers without going to the trade places. An officer or young citizen was often inveigled into buying, and paying exorbitant prices too, on hearing that some odalisk had set longing eyes upon him, and wrought the purse or belt, the dagger-sheath or embroidered jacket, as a special evidence of her favor. Many were the stories which the gallants of the city and garrison were accustomed to tell, as they displayed their purchases, about nocturnal adventures, in which they were guided only by a pair of bright eyes, and of favors received from beauties whose names, of course, prudence forbade them to mention. All the traditions of lovers, romances of moon-shadowed grottoes, and all the stories of castles with the thread at the window, that have been told from the beginning of the world, had their counterpart in those the swains of Stamboul told about the Sultan's earthly paradise at Adrianople, or those which, in their amatory bantering, they had made to cl.u.s.ter about the villa of the late Phranza at the new capital.

An old woman, who, formerly a servant in the harem, had been given by the Valide Sultana, the mother of Amurath, to a subaltern officer as wife, but had long been a widow, was permitted freely to enter the haremlik, and engaged as a convenient broker between those within and those without. One day Morsinia, in giving her some of her handiwork for sale, held up an elegant case of silk containing several little crystals, or phials, of atar of roses.

"Kala-Hanoum, do you know the young Captain Ballaban?"

"Ay, the Knight of the Golden Horn?" asked the woman.

"And why do they call him that?"

"Because," she replied, "his head glows like one, I suppose."

"Yes, he is the man--Well! find him--Tell him any story you please about my beauty."

"I need not invent one; I must only tell the truth to bewitch him,"

replied the old dame, with real fondness and admiration. "But that will be difficult. I can invent a lie better than describe the truth, unless you help me."

"Well," said Morsinia, "tell him as much truth about my appearance as you can, and invent the rest. Tell him--let me see--that my eyes are as bright as the stars that s.h.i.+ne above the Balkans."

"Do they s.h.i.+ne there more brilliantly than here where they make their toilet in the Bosphorus?" asked the woman.

"Oh! yes," said Morsinia, "for the air is clearest there of any place on the earth. Tell him, too, that my teeth are as white as the snows that lie in the pa.s.s of Slatiza."

"Where is that?" queried the messenger.

"Oh! it is a grotto I have heard of, that lies very high up toward the sky, where the snows are unsoiled by pa.s.sing through the clouds, which, you know, always tints them. And then tell him that altogether I am as queenly as--as--well! as the wonderful Elizabeth Morsiney, the bride of the Christian king Sigismund."

"Elizabeth Morsiney? yes, I will remember that name, if some day you will tell me her story."

"That I will," said Morsinia. "And tell the young officer that the odalisk who made this lovely case has dreamed of him ever since she was a child."

"He cannot resist that," said the woman.

"But you must sell it to no one else. And see this elegant sash of cashmere! I will give it to you to sell on your own account, Hanoum, if you bring me some sure evidence that he has bought the case of perfume. And be sure to tell him that just when the sun is setting he must go somewhere alone, and look at the sun through each of the little phials, and he may see the face of her who sent them; for you know that a true lover can always see the one who sends a phial of atar of roses in the sun glints from its sides. And when you bring me evidence that he has bought it, then, good Kala, you shall have the sash of cashmere." The old woman's cupidity hastened her feet upon her errand.