Kalil saluted separately, and returned: "My Lord may depend upon the survey."
"Very well. I wait now only the indication of Heaven that the time is ripe for the movement. Is the Prince of India coming?"
"I am here, my Lord."
Mahommed turned as the Prince spoke, and let his eyes rest a moment upon Count Corti, without a sign of recognition.
"Come forward, Prince," he said. "What is the message you bring me?"
"My Lord," the Prince replied, after prostration, "in the Hebrew Scriptures there is a saying in proof of the influence the planets have in the affairs of men: "Then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach by the waters of Megiddo; they fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera." Now art thou truly Sultan of Sultans.
To-morrow--the twenty-sixth of March--will be memorable amongst days, for then thou mayst begin the war with the perfidious Greek. From four o"clock in the morning the stars which fought against Sisera will fight for Mahommed. Let those who love him salute and rejoice."
The counsellors, dropping on their knees, fell forward, their faces on their hands. The Prince of India did the same. Count Corti alone remained standing, and Mahommed again observed him.
"Hear you," the latter said, to his officers. "Go a.s.semble the masons and their workmen, the masters of boats, and the chiefs charged with duties. At four o"clock in the morning I will move against Europe. The stars have said it, and their permission is my law. Rise!"
As his a.s.sociates were moving backward with repeated genuflections, the Prince of India spoke:
"O most favored of men! Let them stay a moment."
At a sign from the Sultan they halted; thereupon the Prince of India beckoned Syama to come, and taking the package from his hands, he laid it on the table.
"For my Lord Mahommed," he said.
"What is it?" Mahommed demanded.
"A sign of conquest.... My Lord knows King Solomon ruled the world in his day, its soul of wisdom. At his death dominion did not depart from him. The secret ministers in the earth, the air and the waters, obedient to Allah, became his slaves. My Lord knows of whom I speak. Who can resist them? ... In the tomb of Hiram, King of Tyre, the friend of King Solomon, I found a sarcophagus. It was covered with a model in marble of the Temple of the Hebrew Almighty G.o.d. Removing the lid, lo! the mummy of Hiram, a crown upon its head, and at its feet the sword of Solomon, a present without price. I brought it away, resolved to give it to him whom the stars should elect for the overthrow of the superst.i.tions devised by Jesus, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth....
Undo the wrappings, Lord Mahommed."
The Sultan obeyed, and laying the last fold of the cloth aside, drew back staring, and with uplifted hands.
"Kalil--Kourani--Akschem-sed-din--all of you, come look. Tell me what it is--it blinds me."
The sword of Solomon lay before them; its curved blade a gleam of splendor, its scabbard a ma.s.s of brilliants, its hilt a ruby so pure we may say it retained in its heart the life of a flame.
"Take it in hand, Lord Mahommed," said the Prince of India.
The young Sultan lifted the sword, and as he did so down a groove in its back a stream of pearls started and ran, ringing musically, and would not rest while he kept the blade in motion. He was speechless from wonder.
"Now may my Lord march upon Constantinople, for the stars and every secret minister of Solomon will fight for him."
So saying, the Prince knelt before the Sultan, and laid his lips on the instep of his foot, adding: "Oh, my Lord! with that symbol in hand, march, and surely as Tabor is among the mountains and Carmel by the sea, so surely Christ will give place to Mahomet in Sancta Sophia. March at four o"clock."
And the counsellors left kisses on the same instep, and departed.
Thence through the night the noises of preparation kept the s.p.a.ce between the hills of the narrows alive with echoes. At the hour permitted by the stars--four o"clock--a cloud of boats cast loose from the Asiatic sh.o.r.e, and with six thousand laborers, handmen to a thousand master masons, crossed at racing speed to Europe. "G.o.d is G.o.d, and Mahomet is his Prophet," they shouted. The vessels of burden, those with lime, those with stone, those with wood, followed as they were called, and unloading, hauled out, to give place to others.
Before sun up the lines of the triangular fort whose walls near Roumeli-Hissar are yet intact, prospectively a landmark enduring as the Pyramids, were defined and swarming with laborers. The three Pachas, Kalil, Sarudje, and Saganos, superintended each a side of the work, and over them all, active and fiercely zealous, moved Mahommed, the sword of Solomon in his hand.
And there was no lack of material for the structure extensive as it was.
Asia furnished its quota, and Christian towns and churches on the Bosphorus were remorselessly levelled for the stones in them; wherefore the outer faces of the curtains and towers are yet speckled with marbles in block, capital and column.
Thus Mahommed, taking his first step in the war so long a fervid dream, made sure of his base of operations.
On the twenty-eighth of August, the work completed, from his camp on the old Asometon promontory he reconnoitred the country up to the ditch of Constantinople, and on the first of September betook himself to Adrianople.
CHAPTER II
MAHOMMED AND COUNT CORTI MAKE A WAGER
Upon the retirement of the Prince of India and the counsellors, Mahommed took seat by the table, and played with the sword of Solomon, making the pearls travel up and down the groove in the blade, listening to their low ringing, and searching for inscriptions. This went on until Count Corti began to think himself forgotten. At length the Sultan, looking under the guard, uttered an exclamation--looked again--and cried out:
"O Allah! It is true!--May I be forgiven for doubting him!--Come, Mirza, come see if my eyes deceive me. Here at my side!"
The Count mastered his surprise, and was presently leaning over the Sultan"s shoulder.
"You remember, Mirza, we set out together studying Hebrew. Against your will I carried you along with me until you knew the alphabet, and could read a little. You preferred Italian, and when I brought the learned men, and submitted to them that Hebrew was one of a family of tongues more or less alike, and would have sent you with them to the Sidonian coast for inscriptions, you refused. Do you remember?"
"My Lord, those were the happiest days of my life."
Mahommed laughed. "I kept you three days on bread and water, and let you off then because I could not do without you.... But for the matter now.
Under this guard--look--are not the brilliants set in the form of letters?"
Corti examined closely.
"Yes, yes; there are letters--I see them plainly--a name."
"Spell it."
"S-O-L-O-M-O-N."
"Then I have not deceived myself," Mahommed exclaimed. "Nor less has the Prince of India deceived me." He grew more serious. "A marvellous man! I cannot make him out. The more I do with him the more incomprehensible he becomes. The long past is familiar to him as the present to me. He is continually digging up things ages old, and amazing me with them.
Several times I have asked him when he was born, and he has always made the same reply: "I will tell when you are Lord of Constantinople." ...
How he hates Christ and the Christians! ... This is indeed the sword of Solomon--and he found it in the tomb of Hiram, and gives it to me as the elect of the stars now. Ponder it, O Mirza! Now at the mid of the night in which I whistle up my dogs of war to loose them on the _Gabour_--How, Mirza--what ails you? Why that change of countenance? Is he not a dog of an unbeliever? On your knees before me--I have more to tell you than to ask. No, spurs are troublesome. To the door and bid the keeper there bring a stool--and look lest the lock have an ear hanging to it. Old Kalil, going out, though bowing, and lip-handing me, never took his eyes off you."
The stool brought, Corti was about to sit.
"Take off your cap"--Mahommed spoke sternly--"for as you are not the Mirza I sent away, I want to see your face while we talk. Sit here, in the full of the light."
The Count seated, placed his hooded cap on the floor. He was perfectly collected. Mahommed fingered the ruby hilt while searching the eyes which as calmly searched his.
"How brave you are!" the Sultan began, but stopped. "Poor Mirza!" he began again, his countenance softened. One would have said some tender recollection was melting the sh.e.l.l of his heart. "Poor Mirza! I loved you better than I loved my father, better than I loved my brothers, well as I loved my mother--with a love surpa.s.sing all I ever knew but one, and of that we will presently speak. If honor has a soul, it lives in you, and the breath you draw is its wine, purer than the first expressage of grapes from the Prophet"s garden down by Medina. Your eyes look truth, your tongue drips it as a broken honey-comb drips honey. You are truth as G.o.d is G.o.d."
He was speaking sincerely.