The besieged were exultant, as they well might be--they were more than holding the redoubtable Flower of the Faithful at bay--there was even a merry tone in their battle-cry. About that time a man dismounted from a foaming horse, climbed the rough steps to the deck of the galley, and delivered a message to the Emperor.
"Your Majesty. John Grant, Minotle the bayle, Carystos, Langasco, and Jerome the Italian are slain. Blacherne is in possession of the Turks, and they are marching this way. The hordes are in the streets. I saw them, and heard the bursting of doors, and the screams of women."
Constantine crossed himself three times, and bowed his head.
Justiniani turned the color of ashes, and exclaimed:
"We are undone--undone! All is lost!" And that his voice was hoa.r.s.e did not prevent the words being overheard. The fire slackened--ceased. Men fighting jubilantly dropped their arms, and took up the cry--"All is lost! The hordes are in, the hordes are in!"
Doubtless Count Corti"s thought sped to the fair woman waiting for him in the chapel, yet he kept clear head.
"Your Majesty," he said, "my Berbers are without. I will take them, and hold the Turks in check while you draw a.s.sistance from the walls.
Or"--he hesitated, "or I will defend your person to the ships. It is not too late."
Indeed, there was ample time for the Emperor"s escape. The Berbers were keeping his horse with Corti"s. He had but to mount, and ride away. No doubt he was tempted. There is always some sweetness in life, especially to the blameless. He raised his head, and said to Justiniani:
"Captain, my guard will remain here. To keep the galley they have only to keep the fire alive in the ditch. You and I will go out to meet the enemy." ... Then he addressed himself to Corti: "To horse, Count, and bring Theophilus Palaeologus. He is on the wall between this gate and the gate Selimbria.... Ho, Christian gentlemen," he continued, to the soldiers closing around him, "all is not lost. The Bochiardi at the Adrianople gate have not been heard from. To fly from an unseen foe were shameful, We are still hundreds strong. Let us descend, and form. G.o.d cannot"--
That instant Justiniani uttered a loud cry, and dropped the axe he was holding. An arrow had pierced the scales of his gauntlet, and disabled his hand. The pain, doubtless, was great, and he started hastily as if to descend from the deck. Constantine called out:
"Captain, Captain!"
"Give me leave, Your Majesty, to go and have this wound dressed."
"Where, Captain?"
"To my ship."
The Emperor threw his visor up--his face was flushed--in his soul indignation contended with astonishment.
"No, Captain, the wound cannot he serious; and besides, how canst thou get to thy ships?"
Justiniani looked over the bulwark of the vessel. The alley from the gate ran on between houses ab.u.t.ting the towers. A ball from one of Mahommed"s largest guns had pa.s.sed through the right-hand building, leaving a ragged fissure. Thither the Captain now pointed.
"G.o.d opened that breach to let the Turks in. I will go out by it."
He stayed no longer, but went down the steps, and in haste little short of a run disappeared through the fissure so like a breach.
The desertion was in view of his Genoese, of whom a few followed him, but not all. Many who had been serving the guns took swords and pikes, and gathering about the Emperor, cried out:
"Give orders, Your Majesty. We will bide with you."
He returned them a look full of grat.i.tude.
"I thank you, gentlemen. Let us go down, and join our shields across the street. To my guard I commit defence of the galley."
Unfastening the purple half-cloak at his back, and taking off his helmet, he called to his sword-bearer: "Here, take thou these, and give me my sword.... Now, gallant gentlemen--now, my brave countrymen--we will put ourselves in the keeping of Heaven. Come!"
They had not all gained the ground, however, when there arose a clamor in their front, and the hordesmen appeared, and blocking up the pa.s.sage, opened upon them with arrows and stones, while such as had javelins and swords attacked them hand to hand.
The Christians behaved well, but none better than Constantine. He fought with strength, and in good countenance; his blade quickly reddened to the hilt.
"Strike, my countrymen, for city and home. Strike, every one, for _Christ and Holy Church!_"
And answering him: "_Christ and Holy Church!_" they all fought as they had strength, and their swords were also reddened to the hilt.
Quarter was not asked; neither was it given. Theirs to hold the ground, and they held it. They laid the hordesmen out over it in scattered heaps which grew, and presently became one long heap the width of the alley; and they too fell, but, as we are willing to believe, unconscious of pain because lapped in the delirium of battle-fever.
Five minutes--ten--fifteen--then through the breach by which Justiniani ingloriously fled Theophilus Palaeologus came with bared brand to vindicate his imperial blood by n.o.bly dying; and with him came Count Corti, Francesco de Toledo, John the Dalmatian, and a score and more Christian gentlemen who well knew the difference between an honorable death and a dishonored life.
Steadily the sun arose. Half the street was in its light, the other half in its shade; yet the struggle endured; nor could any man have said G.o.d was not with the Christians. Suddenly a louder shouting arose behind them. They who could, looked to see what it meant, and the bravest stood stone still at sight of the Janissaries swarming on the galley. Over the roasting bodies of their comrades, undeterred by the inextinguishable fire, they had crossed the ditch, and were slaying the imperial body-guard. A moment, and they would be in the alley, and then--
Up rose a wail: "The Janissaries, the Janissaries! _Kyrie Eleison!_"
Through the knot of Christians it pa.s.sed--it reached Constantine in the forefront, and he gave way to the antagonist with whom he was engaged.
"G.o.d receive my soul!" he exclaimed; and dropping his sword, he turned about, and rushed back with wide extended arms.
"Friends--countrymen!--Is there no Christian to kill me?"
Then they understood why he had left his helmet off.
While those nearest stared at him, their hearts too full of pity to do him the last favor one can ask of another, from the midst of the hordesmen there came a man of singular unfitness for such a scene--indeed a delicate woman had not been more out of place--for he was small, stooped, withered, very white haired, very pale, and much bearded--a black velvet cap on his head, and a gown of the like about his body, unarmed, and in every respect unmartial. He seemed to glide in amongst the Christians as he had glided through the close press of the Turks; and as the latter had given him way, so now the sword points of the Christians went down--men in the heat of action forgot themselves, and became bystanders--such power was there in the unearthly eyes of the apparition.
"Is there no Christian to kill me?" cried the Emperor again.
The man in velvet stood before him.
"Prince of India!"
"You know me? It is well; for now I know you are not beyond remembering."
The voice was shrill and cutting, yet it shrilled and cut the sharper.
"Remember the day I called on you to acknowledge G.o.d, and give him his due of worship. Remember the day I prayed you on my knees to lend me your power to save my child, stolen for a purpose by all peoples held unholy. Behold your executioner!"
He stepped back, and raised a hand; and ere one of those standing by could so much as cry to G.o.d, Nilo, who, in the absorption of interest in his master, had followed him unnoticed--Nilo, gorgeous in his barbarisms of Kash-Cush, sprang into the master"s place. He did not strike; but with infinite cruel cunning of hand--no measurable lapse of time ensuing--drew the a.s.segai across the face of the astonished Emperor.
Constantine--never great till that moment of death, but then great forever--fell forward upon his shield, calling in strangled utterance: "G.o.d receive my soul!"
The savage set his foot upon the mutilated countenance, crushing it into a pool of blood. An instant, then through the petrified throng, knocking them right and left, Count Corti appeared.
"_For Christ and Irene!_" he shouted, dashing the spiked boss of his shield into Nilo"s eyes--down upon the feathered coronal he brought his sword--and the negro fell sprawling upon the Emperor.
Oblivious to the surroundings, Count Corti, on his knees, raised the Emperor"s head, slightly turning the face--one look was enough. "His soul is sped!" he said; and while he was tenderly replacing the head, a hand grasped his cap. He sprang to his feet. Woe to the intruder, if an enemy! The sword which had known no failure was drawn back to thrust-- above the advanced foot the shield hung in ready poise--between him and the challenger there was only a margin of air and the briefest interval of time--his breath was drawn, and his eyes gleamed with vengeful murder --but--some power invisible stayed his arm, and into his memory flashed the lightning of recognition.
"Prince of India," he shouted, "never wert thou nearer death!"
"Thou--liest! Death--and--I"--
The words were long drawn between gasps, and the speech was never finished. The tongue thickened, then paralyzed. The features, already distorted with pa.s.sion, swelled, and blackened horribly. The eyes rolled back--the hands flew up, the fingers apart and rigid--the body rocked-- stiffened--then fell, sliding from the Count"s shield across the dead Emperor.