"We fry them, Count, in olive oil--pure oil."
All this time Corti was studying the fisherman.
"What meal, pray, will fashion allow them to me dished?" he went on.
"For breakfast especially; though when you come to dine with His Majesty do not be surprised to see them early in course."
"Pardon the detention, my Lord--I will make trial of these in the morning." Then to the fisherman the Count said, carelessly: "Keep thy place until I return."
Corti saw the Dean out of the eastern gate of the enclosure, and returned.
"What, still here!" he said, to the dealer. "Well, go with the doorkeeper to the kitchen. The cook will take what he needs for to-morrow." Speaking to the doorkeeper then: "Bring the man to me. I am fond of fishing, and should like to talk with him about his methods.
Sometime he may be willing to take me with him."
By and by the monger was shown into the Count"s room, where there was a table, with books and writing material--a corner room full lighted by windows in the south and east. When they were alone, the two gazed at each other.
"Ali, son of Abed-din!" said the Count. "Is it thou?"
"O Emir! All of me that is not fish is the Ali thou hast named."
"G.o.d is great!" the first exclaimed.
"Blessed be G.o.d!" the other answered.
They were acquaintances of long standing.
Then Ali took the red rag from his head, and from its folds produced a strip of fine parchment with writing on it impervious to water. "Behold, Emir! It is for thee."
The Count received the scrip and read:
"This is he I promised to send. He has money for thee. Thou mayst trust him. Tell me this time of thyself first; then of her; but always after of her first. My soul is scorching with impatience."
There was no date to the screed nor was it signed; yet the Count put it to his forehead and lips. He knew the writing as he knew his own hand.
"O Ali!" he said, his eyes aglow. "Hereafter thou shalt be Ali the Faithful, son of Abed-din the Faithful."
Ali replied with a rueful look: "It is well. What a time I have had waiting for you! Much I fear my bones will never void the damps blown into them by the winter winds, and I perched on the cross-sticks of a floating _dallyan_.... I have money for you, O Emir! and the keeping it has given me care more than enough to turn another man older than his mother. I will bring it to-morrow; after which I shall say twenty prayers to the Prophet--blessed be his name!--where now I say one."
"No, not to-morrow, Ali, but the day after when thou bringest me another supply of fish. There is danger in coming too often--and for that, thou must go now. Staying too long is dangerous as coming too often.... But tell me of our master. Is he indeed the Sultan of Sultans he promised to be? Is he well? Where is he? What is he doing?"
"Not so fast, O Emir, not so fast, I pray you! Better a double mouthful of stale porpoise fat, with a fin bone in it, than so many questions at once."
"Oh, but I have been so long in the slow-moving Christian world without news!"
"Verily, O Emir, Padishah Mahommed will be greatest of the _Gabour_ eaters since Padishah Othman--that to your first. He is well. His bones have reached their utmost limit, but his soul keeps growing--that to your second. He holds himself at Adrianople. Men say he is building mosques. I say he is building cannon to shoot bullets big as his father"s tomb; when they are fired, the faithful at Medina will hear the noise, and think it thunder--that to your third. And as to his doing-- getting ready for war, meaning business for everybody, from the Shiek-ul-Islam to the thieving tax-farmers of Bagdad--to the Kislar-Jinn of Abad-on with them. He has the census finished, and now the Pachas go listing the able-bodied, of whom they have half a million, with as many more behind. They say the young master means to make a _sandjak_ of unbelieving Europe."
"Enough, Ali!--the rest next time."
The Count went to the table, and from a secret drawer brought a package wrapped in leather, and sealed carefully.
"This for our Lord--exalted be his name! How wilt thou take it?"
Ali laughed.
"In my tray to the boat, but the fish are fresh, and there are flowers of worse odor in Cashmere. So, O Emir, for this once. Next time, and thereafter, I will have a hiding-place ready."
"Now, Ali, farewell. Thy name shall be sweet in our master"s ears as a girl-song to the moon of Ramazan. I will see to it."
Ali took the package, and hid it in the bosom of his dirty shirt. When he pa.s.sed out of the front door, it lay undistinguishable under the fish and fish meat; and he whispered to the Count in going: "I have an order from the Governor of the White Castle for my unsold stock. G.o.d is great!"
Corti, left alone, flung himself on a chair. He had word from Mahommed-- that upon which he counted so certainly as a charm in counteraction of the depression taking possession of his spirit. There it was in his hand, a declaration of confidence unheard of in an Oriental despot. Yet the effect was wanting. Even as he sat thinking the despondency deepened. He groped for the reason in vain. He strove for cheer in the big war of which Ali had spoken--in the roar of cannon, like thunder in Medina--in Europe a Sultanic _sandjak_. He could only smile at the exaggeration. In fact, his trouble was the one common to every fine nature in a false position. His business was to deceive and betray--whom? The degradation was casting its shadow before. Heaven help when the eclipse should be full!
For relief he read the screed again: "Tell me this time of thyself first; then of _her_." ... Ah, yes, the kinswoman of the Emperor!
He must devise a way to her acquaintance, and speedily. And casting about for it, he became restless, and finally resolved to go out into the city. He sent for the chestnut Arab, and putting on the steel cap and golden spurs had from the Holy Father was soon in the saddle.
It was about three o"clock afternoon, with a wind tempered to mildness by a bright sun. The streets were thronged, while the balconies and overhanging windows had their groups on the lookout for entertainment and gossip. As may be fancied the knightly rider and gallant barb, followed by a dark-skinned, turbaned servant in Moorish costume, attracted attention. Neither master nor man appeared to give heed to the eager looks and sometimes over-loud questions with which they were pursued.
Turning northward presently, the Count caught sight of the dome of Sancta Sophia. It seemed to him a vast, upturned silver bowl glistening in the sky, and he drew rein involuntarily, wondering how it could be upheld; then he was taken with a wish to go in, and study the problem.
Having heard from Mahommed, he was lord of his time, and here was n.o.ble diversion.
In front of the venerable edifice, he gave his horse to the dark-faced servant, and entered the outer court unattended.
A company, mixed apparently of every variety of persons, soldiers, civilians, monks, and women, held the pavement in scattered groups; and while he halted a moment to survey the exterior of the building, cold and grimly plain from cornice to base, he became himself an object of remark to them. About the same time a train of monastics, bareheaded, and in long gray gowns, turned in from the street, chanting monotonously, and in most intensely nasal tones. The Count, attracted by their pale faces, hollow eyes and unkept beards, waited for them to cross the court.
Unkept their beards certainly were, but not white. This was the beginning of the observation he afterward despatched to Mahommed: Only the walls of Byzantium remain for her defence; the Church has absorbed her young men; the sword is discarded for the rosary. Nor could he help remarking that whereas the _frati_ of Italy were fat, rubicund, and jolly, these seemed in search of death through the severest penitential methods. His thought recurring to the house again, he remembered having heard how every hour of every day from five o"clock in the morning to midnight was filled with religious service of some kind in Sancta Sophia.
A few stone steps the full length of the court led up to five great doors of bronze standing wide open; and as the train took one of the latter and began to disappear, he chose another, and walked fast in order to witness the entry. Brought thus into the immense vestibule, he stopped, and at once forgot the gray brethren. Look where he might, at the walls, and now up to the ceiling, every inch of s.p.a.ce wore the mellowed brightness of mosaic wrought in cubes of gla.s.s exquisitely graduated in color. What could he do but stand and gaze at the Christ in the act of judging the world? Such a cartoon had never entered his imagination. The train was gone when he awoke ready to proceed.
There were then nine doors also of bronze conducting from the vestibule.
The central and larger one was nearest him. Pushed lightly, it swung open on noiseless hinges; a step or two, and he stood in the nave or auditorium of the Holy House.
The reader will doubtless remember how Duke Vlodomir, the grandson of Olga, the Russian, coming to Constantinople to receive a bride, entered Sancta Sophia the first time, and from being transfixed by what he saw and heard, fell down a convert to Christianity. Not unlike was the effect upon Corti. In a sense he, too, was an unbeliever semi-barbaric in education. Many were the hours he had spent with Mahommed while the latter, indulging his taste, built palaces and mosques on paper, striving for vastness and original splendor. But what was the Prince"s utmost achievement in comparison with this interior? Had it been an ocean grotto, another Caprian cave, bursting with all imaginable revelations of light and color, he could not have been more deeply impressed. Without architectural knowledge; acquainted with few of the devices employed in edificial construction, and still less with the mysterious power of combination peculiar to genius groping for effects in form, dimensions, and arrangement of stone on stone with beautiful and sublime intent; yet he had a soul to be intensely moved by such effects when actually set before his eyes. He walked forward slowly four or five steps from the door, looking with excited vision--not at details or to detect the composition of any of the world of objects const.i.tuting the view, or with a thought of height, breadth, depth, or value--the marbles of the floor rich in multiformity and hues, and reflective as motionless water, the historic pillars, the varied arches, the extending galleries, the cornices, friezes, bal.u.s.trades, crosses of gold, mosaics, the windows and interlacing rays of light, brilliance here, shadows yonder--the apse in the east, and the altar built up in it starry with burning candles and glittering with prismatic gleams shot from precious stones and metals in every conceivable form of grace--lamps, cups, vases, candlesticks, cloths, banners, crucifixes, canopies, chairs, Madonnas, Child Christs and Christs Crucified--and over all, over lesser domes, over arches apparently swinging in the air, broad, high, near yet far away, the dome of Sancta Sophia, defiant of imitation, like unto itself alone, a younger sky within the elder--these, while he took those few steps, merged and ran together in a unity which set his senses to reeling, and made question and thought alike impossible.
How long the Count stood thus lost to himself in the glory and greatness of the place, he never knew. The awakening was brought about by a strain of choral music, which, pouring from the vicinity of the altar somewhere, flooded the nave, vast as it was, from floor to dome. No voice more fitting could be imagined; and it seemed addressing itself to him especially. He trembled, and began to think.
First there came to him a comparison in which the Kaaba was a relative.
He recalled the day he fell dying at the corner under the Black Stone.
He saw the draped heap funereally dismal in the midst of the cloisters.
How bare and poor it seemed to him now! He remembered the visages and howling of the demoniac wretches struggling to kiss the stone, though with his own kiss he had just planted it with death. How different the worship here! ... This, he thought next, was his mother"s religion. And what more natural than that he should see that mother descending to the chapel in her widow"s weeds to pray for him? Tears filled his eyes. His heart arose chokingly in his throat. Why should not her religion be his?
It was the first time he had put the question to himself directly; and he went further with it. What though Allah of the Islamite and Jehovah of the Hebrew were the same?--What though the Koran and the Bible proceeded from the same inspiration?--What though Mahomet and Christ were alike Sons of G.o.d? There were differences in the worship, differences in the personality of the worshippers. Why, except to allow every man a choice according to his ideas of the proper and best in form and companionship? And the spirit swelled within him as he asked, Who are my brethren? They who stole me from my father"s house, who slew my father, who robbed my mother of the lights of life, and left her to the darkness of mourning and the bitterness of ungratified hope--were not they the brethren of my brethren?
At that moment an old man appeared before the altar with a.s.sistants in rich canonicals. One placed on the elder"s head what seemed a crown all a ma.s.s of flaming jewels; another laid upon him a cloak of cloth of gold; a third slipped a ring over one of his fingers; whereupon the venerable celebrant drew nearer the altar, and, after a prayer, took up a chalice and raised it as if in honor to an image of Christ on a cross in the agonies of crucifixion. Then suddenly the choir poured its triumphal thunder abroad until the floor, and galleries, and pendant lamps seemed to vibrate. The a.s.sistants and worshippers sank upon their knees, and ere he was aware the Count was in the same att.i.tude of devotion.
The posture consisted perfectly with policy, his mission considered.
Soon or late he would have to adopt every form and observance of Christian worship. In this performance, however, there was no premeditation, no calculation. In his exaltation of soul he fancied he heard a voice pa.s.sing with the tempestuous jubilation of the singers: "On thy knees, O apostate! On thy knees! G.o.d is here!"
But his was a combative nature; and coming to himself, and not understanding clearly the cause of his prostration, he presently arose.
Of the worshippers in sight, he alone was then standing, and the sonorous music ringing on, he was beginning to doubt the propriety of his action, when a number of women, un.o.bserved before, issued from a shaded corner at the right of the apse, fell into processional order, and advanced slowly toward him.
One moved by herself in front. A reflection of her form upon the polished floor lent uncertainty to her stature, and gave her an appearance of walking on water. Those following were plainly her attendants. They were all veiled; while a white mantle fell from her left shoulder, its ends lost in the folds of the train of her gown, leaving the head, face, and neck bare. Her manner, noticeable in the distance even, was dignified without hauteur, simple, serious, free of affectation. She was not thinking of herself.... Nearer--he heard no foot-fall. Now and then she glided through slanting rays of soft, white light cast from upper windows, and they seemed to derive ethereality from her.... Nearer--and he could see the marvellous pose of the head, and the action of the figure, never incarnation more graceful.... Yet nearer--he beheld her face, in complexion a child"s, in expression a woman"s. The eyes were downcast, the lips moved. She might have been the theme of the music sweeping around her in acclamatory waves, drowning the part she was carrying in suppressed murmur. He gazed steadfastly at the countenance. The light upon the forehead was an increasing radiance, like a star"s refined by pa.s.sage through the atmospheres of infinite s.p.a.ce. A man insensitive to beauty in woman never was, never will be.