Taking a New Testament from the table, she gave it to him.
"You will find the sayings easily. On the margins opposite them there are markings illuminated in gold."
"Thanks, O Princess, most humbly. I will return the book."
"No, Count, it is yours."
An expression she did not understand darkened his face.
"Are you a Christian?" she asked.
He flushed deeply, and bowed while answering:
"My mother is a Christian."
That night Count Corti searched the book, and found that the strength of faith underlying his mother"s prayers for his return to her, and the Princess" determination to die with the monk, were but Christian lights.
"Princess Irene," he said one day, "I have studied the book you gave me; and knowing now who Christ is, I am ready to accept your Creed. Tell me how I may know myself a believer?"
A lamp in the hollow of an alabaster vase glows through the transparency; so her countenance responded to the joy behind it.
"Render obedience to His commands--do His will, O Count--then wilt thou be a believer in Christ, and know it."
The darkness she had observed fall once before on his face obscured it again, and he arose and went out in silence.
Brave he certainly was, and strong. Who could strike like him? He loved opposition for the delight there was in overcoming it; yet in his chamber that night he was never so weak. He resorted to the book, but could not read. It seemed to accuse him. "Thou Islamite--thou son of Mahomet, though born of a Christian, whom servest thou? Judas, what dost thou in this city? Hypocrite--traitor--which is thy master, Mahomet or Christ?"
He fell upon his knees, tore at his beard, buried his head in his arms.
He essayed prayer to Christ.
"Jesus--Mother of Jesus--O my mother!" he cried in agony.
The hour he was accustomed to give to Mahommed came round. He drew out the writing materials. "The Princess"--thus he began a sentence, but stopped--something caught hold of his heart--the speaking face of the beloved woman appeared to him--her eyes were reproachful--her lips moved--she spoke: "Count Corti, I am she whom thou lovest; but what dost thou? Is it not enough to betray my kinsman? Thy courage--what makest thou of it but wickedness? ... Write of me to thy master. Come every day, and contrive that I speak, then tell him of it. Am I sick? Tell him of it. Do I hold to this or that? Tell him. Am I shaken by visions of ruin to my country? Tell him of them. What is thy love if not the servant for hire of his love? Traitor--panderer!"
The Count pushed the table from him, and sprang to foot writhing. To shut out the word abhorrent above all other words, he clapped his hands tight over his ears--in vain.
"Panderer!"--he heard with his soul--"Panderer! When thou hast delivered me to Mahommed, what is he to give thee? How much?"
Thus shame, like a wild dog, bayed at him. For relief he ran out into the garden. And it was only the beginning of misery. Such the introduction or first chapter, what of the catastrophe? He could not sleep for shame.
In the morning he ordered his horse, but had not courage to go to Blacherne. How could he look at the kindly face of the master he was betraying? He thought of the Princess. Could he endure her salutation?
She whom he was under compact to deliver to Mahommed? A paroxysm of despair seized him.
He rode to the Gate St. Romain, and out of it into the country. Gallop, gallop--the steed was good--his best Arab, fleet and tireless. Noon overtook him--few things else could--still he galloped. The earth turned into a green ribbon under the flying hoofs, and there was relief in the speed. The air, whisked through, was soothing. At length he came to a wood, wild and interminable, Belgrade, though he knew it not, and dismounting by a stream, he spent the day there. If now and then the steed turned its eyes upon him, attracted by his sighs, groans and prayer, there was at least no accusation in them. The solitude was restful; and returning after nightfall, he entered the city through the sortie under the Palace of Blacherne known as the Cercoporta.
It is well pain of spirit has its intermissions; otherwise long life could not be; and if sleep bring them, so much the better.
Next day betimes, the Count was at Blacherne.
"I pray grace, O my Lord!" he said, speaking to the question in the Emperor"s look. "Yesterday I had to ride. This confinement in the city deadens me. I rode all day."
The good, easy master sighed: "Would I had been with you, Count."
Thus he dismissed the truancy. But with the Princess it was a lengthy chapter. If the Emperor was never so gracious, she seemed never so charming. He wrote to Mahommed in the evening, and walked the garden the residue of the night.
So weeks and months pa.s.sed, and March came--even the night of the twenty-fifth, with its order from the Sultan to the White Castle--an interval of indecision, shame, and self-indictment. How many plans of relief he formed who can say? Suicide he put by, a very last resort.
There was also a temptation to cut loose from Mahommed, and go boldly over to the Emperor. That would be a truly Christian enlistment for the approaching war; and aside from conformity to his present sympathies, it would give him a right to wear the Princess" favor on his helmet. But a fear shook the resort out of mind. Mahommed, whether successful or defeated, would demand an explanation of him, possibly an accounting. He knew the Sultan. Of all the schemes presented, the most plausible was flight. There was the gate, and he its keeper, and beyond the gate, the sunny Italian sh.o.r.e, and his father"s castle. The seas and sailing between were as green landscapes to a weary prisoner, and he saw in them only the joy of going and freedom to do. Welcome, and to G.o.d the praise!
More than once he locked his portables of greatest value in the cabin of the galley. But alas! He was in bonds. Life in Constantinople now comprehended two of the ultimate excellencies to him, Princess Irene and Christ--and their joinder in the argument he took to be no offence.
From one to another of these projects he pa.s.sed, and they but served to hide the flight of time. He was drifting--ahead, and not far, he heard the thunder of coming events--yet he drifted.
In this condition, the most envied man in Constantinople and the most wretched, the Sultan"s order was delivered to him by Ali.
The time for decision was come. Tired--ashamed--angry with himself, he determined to force the end.
The Count arrived at the Castle, was immediately admitted to the Sultan; indeed, had he been less resolute, his master"s prompt.i.tude would have been a circ.u.mstance of disturbing significance.
Observation satisfied him Mahommed was in the field; for with all his Epicureanism in times of peace, when a campaign was in progress the Conqueror resolved himself into a soldierly example of indifference to luxury. In other words, with respect to furnishment, the interior of the old Castle presented its every day ruggedness.
One lamp fixed to the wall near the door of the audience chamber struggled with the murk of a narrow pa.s.sage, giving to view an a.s.sistant chamberlain, an armed sentinel, and two jauntily attired pages in waiting. Surrendering his sword to the chamberlain, the Count halted before the door, while being announced; at the same time, he noticed a man come out of a neighboring apartment clad in black velvet from head to foot, followed closely by a servant. It was the Prince of India.
The mysterious person advanced slowly, his eyes fixed on the floor, his velvet-shod feet giving out no sound. His air indicated deep reflection.
In previous encounters with him, the Count had been pleased; now his sensations were of repugnance mixed with doubt and suspicion. He had not time to account for the change. It may have had origin in the higher prescience sometimes an endowment of the spirit by which we stand advised of a friend or an enemy; most likely, however, it was a consequence of the curious tales abroad in Constantinople; for at the recognition up sprang the history of the Prince"s connection with Lael, and her abandonment by him, the more extraordinary from the evidences of his attachment to her. Up sprang also the opinion of universal prevalence in the city that he had perished in the great fire. What did it all mean? What kind of man was he?
The servant carried a package wrapped in gold-embroidered green silk.
Coming near, the Prince raised his eyes--stopped--smiled--and said:
"Count Corti--or Mirza the Emir--which have I the honor of meeting?"
In spite of the offence he felt, Corti blushed, such a flood of light did the salutation let in upon the falsity of his position. Far from losing presence of mind, he perceived at once how intimately the Prince stood in the councils of the Sultan.
"The Lord Mahommed must be heard before I can answer," he returned, calmly.
In an instant the Prince became cordial.
"That was well answered," he said. "I am pleased to have my judgment of you confirmed. Your mission has been a trying one, but you have conducted it like a master. The Lord Mahommed has thanked me many times that I suggested you for it. He is impatient to see you. We will go in together."
Mahommed, in armor, was standing by a table on which were a bare cimeter, a lamp brightly burning, and two large unrolled maps. In one of the latter, the Count recognized Constantinople and its environs cast together from his own surveys.
Retired a few steps were the two Viziers, Kalil Pacha and his rival, Saganos Pacha, the Mollah Kourani, and the Sheik Akschem-sed-din. The preaching of the Mollah had powerfully contributed to arousing the fanatical spirit of the Sultan"s Mohammedan subjects. The four were standing in the att.i.tude usual to Turkish officials in presence of a superior, their heads bowed, their hands upon their stomachs. In speaking, if they raised their eyes from the floor it was to shoot a furtive glance, then drop them again.
"This is the grand design of the work by which you will be governed,"
Mahommed said to the counsellors, laying the finger points of his right hand upon the map unknown to the Count, and speaking earnestly. "You will take it, and make copies tonight; for if the stars fail not, I will send the masons and their workmen to the other sh.o.r.e in the morning."
The advisers saluted--it would be difficult to say which of them with the greatest unction.
Looking sharply at Kalil, the master asked: "You say you superintended the running of the lines in person?"