CHAPTER IV
THE EMIR IN ITALY
We know now who Count Corti is, and the objects of his coming toConstantinople--that he is a secret agent of Mahommed--that, summed upin the fewest words, his business is to keep the city in observation,and furnish reports which will be useful to his master in thepreparation the latter is making for its conquest. We also know he ischarged with very peculiar duties respecting the Princess Irene.
The most casual consideration of these revelations will make itapparent, in the next place, that hereafter the Emir must be designatedby his Italian appellative in full or abbreviated. Before forsaking theold name, there is lively need of information, whether as he now standson the deck of his galley, waiting the permissions prayed by him of theEmperor Constantine, he is, aside from title, the same Mirza lately sohonored by Mahommed.
From the time the ship hove in sight of the city, he had kept his placeon the cabin. The sailors, looking up to him occasionally, supposed himbound by the view, so motionless he stood, so steadfastly he gazed. Yetin fact his countenance was not expressive of admiration or rapture. Aman with sound vision may have a mountain just before him and not seeit; he may be in the vortex of a battle deaf to its voices; a thoughtor a feeling can occupy him in the crisis of his life to the exclusionof every sense. If perchance it be so with the Emir now, he must haveundergone a change which only a powerful cause could have broughtabout. He had been so content with his condition, so proud of his famealready won, so happy in keeping prepared for the opportunities plainlyin his sight, so satisfied with his place in his master's confidence,so delighted when that master laid a hand upon his shoulder and calledhim familiarly, now his Saladin, and now his falcon.
Faithfully, as bidden, Mirza sallied from the White Castle the night ofhis appointment to the agency in Constantinople. He spoke to no one ofhis intention, for he well knew secrecy was the soul of the enterprise.For the same reason, he bought of a dervish travelling with the LordMahommed's suite a complete outfit, including the man's donkey anddonkey furniture. At break of day he was beyond the hills of theBosphorus, resolved to skirt the eastern shore of the Marmora andHellespont, from which the Greek population had been almost entirelydriven by the Turks, and at the Dardanelles take ship for Italy directas possible--a long route and trying--yet there was in it the totaldisappearance from the eyes of acquaintances needful to success in hisventure. His disguise insured him from interruption on the road,dervishes being sacred characters in the estimation of the Faithful,and generally too poor to excite cupidity. A gray-frocked man, hooded,coarsely sandalled, and with a blackened gourd at his girdle for thealms he might receive from the devout, no Islamite meeting him wouldever suspect a large treasure in the ragged bundle on the back of thepatient animal plodding behind him like a tired dog.
The Dardanelles was a great stopping-place for merchants and tradesmen,Greek, Venetian, Genoese. There Mirza provided himself with an Italiansuit, adopted the Italian tongue, and became Italian. He borrowed achart of the coast of Italy from a sailor, to determine the port atwhich it would be advisable for him to land.
While settling this point, the conversation had with the Prince ofIndia in the latter's tent at Zaribah arose to mind, and he recalledwith particularity all that singular person said with reference to theaccent observable in his speech. He also went over the description hehimself had given the Prince of the house or castle from which he hadbeen taken in childhood. A woman had borne him outdoors, under a bluesky, along a margin of white sand, an orchard on one hand, the sea onthe other. He remembered the report of the waves breaking on the shore,the olive-green color of the trees in the orchard, and the battlementedgate of the castle; whereupon the Prince said the description remindedhim of the eastern shore of Italy in the region of Brindisi.
It was a vague remark certainly; but now it made a deeper impression onthe Emir than at the moment of its utterance and pointed his attentionto Brindisi. The going to Italy, he argued, was really to get a warrantfor the character he was to assume in Constantinople; that is, toobtain some knowledge of the country, its geography, politicaldivisions, cities, rulers, and present conditions generally, withoutwhich the slightest cross-examination by any of the well-informedpersonages about the Emperor would shatter his pretensions in aninstant. Then it was he fell into a most unusual mood.
Since the hour the turbaned rovers captured him he had not beenassailed by a desire to see or seek his country and family. Who was hisfather? Was his mother living? Probably nothing could better define theprofundity of the system underlying the organization of the Janissariesthan that he had never asked those questions with a genuine care tohave them solved. What a suppression of the most ordinary instincts ofnature! How could it have been accomplished so completely? As acircumstance, its tendency is to confirm the theory that men arecreatures of education and association.... Was his mother living? Didshe remember him? Had she wept for him? What sort of being was she? Ifliving, how old would she be? And he actually attempted a calculation.Calling himself twenty-six she might not be over forty-five. That wasnot enough to dim her eyes or more than slightly silver her hair; andas respects her heart, are not the affections of a mother flowers forculling by Death alone?
Such reflections never fail effect. A tenderness of spirit is the firsttoken of their presence; then memory and imagination begin striving;the latter to bring the beloved object back, and the former to surroundit with sweetest circumstances. They wrought with Mirza as witheverybody else. The yearning they excited in him was a surprise;presently he determined to act on the Prince of India's suggestion, andbetake himself to the eastern coast of Italy.
The story of the sack of a castle was of a kind to have widecirculation; at the same time this one was recent enough to be still inthe memory of persons living. Finding the place of its occurrence wasthe difficulty. If in the vicinity of Brindisi--well, he would go andask. The yearning spoken of did not come alone; it had for companion,Conscience, as yet in the background.
There were vessels bound for Venice. One was taking in water, afterwhich it would sail for Otranto. It seemed a fleet craft, with a faircrew, and a complement of stout rowers. Otranto was south of Brindisi alittle way, and the castle he wanted to hear of might have beensituated between those cities. Who could tell? Besides, as an Italiannobleman, to answer inquiry in Constantinople, he would have to locatehimself somewhere, and possibly the coast in question might accommodatehim with both a location and a title. The result was he took passage toOtranto.
While there he kept his role of traveller, but was studious, and pickedup a great fund of information bearing upon the part awaiting him. Helived and dressed well, and affected religious circles. It was the daywhen Italy was given over to the nobles--the day of robbers, fighting,intrigues and usurpations--of free lances and bold banditti--ofgovernment by the strong hand, of right determinable by might, ofensanguined Guelphs and Ghibellines. Of these the Emir kept clear.
By chance he fell in with an old man of secondary rank in the city muchgiven to learning, an habitue of a library belonging to one of themonasteries. It came out ere long that the venerable person wasfamiliar with the coast from Otranto to Brindisi, and beyond far asPolignano.
"It was in my sturdier days," the veteran said, with a dismal glance athis shrunken hands. "The people along the shore were much harried byMoslem pirates. Landing from their galleys, the depredators burnedhabitations, slew the men, and carried off such women as they thoughtwould fetch a price. They even assaulted castles. At last we weredriven to the employment of a defensive guard cooperative on land andwater. I was a captain. Our fights with the rovers were frequent andfierce. Neither side showed quarter."
The reminiscence stimulated Mirza to inquiry. He asked the old man ifhe could mention a castle thus attacked.
"Yes, there was one belonging to Count Corti, a few leagues beyondBrindisi. The Count defended himself, but was slain."
"Had he a family?"
"A wife and a boy child."
> "What became of them?"
"By good chance the Countess was in Brindisi attending a fete; sheescaped, of course. The boy, two or three years of age, was madeprisoner, and never heard of afterwards."
A premonition seized Mirza.
"Is the Countess living?"
"Yes. She never entirely recovered from the shock, but built a housenear the site of the castle, and clearing a room in the ruins, turnedit into a chapel. Every morning and evening she goes there, and praysfor the soul of her husband, and the return of her lost boy."
"How long is it since the poor lady was so bereft?"
The narrator reflected, and replied: "Twenty-two or three years."
"May the castle be found?"
"Yes."
"Have you been to it?"
"Many times."
"How was it named?"
"After the Count--_Il Castillo di Corti_."
"Tell me something of its site."
"It is down close by the sea. A stone wall separates its frontenclosure from the beach. Sometimes the foam of the waves is dashedupon the wall. Through a covered gate one looks out, and all is water.Standing on the tower, all landward is orchard and orchard--olive andalmond trees intermixed. A great estate it was and is. The Countess, itis understood, has a will executed; if the boy does not return beforeher death, the Church is to be her legatee."
There was more of the conversation, covering a history of the Cortifamily, honorable as it was old--the men famous warriors, the womenfamous beauties.
Mirza dreamed through the night of the Countess, and awoke with a vagueconsciousness that the wife of the Pacha, the grace of whose care hadbeen about him in childhood--a good woman, gentle and tender--was afterall but a representative of the mother who had given him birth, just ason her part every mother is mercifully representative of God. Understrong feeling he took boat for Brindisi.
There he had no trouble in confirming the statements of his Otrantoacquaintance. The Countess was still living, and the coast roadnorthwardly would bring him to the ruins of her castle. The journey didnot exceed five leagues.
What he might find at the castle, how long he would stay, what do, wereso uncertain--indeed everything in the connection was so dependent uponconditions impossible of foresight, that he resolved to set out onfoot. To this course he was the more inclined by the mildness of theweather, and the reputation of the region for freshness and beauty.
About noon he was fairly on the road. Persons whom he met--and theywere not all of the peasant class--seeing a traveller jaunty in plumedcap, light blue camail, pointed buskins, and close-fitting hose thecolor of the camail, sword at his side, and javelin in hand, stayed toobserve him long as he was in sight, never dreaming they were permittedto behold a favorite of one of the bloody Mahounds of the East.
Over hill and down shallow vales: through stone-fenced lanes; now inthe shade of old trees; now along a seashore partially overflowed bylanguid waves, he went, lighter in step than heart, for he was in themood by no means uncommon, when the spirit is prophesying evil untoitself. He was sensible of the feeling, and for shame would catch thejavelin in the middle and whirl it about him defensively until it sunglike a spinning-wheel; at times he stopped and, with his fingers in hismouth, whistled to a small bird as if it were a hunting hawk high inair.
Once, seeing a herd of goats around a house thatched and half-hidden invines, he asked for milk. A woman brought it to him, with a slice ofbrown bread; and while he ate and drank, she stared at him inrespectful admiration; and when he paid her in gold, she said,courtesying low: "A glad life to my Lord! I will pray the Madonna tomake the wish good." Poor creature! She had no idea she was blessingone in whose faith the Prophet was nearer God than God's own Son.
At length the road made an abrupt turn to the right, bringing him to along stretch of sandy beach. Nearly as he could judge, it was time forthe castle to appear, and he was anxious to make it before sundown. Yetin the angle of the wood he saw a wayside box of stone sheltering animage of the Virgin, with the Holy Child in its arms. Besides beingsculptured better than usual, the figures were covered with flowers inwreath and bouquet. A dressed slab in front of the structure, evidentlyfor the accommodation of worshippers, invited him to rest, and he tookthe seat, and looking up at the mother, she appeared to be looking athim. He continued his gaze, and presently the face lost its stonyappearance--stranger still, it smiled. It was illusion, of course, buthe arose startled, and moved on with quickened step. The impressionwent with him. Why the smile? He did not believe in images: much lessdid he believe in the Virgin, except as she was the subject of a goodlystory. And absorbed in the thought, he plodded on, leaving the sun togo down unnoticed.
Thereupon the shadows thickened in the woods at his left hand, whilethe sound of the incoming waves at his right increased as silence laidits velvet finger with a stronger compress on all other pulsations.Here and there a star peeped timidly through the purpling sky--now itwas dusk--a little later, it would be night--and yet no castle!
He pushed on more vigorously; not that he was afraid--fear and thefalcon of Mahommed had never made acquaintance--but he began to thinkof a bed in the woods, and worse yet, he wanted the fast-going daylightto help him decide if the castle when he came to it were indeed thecastle of his fathers. He had believed all along, if he could see thepile once, his memory would revive and help him to recognition.
At last night fell, and there was darkness trebled on the land, and onthe sea darkness, except where ghostly lines of light stretchedthemselves along the restless water. Should he go on?...
Then he heard a bell--one soft tone near by and silvery clear. Hehalted. Was it of the earth? A hush deeper of the sound--and he waswondering if another illusion were not upon him, when again the bell!
"Oh!" he muttered, "a trick of the monks in Otranto! Some soul ispassing."
He pressed forward, guided by the tolling. Suddenly the trees fellaway, and the road brought him to a stone wall heavily coped. Onfurther, a blackened mass arose in dim relief against the sky, withheavy merlons on its top.
"It is the embattled gate!" he exclaimed, to himself--"the embattledgate!--and here the beach!--and, O Allah! the waves there are makingthe reports they used to!"
The bell now tolled with awful distinctness, filling him with unwontedchills--tolled, as if to discourage his memory in its struggle to liftitself out of a lapse apparently intended to be final as thegrave--tolled solemnly, as if his were the soul being rung into thenext life. A rush of forebodings threatened him with paralysis of will,and it was only by a strong exertion he overcame it, and broughthimself back to the situation, and the question, What next?
Now Mirza was not a man to forego a purpose lightly. Emotional, but notsuperstitious, he tried the sword, if it were loose in the scabbard,and then, advancing the point of his javelin, entered the darkenedgallery of the gate. Just as he emerged from it on the inner side, thebell tolled.
"A Moslem doth not well," he thought, silently repeating a saying ofthe _jadis_, "to accept a Christian call to prayer; but," he answeredin self-excuse, "I am not going to prayer--I am seeking"--he stopped,for very oddly, the face of the Virgin in the stone box back in theangle of the road presented itself to him, and still more oddly, hefelt firmer of purpose seeing again the smile on the face. Then hefinished the sentence aloud--"my mother _who is a Christian._"
There was a jar in the conclusion, and he went back to find it, andhaving found it, he was surprised. Up to that moment, he had notthought of his mother a Christian. How came the words in his mouth now?Who prompted them? And while he was hastily pondering the effect uponher of the discovery that he himself was an Islamite, the image in thebox reoccurred to him, this time with the child in its arms; andthereupon the mystery seemed to clear itself at once. "Mother andmother!" he said. "What if my coming were the answer of one of them tothe other's prayer?"
The idea affected him; his spirit softened; the heat of tears sprang tohis eyelids; and the effort he made to rise ab
ove the unmanlinessengaged him so he failed to see the other severer and more lastingstruggle inevitable if the Countess were indeed the being to whom heowed the highest earthly obligations--the struggle between naturalaffection and honor, as the latter lay coiled up in the ties bindinghim to Mahommed.
The condition, be it remarked, is ours; for from that last appearanceof the image by the wayside--from that instant, marking a new era inhis life--often as the night and its incidents recurred to him, he hadnever a doubt of his relationship to the Countess. Indeed, not only wasshe thenceforward his mother, but all the ground within the gate washis by natal right, and the castle was the very castle from which hehad been carried away, over the body of his heroic father--_he was theCount Corti_!
These observations will bring the reader to see more distinctly theEmir's state after passing the gate. Of the surroundings, he beheldnothing but shadows more or less dense and voluminous; the mournfulmurmuring of the wind told him they belonged to trees and shrubbery inclumps. The road he was on, although blurred, was serviceable as aguide, and he pursued it until brought to a building so masked by nightthe details were invisible. Following its upper line, relieved againstthe gray sky, he made out a broken front and one tower massivelybattlemented. A pavement split the road in two; crossing it, he came toan opening, choked with timbers and bars of iron; surmisably the frontportal at present in disuse. He needed no explanation of its condition.Fire and battle were familiars of his.
The bell tolled on. The sound, so passing sweet elsewhere, seemed toissue from the yawning portal, leaving him to fancy the interior alumber of floors, galleries, and roofs in charred tumble down.
Mirza turned away presently, and took the left branch of the road;since he could not get into the castle, he would go around it; and indoing so, he borrowed from the distance traversed a conception of itsimmensity, as well as of the importance the countship must have enjoyedin its palmy days.
At length he gained the rear of the great pile. The wood there was moreopen, and he was pleased with the sight of lights apparently gleamingthrough windows, from which he inferred a hamlet pitched on a brokensite. Then he heard singing; and listening, never had human voicesseemed to him so impressively solemn. Were they coming or going?
Ere long a number of candles, very tall, and screened from the wind bysmall lanterns of transparent paper, appeared on the summit of anascent; next moment the bearers of the candles were in view--boysbareheaded and white frocked. As they began to descend the height, abevy of friars succeeded them, their round faces and tonsured crownsglistening in ruddy contrast with their black habits. A choir of foursingers, three men and one woman, followed the monks. Then a linkman inhalf armor strode across the summit, lighting the way for a figure,also in black, which at once claimed Mirza's gaze.
As he stared at the figure, the account given him by the old captain inOtranto flashed upon his memory. The widow of the murdered count hadcleared a room in the castle, and fitted it up as a chapel, and everymorning and evening she went thither to pray for the soul of herhusband and the return of her lost boy.
The words were alive with suggestions; but suggestions implyuncertainty; wherefore they are not a reason for the absoluteconviction with which the Emir now said to himself:
"It is she--the Countess--my mother!"
There must be in every heart a store of prevision of which we are notaware--occasions bring it out with such sudden and bewildering effect.
Everything--hymn, tolling bell, lights, boys, friars, procession--wasaccessory to that veiled, slow-marching figure. And in habiliment,movement, air, with what telling force it impersonated sorrow! On theother hand, how deep and consuming the sorrow itself must be!
She--he beheld only her--descended the height without looking up oraround--a little stooped, yet tall and of dignified carriage--not oldnor yet young--a noble woman worthy reverence.
While he was making these comments, the procession reached the foot ofthe ascent; then the boys and friars came between, and hid her from hisview.
"O Allah! and thou his Prophet!" he exclaimed. "Am I not to see herface? Is she not to know me?"
Curiously the question had not presented itself before; neither when heresolved to come, nor while on the way. To say truth, he had been allthe while intent on the one partial object--to see her. He had notanticipated the awakening the sight might have upon his feelings.
"Am I not to discover myself to her? Is she never to know me?" herepeated.
The lights in the hands of the boys were beginning to gleam along abeaten road a short distance in front of the agitated Emir conductingto the castle. He divined at once that the Countess was coming to thechapel for the usual evening service, and that, by advancing to theside of the road, he could get a near view of her as she passed. Hestarted forward impulsively, but after a few steps stopped, tremblinglike a child imagining a ghost.
Now our conception of the man forbids us thinking him overcome by atrifle, whether of the air or in the flesh. A change so extreme musthave been the work of a revelation of quick and powerfulconsequence--and it was, although the first mention may excite a smile.In the gleam of mental lightning--we venture on the term for want ofanother more descriptive--he had been reminded of the business whichbrought him to Italy.
Let us pause here, and see what the reminder means; if only because thedebonair Mirza, with whom we have been well pleased, is now to becomeanother person in name and character, commanding our sympathies asbefore, but for a very different reason.
This was what the lightning gave him to see, and not darkly: If hediscovered himself to the Countess, he must expose his history from thenight the rovers carried him away. True, the tale might be givengenerally, leaving its romance to thrill the motherly heart, and exalthim the more; for to whom are heroes always the greatest heroes?Unhappily steps in confession are like links in a chain, one leads toanother.... Could he, a Christian born, tell her he was an apostate? Orif he told her, would it not be one more grief to the many she wasalready breaking under--one, the most unendurable? And as to himself,how could he more certainly provoke a forfeiture of her love?... Shewould ask--if but to thank God for mercies--to what joyful accident hisreturn was owing? And then? Alas! with her kiss on his brow, could hestand silent? More grievous yet, could he deceive her? If nothing is somurderous of self-respect as falsehood, a new life begun with a lieneeds no prophet to predict its end. No, he must answer the truth. Thisconviction was the ghost which set him trembling. An admission that hewas a Moslem would wound her, yet the hope of his conversion wouldremain--nay, the labor in making the hope good might even renew herinterest in life; but to tell her he was in Italy to assist in theoverthrow of a Christian Emperor for the exaltation of an infidel--Godhelp him! Was ever such a monster as he would then become in hereyes?... The consequences of that disclosure, moreover, were not to theCountess and himself merely. With a sweep of wing one's fancy is alonecapable of, he was borne back to the White Castle, and beheld Mahommed.When before did a Prince, contemplating an achievement which was toring the world, give trust with such absoluteness of faith? Poor Mirza!The sea rolled indefinitely wide between the White Castle and this oneof his fathers; across it, nevertheless, he again heard the words: "Asthou art to be my other self, be it royally. Kings never account tothemselves." If they made betrayal horrible in thought, what would thefact be?...
Finally, last but not least of the reflections the lightning laid bare,the Emir had been bred a soldier, and he loved war for itself and forthe glory it offered unlike every other glory. Was he to bid them botha long farewell?
Poor Mirza! A few paragraphs back allusion was made to a strugglebefore him between natural affection on one hand and honor on theother. Perhaps it was obscurely stated; if so, here it is amended, andstripped of conditions. He has found his mother. She is coming down theroad--there, behind the dancing lights, behind the friars, she iscoming to pray for him. Should he fly her recognition or betray hisconfiding master? Room there may be to say the alterna
tives were ajudgment upon him, but who will deny him pity? ... There is often asuffering, sometimes an agony, in indecision more wearing than disease,deadlier than sword-cuts.
The mournful pageant was now where its lights brought out parts of theface of the smoke-stained building. With a loud clang a door was thrownopen, and a friar, in the black vestments usual in masses for the dead,came out to receive the Countess. The interior behind him was dullyilluminated. A few minutes more, and the opportunity to see her facewould be lost. Still the Emir stood irresolute. Judge the fierceness ofthe conflict in his breast!
At last he moved forward. The acolytes, with their great candles ofyellow wax, were going by as he gained the edge of the road. Theylooked at him wonderingly. The friars, in Dominican cassocks, stared athim also. Then the choir took its turn. The linkman at sight of himstopped an instant, then marched on. The Emir really beheld none ofthem; his eyes and thoughts were in waiting; and now--how his heartbeat!--how wistfully he gazed!--the Countess was before him, not threeyards away.
Her garments, as said, were all black. A thick veil enveloped her head;upon her breast her crossed hands shone ivory white. Two or three timesthe right hand, in signing the cross, uncovered a ring upon theleft--the wedding ring probably. Her bearing was of a person not so oldas persecuted by an engrossing anguish. She did not once raise her face.
The Emir's heart was full of prayer.
"O Allah! It is my mother! If I may not speak to her, or kiss herfeet--if I may not call her mother--if I may not say, mother, mother,behold, I am thy son come back--still, as thou art the Most Merciful!let me see her face, and suffer her to see mine--once, O Allah! once,if nevermore!"
But the face remained covered--and so she passed, but in passing sheprayed. Though the voice was low, lie heard these words: "Oh, sweetMother! By the Blessed Son of thy love and passion, remember mine, Ibeseech thee. Be with him, and bring him to me quickly. Miserable womanthat I am!"
The world, and she with it, swam in the tears he no longer tried tostay. Stretching his arms toward her, he fell upon his knees, then uponhis face; and that the face was in the dust, he never minded. When helooked up, she was gone on, the last of the procession. And he knew shehad not seen him.
He followed after. Everybody stood aside to let her enter the doorfirst. The friar received her; she went in, and directly the linkmanstood alone outside.
"Stay!" said the linkman, peremptorily. "Who art thou?"
Thus rudely challenged, the Emir awoke from his daze--awoke with allhis faculties clear.
"A gentleman of Otranto," he replied.
"What is thy pleasure?"
"Admit me to the chapel."
"Thou art a stranger, and the service is private. Or hast thou beeninvited?"
"No."
"Thou canst not enter."
Again the world dropped into darkness before Mirza; but this time itwas from anger. The linkman never suspected his peril. Fortunately forhim, the voice of the female chorister issued from the doorway intremulous melody. Mirza listened, and became tranquillized. The voicesank next into a sweet unearthly pleading, and completely subdued, hebegan arguing with himself.... She had not seen him while he was in thedust at her side, and now this repulse at the door--how were they to betaken except as expressions of the will of Heaven?... There was plentyof time--better go away, and return--perhaps to-morrow. He was notprepared to prove his identity, if it were questioned.... There wouldbe a scene, and he shrank from it.... Yes, better retire now.... And heturned to go. Not six steps away, the Countess reappeared to hisexcited mind, exactly as she had passed praying for him--reappeared--
... "like the painting of a sorrow."
A revulsion of feeling seized him--he halted. Oh, the years she hadmourned for him! Her love was deep as the sea! Tears again--and withoutthought of what he did--all aimlessly--he returned to the door.
"This castle was sacked and burned by pirates, was it not?" he askedthe linkman.
"Yes."
"They slew the Count Corti?"
"Yes."
"And carried off his son?"
"Yes."
"Had he other children?"
"No."
"What was the name of the boy?"
"Ugo."
"Well--in thy ear now--thou didst not well in shutting me out--_I amthat Ugo._"
Thereupon the Emir walked resolutely away.
A cry, shrill and broken, overtook him, issuing apparently from thedoor of the chapel--a second time he heard it, more a moan than ashriek--and thinking the linkman had given the alarm, he quickened hispace to a run, and was soon out on the beach.
The breath of the sea was pleasant and assuring, and falling into awalk, he turned his face toward Brindisi. But the cry pursued him. Heimagined the scene in the chapel--the distress of the Countess--thebreaking up of the service--the hurry of question--a consultation, andpossibly search for him. Every person in the procession but theCountess had seen him; so the only open point in the affair was the oneof directest interest to her: Was it her son?
Undoubtedly the suffering lady would not rest until investigation wasexhausted. Failing to find the stranger about the castle, horsemenmight be sent out on the road. There is terrible energy in mother-love.These reflections stimulated the Emir to haste. Sometimes he even ran;only at the shrine of the Virgin and Child in the angle of the road didhe halt. There he cast himself upon the friendly slab to recover breath.
All this of course indicated a preference for Mahommed. And now he cameto a decision. He would proceed with the duty assigned him by the youngmaster; then, at the end, he would come back, and assert himself in hisnative land.
He sat on the slab an hour or more. At intervals the outcry, which hedoubted not was his mother's, rang in his ears, and every time he heardit, conscience attacked him with its whip of countless stings. Whysubject her to more misery? For what other outcome could there be tothe ceaseless contention of fears and hopes now hers? Oh, if she hadonly seen him when he was so near her in the road! That she did not,was the will of Allah, and the fatalistic Mohammedan teaching broughthim a measure of comfort. In further sooth, he had found a location anda title. Thenceforward, and not fictitiously, he was the _Count Corti_;and so entitling himself, he determined to make Brindisi, and take shipfor Genoa or Venice in the morning before a messenger could arrive fromthe castle.
As he arose from the slab, a bird in housel for the night flew out ofthe box. Its small cheep reminded him of the smile he had fancied onthe face of the Madonna, and how, a little later, the smile had, withsuch timely suggestion of approval, woven itself into his thought ofthe Countess. He looked up at the face again; but the night was over itlike a veil, and he went nearer, and laid his hand softly on the Child.That which followed was not a miracle; only a consequence of the wisdomwhich permits the enshrinement of a saintly woman and Holy Child aswitnesses of the Divine Goodness to humanity. He raised himself higherin the box, and pushing aside a heap of faded floral offerings, kissedthe foot of the taller image, saying: "Thus would I have done to mymother." And when he had climbed down, and was in the road, it seemedsome one answered him: "Go thy way! God and Allah are the same." We maynow urge the narrative. From Brindisi the Emir sailed to Venice. Twoweeks in "the glorious city in the sea" informed him of it thoroughly.While there, he found, on the "ways" of an Adriatic builder, the galleyin which we have seen him at anchor in the Golden Horn. Leaving anorder for the employment of a sailing-master and crew when the vesselwas complete, he departed next for Rome. At Padua he procured theharness of a man-at-arms of the period, and recruited a company of_condottieri_--mercenary soldiers of every nationality. With all hissacerdotal authority, Nicholas V., the Holy Father, was sorely tried inkeeping his States. The freebooters who unctuously kissed his handto-day, did not scruple, if opportunity favored, to plunder one of histowns tomorrow. It befell that Count Corti--so the Emir styledhimself--found a Papal castle beleaguered by marauders, whom hedispersed, slaying their chief with his own hand. Nichol
as, in publicaudience, asked him to name the reward he preferred.
"Knighthood at thy hands, first of all things," was the reply.
The Holy Father took a sword from one of his officers, and gave him the_accolade_.
"What next, my son?"
"I am tired fighting men who ought to be Christians. Give me, I pray,thy commission to make war upon the Barbary pirates who infest theseas."
This was granted him.
"What next?"
"Nothing, Holy Father, but thy blessing, and a certificate in goodform, and under seal, of these favors thou hast done me."
The certificate and the blessing were also granted.
The Count then dismissed his lances, and, hastening to Naples, embarkedfor Venice. There he supplied himself with suits of the finest Milanesearmor he could obtain, and a wardrobe consisting of costumes such aswere in vogue with the gay gallants along the Grand Canal. Crossing toTripoli, he boarded a Moorish merchantman, and made prisoners of thecrew and rowers. The prize he gave to his Christian sailors, and sentthem home. Summoning his prisoners on deck, he addressed them inArabic, offering them high pay if they would serve him, and theygratefully accepted his terms.
The Count then directed his prow to what is now Aleppo, with thepurpose of procuring Arab horses; and having purchased five of thepurest blood, he made sail for Constantinople.
We shall now, for a time, permit the title _Emir_ to lapse. The knightwe have seen on the deck of the new arrival in the Golden Horn viewingwith melancholy interest the cities on either side of the fairestharbor on earth, is in easy English speech, _Count Corti_, the Italian.
Thus far the Count had been successful in his extraordinary mission,yet he was not happy. He had made three discoveries during hisjourney--his mother, his country, his religion. Ordinarily theserelations--if we may so call them--furnish men their greatest sum ofcontentment; sadly for him, however, he had made a fourth finding, ofitself sufficient to dash all the others--in briefest term, he was notin condition to acknowledge either of them. Unable to still the cryheard while retiring from his father's ruined castle, he surrenderedhimself more and more to the wisdom brought away from the box of theMadonna and Child in the angle of the road to Brindisi--_God and Allahare the same._ Conscience and a growing sense of misappropriated lifewere making Count Corti a very different person from the light-heartedEmir of Mahommed.