CHAPTER XLIV.
Late in the day the Sultan retired to a neighboring mansion, once possessed by the Greek Grand Duke, Lucas Notaras, and there sought relaxation from the incessant cares of the empire. The day had been wearisome. Architects had submitted plans for the detailed ornamentation of the new seraglio which was rising on the Byzantine Point. One of the plans led to dispute between the Padishah and the chief Mufti, the expounder of the Moslem law. It was occasioned thus. The porphyry column[91] which stood hard by the palace of the Greek emperors, had once served to hold aloft the bronze statue of Apollo, a precious relic of ancient Greek mythology. This was afterward reverenced by the people as the figure of the Emperor Constantine the Great, or worshipped by them as that of Christ. An architect proposed that the time-glorious shaft should now be surmounted by the colossal statue of Mahomet II. The Mufti declared the project to be impious, as tempting to idolatry, against which the Koran was so clear and denunciatory, and also the Sounna or traditional sayings of the Prophet. The Sultan's pride rebelled against this assumption of an authority above his own. But the Sultan's superstitious regard for the faith among the people, which led him to wash his hands and face openly whenever he spoke with the architect, who was a Christian engaged at great cost from Italy, also led him to fear to break with the prescriptions and customs of his religion in this matter. He contented himself with an oath that he had sooner lost the honor of a campaign than the privilege of seeing himself represented as the conqueror of both Constantine and Christ. Generals, too, had been in council with him that day regarding the conduct of intrigues for the possession of the Peloponnesus, and about the wars in Servia, Boznia and Trebizond. Ill tidings had come from Albania, where Scanderbeg was consuming the Turkish armies, as a great spider entraps in his webs and at his leisure devours a swarm of hornets, which, could they have free access to him, would instantly sting him to death. The messenger who brought this news was rewarded by having hurled at his head an immense vase of malachite, in the exertion of lifting which the imperial wrath was sufficiently eased to allow of his turning to other business. A plan for the reception of the inmates of the grand harem at Adrianople, when they should be transported to the spacious buildings being constructed for them in the seraglio, was also a pleasing diversion, and led the Sultan to make the brief visit to the fair ones at the house of Phranza, which has been described. But the nettled spirit of the Padishah was far from subdued. He had during the day given an order, the sequel to which we must relate, and which, while it disturbed his conscience and flooded him at moments with the sense of self-contempt, also inflamed his natural passion for cruelty. He determined to drown the noble, and to satiate the the vicious, craving by an hour or two of unrestrained debauch.
In the court of the house of the Grand Duke Notaras was spread the royal banquet. Rarest viands were flanked by flagons of costliest wines. Upon the momentary surprise of the steward when he received the order to provide the wines, the monarch cried in a contemptuous tone:
"Ah! I know your thoughts. It is not according to the Koran that wine should be drunk. But by the staff of Moses,[92] which they found in the palace of the Cæsars yonder, I swear that Mahomet the Emperor shall not yield to Mahomet the Prophet in everything. The Prophet made laws to suit his own taste, so will I[93]. He can have Mecca and Medina and Jerusalem; but I shall reign without him in my own palace in Stamboul, which I have captured with my own hand. Bring the wine, or I'll spill your black blood as a beverage to those in hell! It will be sweet enough for your kin who are black with roasting. I will have wine to-day! Cool it in all the snows from Mount Olympus yonder; for my blood is as hot as if I were shod with fire; and my skull boils like a pot."[94]
About the table were divans cushioned with down and covered with yellow silk. The Padishah took his seat upon the highest cushion. By his side stood the chief of the black eunuchs, splendidly[95] attired in the waistcoat of flower embroidered brocade, tunic of scarlet, flowing trousers, red turban, and half boots of bronzed leather. He held a wand of silver covered with elegant tracery and topped in filagree. As he waved this symbol of his office, there came from the various doors opening into the court groups of the harem women. They were draped in gauze, in the folds of which sparkled diamonds and glowed the hues of precious stones selected by the taste of the chief eunuch to set off the complexion and hair of their various wearers, and at the same time to facilitate their grouping into sets of dancers. The court was made radiant with these beautiful forms, which moved in circles or in spirals about the fountains and under the orange trees, whose white blossoms and golden fruit in simultaneous fulness completed the picture for the eye, while their fragrance loaded the air with its delicate delight.
The Kislar Aga had arranged a scene which especially pleased the monarch, whose head was already swimming with the combined effect of the mazy dance and the fumes of the wine. An attendant led into the court, held partly by a strong leash and partly by the voice of his trainer, a magnificent leopard. With utmost grace the beast leaped over the ribboned wand, falling so softly to the ground that, though of enormous weight, he would not seemingly have broken a twig had it lain beneath his feet. In imitation of this, a eunuch led into the court by a leash of roses a Circassian dancer, the gift of a Caramanian prince. Her form was as free from the hindrances of dress as that of her spotted competitor; except that a bright gem burned upon her forehead, in the node which gathered a part of her hair; while the abundance of her tresses was either held out on her snowy arms, or fell about her as a veil almost to her feet. With a hundred variations the girl repeated the motions of the leopard, leaping the wands with equal grace as she came to them in the measures of the dance.
The great brute had laid his head in the lap of his trainer, and was watching his beautiful rival with apparent enjoyment; only now and then uttering a low growl as if in jealousy, when the Bravo! of the Sultan rewarded some especially fascinating movement. The girl came to the side of the magnificent monster and dropped her long hair over his head. The brute closed his eyes as if soothed by the wooing of the maiden. Cautiously, but encouraged by the low voice of the trainer, she placed her head upon the mottled and living pillow. A great paw was thrown about her shoulder.
The Sultan was in ecstasy of applause, and shouted:
"A collar of gold for each of them!"
The girl attempted to rise, but her splendid lover seemed to have become really enamored of the beautiful form he held. Her slightest motion was answered by a growl; while the swaying of his tail indicated that, as among human kind, so with the brutes, the softest sentiments were to be guarded by those of a severer nature; that baffled love must meet the avenging of cruel wrath. Like the affection of some men, that of the leopard was limited to its own gratification, and utterly regardless of the comfort of its object; for the fondness of the brute was not such as to prevent his long nails protruding through their velvet covering, and entering the bare flesh of the girl. She quivered with pain, yet, at the quick warning of the trainer, she made no outcry. The man drew from his pocket a small bit of raw flesh, and diverted the eyes of the brute from the blood streaming at each claw-puncture on the neck and bosom of his victim. The leopard savagely snapped at the morsel, and, at the same instant struck it with his paw, and leaped to seize it as it was hurled many feet away. The girl as quickly darted to a safe distance. Attendants instantly appeared and surrounded the beast with their spear points. He crouched at the feet of the trainer, and whined in fear until he was led out.
The girls then encircled the seat of the Sultan, and vied with one another in the simulated attempt to throw over him a spell. Nor was the attempt merely simulated, as each one displayed the utmost art of beauty and manner to win from the half-drunken tyrant some token of his favor.
When Elissa came near the Sultan, he bade her play with him as the Circassian did with the leopard. He held her and exclaimed to the others:
"Beware your leopard when he growls! but where is the other Arnaout? I will have the pearl with the ruby of the harem! where is she, I say? Did I not order you to bring all the odalisks to my feast?"
"From your Majesty's orders but lately, Sire, I supposed—" began the eunuch.
"Supposed? You are to obey, not to suppose," cried the demented man, slashing at him with the cimeter that lay at his feet.
"But she is not robed for the feast."
"Bring her as she is, and robe her here. You said that she was fairer than this one. If she is not fairer than this one, the leopard's claws will grip her, and the beast shall have your black body for his next supper. Bring her!"
The eunuch soon returned with Morsinia. She wore a sombre feridjé, or cloak completely enveloping the person. This she had on at the moment she was summoned, and the eunuch obeyed literally the mandate of the monarch to bring her as she was.
As she stood before the Sultan she appeared, in contrast with her half naked and bejeweled sisters, like a prophetess; some female Elijah before Ahab surrounded by his household of Jezebels. Throwing back the yashmak, or long veil—the one Moslem costume she had very willingly assumed after her captivity—she gazed upon the tyrant with a look of amazed inquiry of his meaning in summoning her to such a place. The sovereignty of her soul asserted and expressed itself in her noble brow, her clear and steady eye, her dauntless bearing.
"Sire, I have obeyed," said she, making the obeisance which in form was obsequious, but which she executed with such dignity that even the dull wit of the reveller felt that she had not really humbled herself before him by so much as the shadow of a thought.
"Disrobe her!" cried the monarch.
The woman stepped back, as if to avoid the contact of her person with the black eunuch; but as suddenly threw off the feridjé herself. If she had seemed a gloomy prophetess before, her appearance now would have suggested to an ancient Greek the apparition of Pudicitia, the goddess of modesty. Her gown of rich pearl-tinted cloth covered her shoulders; and, though opened upon the bosom, it was to show only the thick folds of white lace which embraced the throat in a ruffle, and was clasped with a single gem—a cameo presented to her by the Greek Emperor.
The bearing of the woman gave a temporary check to the abominable rage of the royal wretch, and recalled him to his better judgment. For it was a peculiarity of Mahomet that no passion or debauch could completely divert him from carrying out any plan he had devised pertaining to his imperial ambition. As certain musicians perform without the sacrifice of a note the most difficult pieces, when too drunk to hold a goblet steadily to their lips, and as certain noted generals have staggered through the battle without the slightest strategic mistake, so Mahomet never lost sight of a political or military purpose he had formed. While sleeping and waking, in the wildest revelry and in the privacy of his unspeakable sensuality, that project blazed before him like a strong fire-light through the haze.
"Take her away! Take her away!" said he to the eunuch, recollecting his purpose of using her in his negotiations with Scanderbeg; and covering his retreat from his original command by the remark, "She is the woman who thinks, I want none such to put her head against my heart. She might discover my thoughts; and by the secrets of Allah! if a hair of my beard knew one of my thoughts I would pluck it out and burn it."[96]
As Morsinia withdrew, a eunuch approached and whispered to the Sultan.
"Ah! it is good! good!" cried the Monarch. "My Lord, the Grand Duke Notaras, will revisit his mansion. For him we have provided a feast such as his master Palæologus never gave him. Ah! my lovely Arnaout shall sit at my right hand—for the queen of beauty has precedence to-day," said he, addressing Elissa. "And the Egyptian shall make me merry with the music of her voice, which I doubt not is sweeter than the strains of her native Memnon. And, Tamlich, you shall do me the honor of representing the king of Nubia, and lie there opposite."
The eunuch stood bewildered; for never before had a Moslem proposed to introduce into his harem the person of any man, as now the Duke of Notaras was to look upon the beauties who should be reserved solely for the feasting of the Padishah's eyes.
Mahomet, knowing his thoughts, bade him obey, and cried,
"Let the fair houris veil their faces with their blushes. Bring in Notaras!"
Three blacks entered, each bearing a great salver, on which was a covered dish of gold.
"To Tamlich I demit the honors of the board," said he, waving the foremost waiter toward the eunuch, whose face almost blanched at the strange turn affairs were taking, or perhaps with the suspicion that to-morrow his head would fall from his shoulders as the penalty of having witnessed the Padishah disgrace himself.
The attendants placed the dishes before the eunuch and the two favored beauties. The covers removed revealed the ghastly sight of three human heads, their unclosed eyes staring upward from their distorted faces and gory locks. The eunuch leaped from the divan. The women fell back shrieking and fainting. They were the heads of the Grand Duke Notaras and his two children.
Well did the Sultan need the strong diversion of the drunken revelry to drown the thoughts of what he knew to be transpiring at the hour. In spite of his royal word to the distinguished captive who had made his submission absolute, except to the extent of seeing his children dishonored to the vilest purposes, Mahomet had ordered that Notaras should be beheaded at the Hippodrome, having been first compelled to witness the decapitation of his family.
Even Mahomet was sobered by the horrid ghoulism he had devised, and dismissed the terror-stricken revelers with a volley of curses.