CHAPTER XLVII.
Captain Ballaban was summoned by the Sultan.
"Well, comrade," said Mahomet, familiarly throwing his arm about his friend, much to the disgust of the Capee Aga, the master of ceremonies, through whom alone it was the custom of the Sultans to be approached.
"Well! comrade, I gave a necklace worth a thousand liras to a girl who pleased me in the harem."
"Happy girl, to have pleased your Majesty. That was better than the necklace," replied Ballaban.
"Think you so? Let me look you through and through. Think you there is nothing better in this world than to please the Padishah? Ah! it is worth a kingdom to hear that from a man like you, Ballaban. Women say it; but they can do nothing for me. They dissipate my thoughts with their pleasuring me. They make me weak. I have a mind to abolish the whole harem. But to have a man, a strong man, a man with a head to plot for empire and to marshal armies, a man with an arm like thine to make love to me! Ah, that is glorious, comrade. But let me make no mistake about it. You love me? Do you really think no gold, no honors, could give you so much pleasure as pleasing me? Swear it! and by the throne of Allah! I will swear that you shall share my empire. But to business!" dropping his voice, and in the instant becoming apparently forgetful of his enthusiasm for his friend.
"We make a campaign against Belgrade. I must go in person. Yet Scanderbeg holds out in Albania. It is useless meeting him in his stronghold. You cannot fight a lion by crawling into his den. He must be trapped. Work out a plan."
"I have one which may be fruitful," instantly replied Captain Ballaban.
"No, of long hatching, Sire. I made it in my first campaign in Albania with your royal father. The young Voivode Amesa is nephew to Scanderbeg. He is restless under the authority of the great general: has committed some crime which, if known, would bring him to ruin: is popular with the people of the north."
"Capital!" said Mahomet eagerly. "I see it all. Work it out! Work it out! He may have anything, if only Scanderbeg can be put out of the way, and the country be under our suzerainty. Work it out! And the suzerain revenues shall all be yours; for by the bones of Othman! there is not a province too great for you if only you can settle affairs among the Arnaouts.
"And now a gift! I will send you the very queen of the harem."
"My thanks, Padishah, but I——" began Ballaban, when he was cut short by the Sultan.
"Not a word! not a word! I know you decline to practice the softer virtues, and prefer to live like a Greek monk. But you must take her. If you like her not, drown her. But you shall like her. By the dimple in the chin of Ayesha! she is the most perfect woman in the empire."
"But," interposed Ballaban, "I am a Janizary, and it is not permitted a Janizary to marry."
"A fig for what is permitted! When the Padishah gives, he grants permission to enjoy his gifts. Besides, you need not marry. You can own her; sell her if you don't like her. But you must take her."
"Of what nation is she? Perhaps I could not understand her tongue," objected Ballaban.
"So much the better," said Mahomet. "Women are not made to talk. But this woman is an Arnaout, from Scanderbeg's country."
Captain Ballaban could scarcely believe his ears.
This then is Morsinia! To have her, to save her without breach of loyalty! This was too much. With strangely fluttering heart he acquiesced, and his thanks were drawn from the bottom of his soul.
The next day he sought Kala Hanoum, and sent by her to Morsinia a gem enclosed in a pretty casket, with which was a note, reading,—
"It shall be so. Patience for a few days, and our hearts shall be made glad."
How strangely Fate had planned for him! It must have been Fate; for only powers supernal could have made the gift of the Padishah so fitting to his heart. No chance this! His secret passion, unbreathed to any ear on earth, had been a prayer heard in heaven!
Ballaban was now an undoubting Moslem that he found Kismet on the side of his inclinations. He belonged to Islâm, the Holy Resignation; resigned to the will of Providence, since Providence seemed just now to have resigned itself to his will. He was surprised at the ecstatic character his piety was taking on. He could have become a dervish: indeed his head was already whirling with the intoxication of his prospects.
Captain Ballaban, like a good Moslem, went to the Mosque. He made his prayer toward the Mihrab; but his eyes and thoughts wandered to the spot at the side of it, where he had saved the life of Morsinia; and he thanked Allah with full soul that he had been allowed to save her for himself.
The Padishah, the following day, bade Ballaban repair to a house in the city, and be in readiness to receive the gift of heaven and of his own imperial grace. On reaching the place an elderly woman—the Koulavous, an inevitable attendant upon marriages—conducted him through the selamlik and mabeyn to the haremlik of the house. The bride or slave, as he pleased to take her, rose from the divan to meet him. Though her thick veil completely enveloped her person, it could not conceal her superb form and marvellous grace. His hand trembled with the agitation of his delight as he exercised the authority of a husband or master, and reverently raised the veil.
He stood as one paralyzed in amazement. She was not Morsinia. She was Elissa!
He dropped the veil.
Strange spirits seemed to breathe themselves in succession through his frame.
First came the demon of disappointment, checking his blood, stifling him. Not that any other mortal knew of his shattered hopes; but it was enough that he knew them. And with the consciousness of defeat, a horrible chagrin bit and tore his heart, as if it had been some dragon with teeth and claws.
Then came the demon of rage; wild rage; wanting to howl out its fury. He might have smitten the veiled form, had not the latter, overcome by her bewilderment and the scorn of him she supposed to have been a lover, already fallen fainting at his feet.
Then rose in Ballaban's breast the demon of vengeance against the Sultan. Had Mahomet been present he surely had felt the steel of the outraged man. Only the habit of self-control and quiet review of his own passions prevented his seeking the Padishah, and taking instant vengeance in his blood.
Then there came into him a great demon of impiety, and breathed a curse against Allah himself through his lips.
But finally a new spirit hissed into his ears. It was Nemesis. He felt that this was the moment when a just retribution had returned upon himself. For he well knew the face that lay weeping beneath the heap of bejewelled lace and silk. It was that of the Dodola, whom he had flung into the arms of the Albanian Voivode Amesa when he was awaiting the embrace of some more princely maiden. And now the sarcasm of fate had thrown her into his arms.
"Allah! Thou wast even with me this time," he confessed back of his clenched teeth.
"But doubtless," he thought, "it was through the information I gave to the Aga that this girl has been stolen away from Amesa."
"Would that heaven rid me of her so easily!" he muttered. "Yet that is easy; thanks to our Moslem law, which says, 'Thou mayest either retain thy wife with humanity or dismiss her with kindness.'[101] Yet I cannot dismiss her with kindness. She can not go back to the royal harem. If I dismiss her I harm her, and Allah's curse will be fatal if I wrong this creature again—to say nothing of the Padishah's if I throw away his gift. I must keep her. Well! Bacaloum! Bacaloum! It is not so bad a thing after all to have a woman like that for one's slave; for a wife without one's heart is but a slave. Well!" He raised the veil again from the now sitting woman.
The mutually stupid gaze carried them both through several years which had passed since they had parted at Amesa's castle.
Elissa was easily induced to tell her story. Assuming that it might be already known to her new lord, she gave it correctly; and therefore it differed substantially from that she had told to Morsinia. She had been but a few days in Amesa's home when he discovered that she was not the person he had presumed her to be. In an outburst of rage he would have taken her life, but was led by an old priest to adopt a more merciful method of ridding himself of her. To have returned her to the village above the Skadar would have filled the country with the scandal, and made Amesa the laughing stock of all. She was therefore sent within the Turkish lines, with the certainty of finding her way to some far-distant country. Her beauty saved her from a common fate, and she was sent as a gift to the young Padishah by an old general, into whose hands she had fallen.
Ballaban assured the woman of his protection, and also that the time would come when he would compensate her for any grief she had endured through his fault. In the meantime she was retained in the luxurious comfort of her new abode.