CHAPTER XXIII.
The lake of Skadar lay like an immense lapis lazuli within its setting of mountains, which, on the east, were golden with the rays of the declining sun, and on the west, enameled in emerald with the dense shadows their summits dropped upon them. The surface of the water was unbroken, save here and there by black spots where a pair of loons shrieked their marital unhappiness, or a flock of wild ducks floated, like a miniature fleet, about the reed-fringed shores of some little island. Had there been watchers on the fortress of Obod, which lay on the cliff just above where the Tsernoyevitcha enters Skadar, they would have espied a light shallop gliding along the eastern bank of the lake. This contained the voivode Amesa and his attendant. Just at night-fall they reached the cavern, whose hidden recesses begot a hundred legends which the weird shadows of the cave clothed in forms as fantastic as their own, and which still flit among the hamlets of Montenegro. It was said that whoever should sleep within the cave would rest his head on the bosoms of the nymphs:—only let him take care that their love does not prevent his ever waking. Amesa and his companion were courageous, but discretion led them to wind the strooka about their heads, and seek without a couch of pine needles between the enormous roots of the trees which had dropped them.
The dawn had just silvered the east, and the coming sun transformed the cold blue tints of Skadar into amber, when they entered the river. The great stream wound through the broad lowlands of Tsetinie, girdled with rocky hills. Then it dashed in impetuous floods between more straightened banks, or lingered, as if the river spirit would bathe himself in the deep pools that were cooled by the springs at their bottoms. Though familiar with the phenomenon, they loitered that they might watch the schools of fish which were so dense in places as to impede the stroke of the oar blade, and tint the entire stream with their dull silvery gleam.[56] Emerging from a tortuous channel, through which the river twisted itself like a vast shining serpent, they came to a cluster of houses that nestled in a gorge. These houses were made of stone, and so covered with vines as to be hardly distinguishable from the dense shrubbery that clambered over the rocks about them.
Amesa was warmly greeted by the stargeshina who occupied the konak, or principal house. The older people remembered the visitor as the comely lad who, before the return of George Castriot, was almost the only male representative of that noble family left in the land. The voivode was honored with every evidence that the villagers felt themselves complimented by the visit of their guest, whatever business or caprice might have brought him thither.
A simple repast was provided, in which the courtesy of the service on the part of the stargeshina more than compensated any poverty in the display of viands;—though there were set forth meats dried in strips in the smoke of an open fire; eggs; sweet, though black bread; and wine pressed from various mountain berries, and allowed to ferment in skins. As they sat beside a low table at the doorway of the konak, the stargeshina offered a formal salâm, the zdravitsa, which was half a toast and half a prayer, and extended his hand to Amesa in the protestation of personal friendship. At the meal the glories of Castriot and Ivan Beg—or Ivo, as the peasants called him—were duly recited.
"But why," said the old man, rising to his feet with the enthusiasm of the sentiment—"Why should the country sing the praises of George Castriot, who for thirty years was willing to be a Turk and fight for an alien faith? Your shoulders, noble Amesa—Prince Amesa, my loyal heart would call you—could as well have borne the burden of the people's defence. Your arm could strike as good a blow as his for Albania. Your blood is that of the Castriots, and untainted by Moslem touch. Your estates, since you have become heir to the lands of De Streeses, make you our richest and most influential voivode."
These words made the eyes of Amesa flash, not with any novel pleasure, rather with an ambition to which he was no stranger. But the flash was smothered at once by the half-closed eyelids, and he responded—
"I ought not to hear such words, my good friend. My Uncle George is the hero of the hour. The people need a hero in whom they believe; and the very mystery of his life for the thirty years among the Turks, and the romance of his return, make him a convenient hero."
"But Sire, my noble—my Prince Amesa—do you not daily hear such words as I speak? The thought is as common as the Pater Noster, and echoes from Skadar to Ochrida. It was but a week since a young Albanian passed through this border country, whispering everywhere that the land was ready to cry Amesa's name rather than the reformed renegade, George Castriot's; that Scanderbeg, the Lord Alexander, the strutting title the Turks gave him, was an offence to the free hearts of the people."
"Ah! and what sort of a man for look was this Albanian?" asked Amesa in surprise.
"A sturdy youth of, say, twenty summers, with hair like a turban which had been worn by a dozen slaughtered Turks, so blood red is it."
Amesa gave a puzzled look toward Drakul, who was eating his meal at a little distance, but whose ears seemed to prick up like those of a horse at this description.
"It is likely that he may be again in the village this very night. Our neighbor next lodged him. I will ask him if he will return," said the stargeshina, leaving the konak for a little.
"It is he; it's that Constantine," said Drakul, coming nearer to Amesa. "The wily young devil is ready to betray your Uncle George. That will make the matter easier."
"The way is clear, then," replied Amesa. "I am glad that the raid was not successful. It might have led to further blood. With this fellow in league with us, it is straight work and honorable."
The stargeshina reported the man would probably be in again that very night, and added:
"I would you could see him; for though he is fair spoken, there is some mystery in his going day after day among these mountains, like a hound who is looking for a lost scent."
"Perhaps he is attracted here by some of the fair maidens of the hamlets," suggested Amesa, looking at Drakul, who was tearing a bit of jerked meat in his teeth, apparently intent only upon that selfish occupation.
"It may well be, for our neighbor here has harbored a bit of stray womanhood which might tempt a monk to lodge there rather than in his cell," said the old man.
A shout from above them attracted their attention to a merry company which was coming down the mountain. It was the procession of the Dodola. Drought threatened to destroy the scanty grain growing in the narrow valleys, and the vines on the terraces cut out of the steep hills. According to an ancient custom, a young maiden had been taken by her companions into the woods, stripped of her usual garments, and reclothed in the leaves and flowers of the endangered vegetation. Long grasses and stalks of grain were matted in many folds about her person, and served as a base for artistic decoration with every variety of floral beauty. Her feet were buskined in clover blossoms. A kilt of broad-leaved ferns hung from her waist, which was belted with a broad zone of wild roses. White and pink laurel blossoms made her bodice. An ivy wreath upon her brows was starred with white daisies, and plumed with the stems and hanging bells of the columbine.
The Dodola thus appeared as the impersonation of floral nature athirst for the vivifying rains. Her attendants, who led her in a leash of roses, chanted a hymn, the refrain of which was a prayer to Elijah, who, since he brought the rain at Carmel, is supposed by the peasants of Albania to be that saint to whom Providence has committed the shepherding of the clouds. As the procession wound down the terraced paths between the houses, the Dodola was welcomed by the matrons of the hamlet, who stood each in her own doorway, with hair gathered beneath a cap of coins, teeth enameled in black, fingers tipped brownish-red with henna. The maidens sung a verse of their hymn at each cottage; and, at the refrain, the housewife poured upon the head of the leaf-clad Dodola a cup of water; repeating the last line of the chorus, "Good Saint Elias, so send the rain!"
As the Dodola paused before the konak, Amesa said, quite enthusiastically, and designing to be overheard by the fair girl who took the part of thirsting nature, "If Elias can refuse the prayer of so much womanly beauty, I swear, by Jezebel, that I shall hereafter believe, with the Turks, that the austere old prophet has become bewitched with the houris in paradise, and so does not care to look into the faces of earthly damsels."
"You may still keep your Christian faith, for the Dodola has won the favor of the Thunderer,"[57] replied the stargeshina. "Listen to his love-making in response to the witchery of that wild dove! Do you hear it?"
The distant murmur of a coming shower confirmed the credulity of the peasants.
"Yes, soon the Holy Virgin will turn her bright glances upon us,"[58] said he looking at the sky.
"Who is that wild dove who acts the Dodola?" inquired Amesa.
"The one I told you of, who has come into our neighbor's cot," replied the old man. "But only the sharp eyes of the crows saw where she came from. Did she not speak our tongue and know our ways as well as any of us, I should say she was one of the Tsigani who were driven out of the morning land by Timour.[59] Yet it may be that her own story is true. She says she had two lovers in her village; and these two were brothers in God, who had taken the vow before heaven and St. John to help and never to hinder each other in whatever adventure of love or brigandage, at cost of limb or life. But as the hot blood of neither of these lovers could endure to see this nymph in the arms of the other, it was determined that she should be slain by the hand of both, rather than that the sacred brotherhood should be broken. By her own father's hearth the two daggers were struck together at her heart. But the strong arms of the slayers collided, and both blows glanced. She escaped and fled, and came hither."
"And you believe this story?" asked Amesa, with a look of incredulity mingled with triumph, as of one who knew more than the narrator.
"I believe her story, noble Amesa, because—because no one has told me any other. But—" He shook his head.
"Does not the young stranger you spoke of know something of her, that he prowls about this neighborhood?" asked the guest.
"It may be. I had not thought it, but it may well be! Hist—!"
The Dodola passed by, returning to her own cottage. As she did so her bright black eyes glanced coquettishly at the stranger from beneath her disarranged chaplet of flowers and dishevelled hair. She soon returned, having assumed her garments as a peasant maid, but with evident effort to make this simple attire set off the great natural beauty of face and form, of which she was fully conscious. Her forehead was too low; but Pygmalion could not have chiselled a brow and temples upon which glossy black ringlets clustered more bewitchingly. Her eyes flashed too cold a fire light to give one the impression of great amiability in their possessor; but the long lashes which drooped before them, partially veiled their stare so as to give the illusion of coyness, if not of maidenly modesty. Her mouth was perhaps sensuously curved; but was one of those marvellously plastic ones which can tell by the slightest arching or compressing of the lips as much of purpose or feeling as most people can tell in words:—dangerous lips to the possessor, if she be guileless and unsuspicious, for they reveal too much of her soul to others who have no right to know its secrets; dangerous lips to others if she would deceive, for they can lie, consummately, wickedly, without uttering a word. Her complexion was scarcely brunette; rather that indescribable fairness in which the whiteness of alabaster is tinged with the blood of perfect health, slightly bronzed by constant exposure to the sunshine and air—a complexion seldom seen except in Syria, the Greek Islands, or Wales. Her form was faultless,—just at that stage of development when the grace and litheness of childhood are beginning to be lost in the statelier mysteries of womanly beauty; that transition state between two ideals of loveliness, which, from the days of Phidias, has lured, but always eluded, the artist's skill to reproduce.
The girl's face flushed with the consciousness of being gazed at approvingly by the courtly stranger. But the pretty toss of her head showed that the blush was due as much to the conceit of her beauty as to bashfulness. As she talked with the other maidens, she glanced furtively toward the door of the konak, where Amesa sat. The young voivode foresaw that it would not be difficult to entice the girl herself to be the chief agent in any plan he might have for her abduction.
He needed, however, to make more certain of her identity with the object of his search. He could discern no trace of Mara De Streeses in her face; much less in her manner. Since Drakul had suggested it, he imagined a resemblance to De Streeses himself, whose bearing was haughty and his temperament fiery.
The evening brought the young man of whom the stargeshina had spoken. His resemblance to the description given him of Constantine left no doubt in Amesa's mind of his being the mysterious custodian of the heiress to his estates. The young Servian he supposed would at once recognize him as Amesa; for, as a prominent officer in the army, his face would be well known to all who had been in Castriot's camps, even if the gossip of the villagers did not at once inform him of his presence. It were best then, thought Amesa, to boldly confront him; win him, if possible, to his service; if not, destroy him.
The young stranger was at once on frolicksome terms with the village girls and lads; and Amesa thought he observed that through it all the fellow kept a sharp, if not a suspicious, eye upon him. Lest he should escape, the voivode invited him to walk beyond the houses of the village. When out of sight and hearing he suddenly turned upon the young man, and, laying a hand upon his shoulder, exclaimed,
"You are known, man!"
Upon the instant the stranger was transformed from the sauntering peasant into a gladiator, with feet firmly planted, the left hand raised as a shield, and the right grasping a yataghan which had been concealed upon his person. Amesa, though the aggressor, was thrown upon the defensive, and was compelled to retreat in order to gain time for the grip of his weapon.
The two men stood glaring into each other's eyes as there each to read his antagonist's movement before his hand began to execute it.
"I did not know that a Servian peasant was so trained," said Amesa, still retreating before the advance of his opponent, who gave him no opportunity to assume the offensive.
"For whom do you take me that you dare to lay a rough hand on me?" said the man, half in menace, and yet apparently willing to discover if his assailant were right in his surmise.
"Arnaud's man and I need not be enemies," said Amesa, seeing no chance of relieving himself from the advantage the other had gained in the sword play. "I can reward you better than he or Castriot."
A smile passed over the man's face, which Amesa might have detected the meaning of had his mind been less occupied with thoughts about his personal safety from the yataghan, whose point was seeking his throat according to the most approved rules of single combat.
"And what if I am Arnaud's man?"
As he said this the yataghan made a thorough reconnoissance of all the vulnerable parts of Amesa's body from the fifth rib upwards, followed by Amesa's dagger in ward.
"You do not deny it?" said the Albanian between breaths.
"I deny nothing. Nor need I confess anything, since you say I am known."
"Shall we be friends?" asked Amesa, cautiously lowering his arm.
"You made war, and can withdraw its declaration, or take the consequences," was the reply.
The two men put up their weapons.
"So good a soldier as you are should not be here guarding a girl," said Amesa.
"Guarding a girl?" said the man in amazement, but, recollecting himself, added, "And why not guard a girl?"
"Come," replied Amesa, "you and I can serve each other. You can do that for me which no other man can; and I can give to you more gold than any other Albanian can."
"And when you are king of Albania, Prince Amesa, you can reward me with high appointment," said the stranger with a slight sneer, which, however, Amesa did not notice, at the moment thinking of what the stargeshina had said of the man's interest in the movement against his uncle's leadership.
"You have but to ask your reward when that event comes," he replied.
"I will swear to serve Amesa against Scanderbeg to the death," said the man offering his hand.
"You know the girl's true story?" asked Amesa.
"Of course," was the cautious reply. "But of that I may not speak a word. I can leave his service whose man you say I am, but I cannot betray anything he may have told me. As you know the girl's story it is needless to tempt me to divulge it," added he, with shrewd non-committal of himself to any information that the other might recognize as erroneous.
"You speak nobly for a Servian," said the voivode.
"How do you know I am a Servian?" asked the stranger.
"Partly from your accent. You have not got our pure Albanian tongue, though it is now six years you have been talking it. And then Arnaud—Colonel Kabilovitsch—came back as a Servian. Is it not so?" asked Amesa, noticing the surprised look which the mention of Kabilovitsch's name brought to the man's face.
For a while the stranger was lost in thought; but with an effort throwing off a sort of reverie, he said:
"Pardon my silence. I have been thinking of your proposal. May I follow you to the village after a little? I would think over how best I can meet your proposition, my Prince Amesa."
"I will await you at the konak. But first let us swear friendship!" said the voivode.
"Heartily!" was the response. "With Amesa as against Scanderbeg."
"You will induce the girl to go with me to my castle. She will fare better there than here, playing Dodola to these ignorant peasants."
"It is agreed."
As Amesa disappeared, the man sat down upon a huge root of a tree, which for lack of earth had twined itself over the rock. He buried his face in his hands—
"Strange! strange! is all this. Kabilovitsch? the girl? Not my little playmate on the Balkans—sweet faced Morsinia. The Dodola here is not she. If Uncle Kabilovitsch is Colonel Kabilovitsch, or this Arnaud he speaks of, then this treacherous Amesa is on the wrong track. Can it be that Constantine—dear little Constantine—is in Albania, and that I am mistaken for him? No, this is impossible. But still I must be wary, and not do that which would harm a golden hair of Morsinia's head, if she be living, or Constantine's, or Uncle Kabilovitsch's. There's some mystery here. Only one thing is certain—Amesa mistakes this pretty impudent Dodola girl for somebody else. To get her off with him may serve that somebody else: for the voivode is a villain: that much is sure. The cursed Giaour serpent! I will help him to get this saucy belle of the hamlet, and so save somebody else, whoever she may be who is the game for which he lays his snares."
An hour later the Dodola, whose name was Elissa, passed Amesa and blushed deeply.
The family at whose house the girl was living made no objection to Amesa's request that she should be transferred to the protection of the voivode. The elders of the village acquiesced; for, said one,
"We do not know who she is, and may get into difficulty through harboring her."
Another averred his belief that she was possessed of the evil eye; for he had observed her staring at the olive tree the day before it was struck by lightning; and he declared that half the young men of the hamlet were bewitched with her.
A sharp-tongued dame remarked that some of the older men would rather listen to the merry tattle of the sprite than to the most serious and wholesome counsel of their own wives.