CHAPTER XXV.
"Who comes here?" cried the sentinel at the bottom of the steep road which led up to the gate at the rear of the town of Sfetigrade.
The man thus challenged made no reply except to speak sharply to a large hound he was leading, and which was struggling to break away from him. In his engrossment with the brute he did not seem to have heard the challenge. As he came nearer the sentinel eyed him with a puzzled, but half-comical look, as he soliloquized,—
"Ah, by the devil in the serpent's skin, I know him this time. He is the Albanian Turk we were nigh to hamstringing. If I mistake that red head again it will be when my own head has less brain in it than will balance it on a pike-staff, where Colonel Kabilovitsch would put it if I molested this fellow again. I'll give him the pass word, instead of taking it from him; that will make up for past mistakes."
The sentinel saluted the new comer with a most profound courtesy, and, shouldering his spear, marched hastily past him, ogling him with a sidelong knowing look.
"Tako mi Marie!"[60]
"Tako mi Marie!" responded the man, adding to himself, "but this is fortunate; the fellow must be crazy. I thought I should have had to brain him at least."
As he passed by, the sentinel stood still, watching him, and muttered,
"How should I know but Castriot himself is in that dog's hide."
The dog turned and, attracted by the soldier's attitude, uttered a low growl.
"Tako mi Marie! and all the other saints in heaven too, but I believe it is the general in disguise," said the sentinel.
"Tako mi Marie!" said the stranger saluting the various guards, whom he passed without further challenge, through the town gates and up to the main street.
The great well, from which the beleaguered inhabitants of Sfetigrade drew the only water now accessible, since the Turks had so closely invested the town, was not far from the citadel. It was very deep, having been cut through the great layers of rock upon which the upper town stood. Above it was a great wheel, over the outer edge of which ran an endless band of leather; the lower end dipping into the water that gleamed faintly far below. Leathern sockets attached to this belt answered for buckets, which, as the wheel was turned, lifted the water to the top, whence it ran into a great stone trough. The well was guarded by a curb of stones which had originally been laid compactly together; but many of them had been removed, and used to hurl down from the walls of the citadel upon the heads of the Turks when they tried to scale them.
The dog, panting with the heat, mounted one of the remaining stones, and stretched his long neck far down to sniff the cool water which glistened a hundred feet below him. The man shouted angrily to the beast, and so clumsily attempted to drag him away that both dog and stone were precipitated together into the well.
"A grapple! a rope!" shouted the man to a crowd who had seen the accident from a distance. "Will no one bring one?" he cried with apparent anger at their slow movements—"Then I must get one myself."
The crowd rushed toward the well. The man disappeared in the opposite direction.
It was several hours before the dead dog was taken from the polluted water. The Dibrian soldiers refused to drink from it. The superstition communicated itself like an epidemic, to the other inhabitants. For a day or two bands sallied from Sfetigrade, and brought water from the plain: but it was paid for in blood, for the Turkish armies, aware of the incident almost as soon as it occurred, drew closer their lines, and stationed heavy detachments of Janizaries at the springs and streams for miles around. The horrors of a water-famine were upon the garrison. In vain did the officers rebuke the insane delusion. The common soldiers, not only would not touch the water, but regarded the accident as a direct admonition from heaven that the town must be surrendered. Appeals to heroism, patriotism, honor, were less potent than a silly notion which had grown about the minds of an otherwise noble people—as certain tropical vines grow so tough and in such gradually lessening spirals about a stalwart tree that they choke the ascending sap and kill it. They who would have drunk were prevented by the others who covered the well with heavy pieces of timber, and stood guard about it.