The sun, as if subject to the will of the Sultan, had shone brightly. From the beginning of April until May barely a few warm rains had moistened the meadows of Kuchunkaury; for the rest, the blue tent of God hung without a cloud over the tent of the Sultan. The gleams of day played on the white linen, on the turbans, on the many-colored caps, on the points of the helmets and banners and javelins, on the camp and the tents and the people and the herds, drowning all in a sea of bright light. In the evening on a clear sky shone the moon, unhidden by fog, and guarded quietly those thousands who under its emblem were marching to win more and more new lands; then it rose higher in the heaven, and grew pale before the light of the fires. But when the fires were gleaming in the whole immeasurable expanse, when the Arab infantry from Damascus and Aleppo, called “massala djilari,” lighted green, red, yellow, and blue lamps at the tents of the Sultan and the vizir, it might seem that a tract of heaven had fallen to the earth, and that those were stars glittering and twinkling on the plain.
Exemplary order and discipline reigned among those legions. The pashas bent to the will of the Sultan, like a reed in a storm; the army bent before them. Food was not wanting for men and herds. Everything was furnished in superabundance, everything in season. In exemplary order also were passed the hours of military exercise, of refreshment, of devotion. When the muezzins called to prayer from wooden towers, built in haste, the whole army turned to the East, each man stretched before himself a skin or a mat, and the entire army fell on its knees, like one man. At sight of that order and those restraints the hearts rose in the throngs, and their souls were filled with sure hope of victory.
The Sultan, coming to the camp at the end of April, did not move at once on the march. He waited more than a month, so that the waters might dry; during that time he trained the army to camp life, exercised it, arranged it, received envoys, and dispensed justice under a purple canopy. The kasseka, his chief wife, accompanied him on this expedition, and with her too went a court resembling a dream of paradise.
A gilded chariot bore the lady under a covering of purple silk; after it came other wagons and white Syrian camels, also covered with purple, bearing packs; houris and bayaderes sang songs to her on the road. When, wearied with the road, she was closing the silky lashes of her eyes, the sweet tones of soft instruments were heard at once, and they lulled her to sleep. During the heat of the day fans of peacock and ostrich feathers waved above her; priceless perfumes of the East burned before her tents in bowls from Hindostan. She was accompanied by all the treasures, wonders, and wealth that the Orient and the power of the Sultan could furnish,—houris, bayaderes, black eunuchs, pages beautiful as angels, Syrian camels, horses from the desert of Arabia; in a word, a whole retinue was glittering with brocade, cloth of silver and gold; it was gleaming like a rainbow from diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. Nations fell prostrate before it, not daring to look at that face, which the Padishah alone had the right to see; and that retinue seemed to be either a supernatural vision or a reality, transferred by Allah himself from the world of visions and dream-illusions to the earth.
But the sun warmed the world more and more, and at last days of heat came. On a certain evening, therefore, the banner was raised on a lofty pole before the Sultan’s tent, and a cannon-shot informed the army and the people of the march to Lehistan. The great sacred drum sounded; all the others sounded; the shrill voices of pipes were heard; the pious, half-naked dervishes began to howl, and the river of people moved on in the night, to avoid the heat of the sun during daylight. But the army itself was to march only in a number of hours after the earliest signal. First of all went the tabor, then those pashas who provided food for the troops, then whole legions of handicraftsmen, who had to pitch tents, then herds of pack animals, then herds destined for slaughter. The march was to last six hours of that night and the following nights, and to be made in such order that when soldiers came to a halt they should always find food and a resting-place ready.
When the time came at last for the army to move, the Sultan rode out on an eminence, so as to embrace with his eyes his whole power, and rejoice at the sight. With him were his vizir, the ulema, the young kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, the “rising sun of war,” and a company of the infantry guard. The night was calm and clear; the moon shone brightly; and the Sultan might embrace with the eye all his legions, were it not that no eye of man could take them all in at once,—for on the march, though going closely together, they occupied many miles.
Still he rejoiced in heart, and passing the beads of odorous sandalwood through his fingers, raised his eyes to Heaven in thanks to Allah, who had made him lord of so many armies and so many nations. All at once, when the front of the tabor had pushed almost out of sight, he interrupted his prayer, and turning to the young kaimakan, Kara Mustafa, said,—
“I have forgotten who marches in the vanguard?”
“Light of paradise!” answered Kara Mustafa, “in the vanguard are the Lithuanian Tartars and the Cheremis; and thy dog Azya, son of Tugai Bey, is leading them.”