Durazzo lies upon a promontory stretching out into the Adriatic. The walls which surrounded it at the time of our story, told, by the weather-wear of their stones, the different ages during which they had guarded the little bay that lies at the promontory's base. A young monk,[63] Barletius, to whom Colonel Kabilovitsch introduced the voyagers, as a travelling companion for a part of their journey, pointed out the great and rudely squared boulders in the lower course of masonry, as the work of the ancient Corcyreans, centuries before the coming of Christ. The upper courses, he said, were stained with the blood of the Greek soldiers of Alexius, when the Norman Robert Guiscard assaulted the place, hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Indeed, to the monk's historic imagination, the world seemed still wrapped in the mists of the older ages; and, just as the low lying haze, with its mirage effect, contorted the rocks along the shore into domes and pinnacles, so did his fancy invest every object with the greatness of the history with which the old manuscripts had made him familiar.
While Morsinia listened with a strange entertainment to his rhapsodic narrations, Constantine was busy studying the graceful lines of the Venetian half-galley that lay at the base of the cliff, and upon which they were to embark; her low deck, cut down in the centre nearly to the water's edge; her sharp, swan-necked prow raised high in air, and balanced by the broad elevation at the stern; the lateen sail that, furled on its boom, hung diagonally against the slender mast; the rows of holes at the side, through which in calm weather the oars were worked; the gay pennant from the mast-head, and the broad banner at the stern, which spread to the light breeze the Lion of St. Mark.
They were soon gliding out of the harbor of Durazzo, at first under the regularly timed stroke of a score of oarsmen. Rounding the promontory, the west wind filled the sail; and, careening to the leeward, the galley danced toward the south through the light spray of the billows which sung beneath the prow like the strings of a zither.
Perhaps it was this music of the waves—or it may have been that the wind was blowing straight across from Italy; or, possibly, it was the beauty of the maiden reclining upon the cushioned dais of the stern deck—that led the weather-beaten sailing master to take the zither, and sing one after another of Petrarch's love songs to Laura. Though his voice was as hoarse as the wind that crooned through the cordage, and his language scarcely intelligible, the flow of the melody told the sentiment. Constantine's eyes sought the face of his companion, as if for the first time he had detected that she was beautiful. And perhaps for the first time in her life Morsinia felt conscious that Constantine was looking at her;—for she generally withstood his gaze with as little thought of it as she did that of the sky, or of Kabilovitsch. Even the monk turned his eyes from the magnificent shores of Albania, with their beetling headlands and receding bays, to cast furtive glances upon the maiden.
The monk's face was a striking one. He was pale, if not from holy vigil, from pouring over musty secular tomes. He had caught the spirit of the revival of learning which, notwithstanding all the superstition of ecclesiastics, was first felt in the cloisters of the church. His forehead was high, but narrow; his eyes mild, yet lustrous; his lower features almost feminine. One familiar with men would have said, "Here is a man of patient enthusiasm for things intellectual, a devotee to the ideal. He may be a philosopher, a poet, an artist; but he could never make a soldier, a diplomat, or even a lover, except of the most Platonic sort. Just the man for a monk. If all monks were like him, the church would be enriched indeed; but, if all like him were monks, the world would be the poorer."
Among other passengers was a Greek monk, Gennadius. This man's full beard and long curly forelocks hanging in front of his ears, were in odd contrast with the smooth face and shaven head of the Latin monk. Though strangers, they courteously saluted each other. However sharp might be the differences in their religious notions, they soon felt the fraternity such as cultured minds and great souls realize in the presence of the sublimities of nature. They studied each other's faces with agreeable surprise as the glories about them drew from their lips vivid outbursts of descriptive eloquence, in which, speaking the Latin or Greek with almost equal facility, they quoted from the classic poets with which they were equally familiar.
As the galley turned eastward into the Corinthian gulf there burst upon them a panorama of natural splendor combined with classic enchantment, such as no other spot on the earth presents. The mountainous shores lay about the long and narrow sea, like sleeping giants guarding the outflow of some sacred fountain. Back of the northern coast rose, like waking sentinels, the Helicon and Parnassus, towering thousands of feet into the air; their tops helmeted in ice and plumed with fleecy clouds. The western sun poured upon the track of the voyagers floods of golden lustre which lingered on the still waters, flashed in rainbows from the splashing oars, gilded with glory the hither slope of every projection on either shore, and filled the great gorges beyond with dark purple shadows.
As Morsinia reclined with her head resting on Constantine's shoulder, and drank in the gorgeous, yet quieting, scene, the two monks stood with uncovered heads and, half embracing, chanted together in Greek one of the oldest known evening hymns of the Christian church. In free translation, it ran thus:—
"O Jesu, the Christ! glad light of the holy!