"She whom the Emperor of the Greeks was unable to keep for Scanderbeg is now in the custody of the royal harem, safe and inviolate; to be delivered into Scanderbeg's hand as a pledge of a treaty by which Scanderbeg shall agree to cease from further depredations and invasion of Macedonia, and to submit to hold his kingdom in fief to the Ottoman throne."
The letter ended with a boastful reference to the Sultan's conquest of Constantinople, Caramania and other countries, and the threat of invading Albania with a host so great as to cover all its territory with the shadow of the camps.
Castriot's reply, when known, filled the Dibrians and Epirots with greatest enthusiasm. It closed with the words,—
"What if you have subjugated Greece, and put into servitude them of Asia! These are no examples for the free hearts of Albania!"[104]
The news contained in Mahomet's missive led Castriot to allow Constantine to go to Constantinople, that he might discover, if possible, whether Morsinia was really living, and was the person referred to by the Sultan. On reaching the city, Constantine had sought out the monk Gennadius, with whom he had been often thrown before and during the siege. From him he learned nothing of Morsinia except the old story of her self-sacrifice by the side of the altar;—which story had become so adorned with many additions in passing from mouth to mouth, that the "Fair Saint of Albania" was likely to be enrolled upon the calendar of the holy martyrs. Constantine was returning with the monk from the church of Baloukli, where they had gone to see the perpetuated miracle of the fishes which leaped from the pan on hearing of the capture of the city, and which are still, with one side black with the frying, swimming in the tank of holy water. He had just reached the little gate of the monk's lodging when Morsinia's message was put into his hand by a little old woman.
"But how did you know of my arrival in Constantinople?" Constantine asked, as he concluded his account.
The question led to Morsinia's story, and the revelation that his brother Michael was still living, an officer of the Sultan, as like to Constantine as one eye to the other; their mistaken identity by Kala Hanoum having led to the present happy denouement. The mutual narratives of the past grew into plans for the future, the chief part of which related to the restoration of Michael from the service of the Moslem.
While they talked, the day broke over the Asiatic coast. The faint glow of light rapidly changed into bars of gold, which were transformed into those of silver, and melted again into a broad sheen of orange and purple tints. But for the shadowed slopes of the eastern shore that lay between the water and the sky, this would have made Marmora like an infinite sea of glory.
But there was a fairer sight before the eyes of Constantine; one more suggestive of the heavenly. It was the face of his beloved, now first clearly seen. It seemed to him that she could not have been more enchanting if he had discovered her by the "River of the Water of Life" in the Golden City, where only he had hoped ever again to gaze upon her.