The man looked upon Castriot with grateful amazement. But he could not speak, and turned away.
At first he was received sullenly by the soldiers; but when the story of Castriot's magnanimity was repeated, the camps rang with the cry, "Welcome, Goleme!" That his restoration might be honored, a grand raid through the Turkish lines was arranged for the next night. The watch cry was, "By the beard of Moses!" and many a veteran then wielded his sword with a courage and strength he had not felt for years. Even old Kabilovitsch, whose failing vigor had long excused him from such expeditions, insisted upon joining in this. Constantine then rewhetted his steel for valiant deeds to come. And, as the day after the fight dawned, Moses Goleme led back the band of victors, laden with spoil. As he appeared, to make his report to the chief, his face was flushed with the old look; and, grasping the hand of Castriot, he raised it to his lips and simply said:
"I thank thee, Sire!" and retired.
CHAPTER LI.
Captain Ballaban was among the first to learn of the personality of the odalisk who had escaped at the time of the race. His first thought was to aid her in eluding pursuit, presuming that she had gone alone and without accomplice. But when the horses were discovered at the Seven Towers, he gave way to a fit of jealousy. In his mind he accused Morsinia of having made him her dupe; for, notwithstanding his assurances of aid, she had evidently made a confidant of another. His better disposition, however, soon led him to believe that she had been spirited away through some plan devised in the brain of Scanderbeg. While he rejoiced for her, he was disconsolate for himself; and determined that, upon his return to the war in Albania, to which field he knew it was the purpose of the Padishah to transfer him, he would discover the truth regarding her. He had learned from her secret missives, which Kala Hanoum had brought him before the flight, of the death of his father Milosch and his mother Helena, and the supposed death of his brother Constantine. There were, then, no ties of kinship, and but this one tie of affection to Morsinia, to divide his allegiance to the Padishah. And Morsinia had faded again from reality, if not into his mere dream, at least into the vaguest hope. His ardent soul found relief only by plunging into the excitement of the military service.
Mahomet had not exhausted his favors to Ballaban by the gift of the Albanian Venus, Elissa. Summoning him one day he repeated his purpose of designating him as the chief Aga of the Janizaries, the old chief having been slain in a recent engagement. Ballaban remonstrated, as once before, against this interference with the order of the corps, in which the choice of chief Aga was left to the vote of the soldiers themselves.
Mahomet replied angrily—"I tell you, Ballaban, my will shall now be supreme over every branch of my service. My fathers felt the independence of the Janizaries to be a menace to their thrones. Their power shall be curbed to my hand, or the whole order shall be abolished."
"Beware!" replied Ballaban. "You know not the alertness of the lion whose lair you would invade. I will serve my Padishah with my life in all other ways, but my vows forbid my treachery to my corps. Strike off my head, if you will, but I cannot be Aga, except by the sovereign consent of my brothers."