"He is not Kabilovitsch," said Milosch, half to himself and half aloud.
"No," replied Scanderbeg. "But I'll go and find Kabilovitsch. Perhaps he has more peat than he can carry. And, stranger, I'll help you find what you are seeking—for you seem daft with the cold—if you will help me find him I am to look for. By the beard of Moses! that's a fair agreement; is it not?"
"A strange swear, that!" said Milosch, looking after the two forms vanishing among the fir trees. "It is some watchword, and I like it not among these camp prowlers. I fear for Kabilovitsch. The newcomer wore his clothes, which I would know if I saw them on the back of the cardinal; for good Helena cut the hood for our neighbor as she cut the skirt for his motherless child, little Morsinia there. Some mischief is brewing. I shall watch and not sleep a wink."
Had one been lurking in the copse of evergreens to which the men withdrew, he would have overheard conversation of which these sentences are parts.
"Yes, General Hunyades, the time has come. I can endure the service of the Sultan no longer. But for what I am about to do I alone am responsible, and must decline to share that responsibility with any other, either Moslem or Christian. I believe, Sire, that I am in this directed by some higher power than my own caprice. I am compelled to it by invisible forces, as really as the stars are dragged by them through the sky yonder."
"No star," replied Hunyades, "has purer lustre than that of your noble purpose, and none are led by the invisible forces to a brighter destiny than is Scanderbeg."
"Let not your Christian lips call me Scanderbeg, but Castriot," said his companion. "Yes, I believe that my new purpose comes from the inbreathing of some celestial spirit, from some mysterious hearing the soul has of the inarticulate voice of God. Else why should the thought of it so strangely satisfy me? I cast myself down from the highest pinnacle of honor and power and riches with which the Moslem service can reward one;—for I am at the head of the army, and even the Vizier has not more respect at Adrianople than have I wherever the soldiers of the Sultan spread themselves throughout the world. To leave the Padishah will be to leave every thing for an uncertain future. Yet I am more than content to do it."
"Not for an uncertain future, noble Castriot," replied Hunyades warmly, grasping his hand. "The highest position in the armies of Christian Europe is yours. My own chieftaincy I could demit without regret, knowing that it would fall into your hands. The army of Italy you can take command of to-morrow if you will; for that scarlet-knobbed coxcomb of an ecclesiastic, Julian, is not fitted for it. Or Brankovitch, the Servian Despot, will hail you as chief voivode.[15] You have but to choose from our armies, and put yourself at the head of whatever nation you will: for the legions will follow the pointing of your invincible sword as bravely as if it were the sword of Michael, the Archangel."
"No! No! These things tempt me not," said Scanderbeg. "I must live only for Albania. That strange spirit which counsels me comes into my soul like a pure blast from off my Albanian hills. The voices that call me are like the dying voice of my father, the sainted Duke John, who prayed then for his land and for his son—for both in the one breath that floated his soul to God. Let me look again upon the rocky fastnesses of the Vitzi, the waters of little Ochrida and Skidar, and call them mine; I shall then not envy even the plume on your helmet, generous Hunyades; nor regret what I forsake among the Moslems, though my estate were that of the entire empire which the Padishah sees in his dreams, when, not the city of Adrian, but the city of Constantine shall have become his capital."
"Christendom will hardly forgive the slight you put upon it, noble Castriot, by declining some general command, and will soon grow jealous of your exclusive devotion to little Albania," said Hunyades, with evident candor.