"Do not rise," said the general, gently pressing the secretary back to his reclining posture. "I only need the imperial seal to this order."
The secretary scanned the paper with incredulous eyes. It was a firman, or decree of the Sultan, passing the government of Albania from General Sebaly to Scanderbeg, with absolute powers, and ordering the commandant of the strong fortress of Croia to place all its armament and that of adjacent strongholds in Scanderbeg's hand as the viceroy of the Sultan. As the secretary lifted his face to utter an inquiry for the relief of his amazement, knowing that the Sultan, then absent in Asia, could not have ordered such a document, the strong hand of Scanderbeg gripped his throat, and his poniard threatened his heart.
"The mark!" whispered the assailant.
The terrified man tremblingly reached the seal, and pressed it against the wax. The weapon then did its work, and so suddenly that the secretary had no time for even an outcry. Then silently, so that the guards, who were but a few paces distant, heard no commotion, he laid the lifeless form on the divan, and covered it with the embroidered cloak it had worn when living.[19]
Passing out, Scanderbeg gave orders that the tent should not be entered by the guards until morning, that the secretary might rest. He gave the password, "The Kaaba," as sharply as if his lips would take vengeance on the once sacred, but now hated sound. His military staff joined him at a little distance. Vaulting into the saddle he led the way toward the north. At the edge of the camp by a rude bridge he halted, and said to his attendants,
"I meet at this point the Beyler Bey of Anatolia, whose staff will be my escort to his camp. The Padishah's cause needs closest conference of all the commanders; for treason is abroad. Ah! I hear the escort. Return to quarters, gentlemen!"
Riding forward alone in the direction of the noise, he cried, "Who comes?"
"The Kaaba at Mecca," was the response.
"Well, if the Kaaba takes the trouble to come to me it is a good omen, by the beard of Moses!"
"By the beard of Moses!" murmured a group of horsemen, bowing their turbaned heads in the first gray light of the approaching day. The cavalcade closed around the fugitive chieftain, and moved along in silence, except to respond to the sentinels. As they passed the extreme picket of the Turks they halted. A wardrobe had been secreted in a cave beyond a copse near the road. Dismounting, the men exchanged their turbans for caps of wolf or beaver skin. Their gaily trimmed jackets, such as were worn by the Turkish foot-soldiers, gave place to short fur sacks. Their flowing, bag-bottomed trousers were kicked off, leaving abbreviated breeches of leather. In a few moments the splendidly uniformed suite of a Moslem bey was transformed into a rough, but exceedingly unique-looking, band of Albanian guerillas. Scanderbeg assumed a helmet, the summit of which carried as a device the head and shoulders of a goat—since the times of Alexander the Great the symbol of the powers in, or bordering upon, Macedonia. The Turkish uniforms were bundled upon the cruppers for future use.