"George Castriot may lead, but may not rebuke the patriots who have watched for Albania with sacrifices he knows not of, while he has been among our country's enemies. An old man, thy father's friend before thou wast born, may say that, Sire."
Scanderbeg grew pale in turn. He had been unaccustomed to brook insubordination, however righteous. Who had dared to question him? Who to fling the taunt into his face? The hot words were upon his lips. But he paused, at first from the mere habit of self-restraint. Then, because he was a wise man, and realized that he was no longer the tyrant, with power of life and death over his soldiers—men who had been hired, stolen, impressed into the service, and transformed into mere machinery of flesh and blood—but was to be the public liberator of a people every man of whom was already as free as he. Then, he had become a just man. Strange and sanguinary as had been the events accompanying his desertion of the Turks, he had taken this step only after a deep moral struggle. He had revolted from his own past life; and felt an inward disgrace for what had been his outward glory—the service of the Moslem; he despised himself more than any other person could. It was this sense of the justice of Kabilovitsch's rebuke that checked the rage which had blanched his face, and sent the flush to his temples, as he slowly, replied, "I bow to the merited chastisement of your words. Your years and your better life give you license to utter them. My future shall atone for the past. But cannot your child be left safely where she is?"
"She is safe where she is; but I may not leave her without providing for her future. Milosch is lying in a cottage but a little before us. If his wounds are not fatal—as I believe they are not, though the leech thought otherwise—I may bring the girl to him, and still overtake you before you come in sight of the Black Mountains. I can cross this country by paths through which I could not direct you. During many years, for justice's sake and our country's, I have wandered over these mountains where only the eagle's shadow has fallen."
"I will stop with you at the cottage," said Scanderbeg, "for, though the moments are precious, I would bless the brave fellow for his work yesterday."
There were several wounded Christian soldiers at the little hovel. A Greek monk was administering both spiritual and physical comfort; for Rilo Monastir had sent its inmates along the track of the Christian army in spite of the insults of the Latin soldiers, who, though in sight of the common enemy of their faith, could not repress the meanness of their sectarian jealousy and hatred. Milosch was doing well. His wounds were, one in the fleshy part of the shoulder, the other a contusion on the head, from a blow which had stunned him. A few weeks would put him again upon his feet, though perhaps his fighting days were over; for the flesh wound lay across an important muscle, and would permanently destroy the strength of the right arm.
Milosch fell in with the proposition of Kabilovitsch regarding Morsinia. Though a Servian, he had lost interest in his own country because of the vacillating course of the Despot, George Brankovitch, who was half Christian and half Moslem, according to the policy of the moment. Milosch would identify himself with the cause of Albania, for which he had already done and suffered so much.
The two men entered into what is known among the Servians and Albanians as "Brotherhood in God," covenanting in the name of God and St. John to devote their lives, each to the other, and both to their common cause. The compact was sealed by each putting the left hand upon the other's heart, and holding up the right hand in invocation of the Divine witness. Kabilovitsch said:
"My brother, I commit to thy keeping our daughter, Morsinia, thine and mine, from henceforth. She is all I have but life to share with thee, which also I freely give."
"My brother, I commit to thy keeping our boy, Constantine, thine and mine from henceforth. He is all I have that I wot of to share with thee, but my life which—God spare it—I freely give."