"Bismallah!"[21] said Scanderbeg. "And if the girl and the boy were the ones I saw asleep in each other's arms by the fire the other night, the compact is good for two generations at least."
It was agreed that, upon his sufficient recovery, Milosch should bring the children from the camp of Hunyades to Albania.
The ride by the Vitosh and Rilo Mountains where the mighty ranges of the Balkans, the Upper Mœsian, and the Rhodope are thrown close together, was sufficiently grand to engross the eye and mind of the dashing riders. Thus most of the day was passed in silence, broken only by the clatter of the horses' hoofs against the rocks; the roar of cascades making their awful plunge hundreds of feet from the precipices; the complaint of rivers far down at the bottom of ravines, fretting beneath the prison roof of ice and snow; and glorious pines, pluming the brow of crag and ledge, through which the everlasting winds breathed the dirge over fallen empires of men.
As they forced their way up a long and tedious ascent, Scanderbeg joined Kabilovitsch and said:
"To relieve the tedium of this slow part of the journey you must tell me about that lass you would not leave for the love of Albania. A sweet face as I saw it. I could have run off with it myself, had I not other business on hand. And I can pardon a father's heart for clinging very closely to such a child. You will forget my rude speech a while ago. I played with a little lass like that when I was a boy. The face of your child, that night I watched for you, carried me back to those happy days. I could see my little sweet-heart in her; though thirty years have thrown their shadows of dark events across my memory."
Kabilovitsch turned familiarly to Scanderbeg with the query,
"May I read your thoughts, Sire?"
"Yes, he is welcome to do so who can find my soul beneath this battered face."
"That child was the fair Mara, the daughter of the noble George Cernoviche, whose castle ruins lie now by the shore of Ochrida. Am I not right?"
"Right! but I knew not of the fall of her father's house. Can you tell me aught of the history of my little maiden. If she lives, she must be a goodly matron now."