The band of boys to which Michael was attached was marched at once to Adrianople. Several hundreds were gathered in a great square court, which was surrounded by barracks on three sides, and on the fourth faced the river Marissa. A great soup kettle, the emblem of the Janizary corps, was mounted upon a pole in the centre of the square, and seemed to challenge the honors of the gilt star and crescent, the emblem of royalty, that gleamed from the tall staff in an adjacent court of the seraglio. There were scattered about utensils for domestic use; the tools of carpenters, blacksmiths, armorers, harness-makers and horse-shoers; old swords, battered helmets, broken wagons, bow-guns, the figure heads of veteran battering rams; indeed all the used and disused evidences that within these walls lived a self-sustaining community, able to provide for themselves in war or in peace.
For several days the new boys were fed with delicious milk and meats, prepared by skilful hands of old soldiers, who knew the art of nursing the sick almost as well as they knew that of making wounds. For a few nights the lads slept upon soft divans, until every trace of weariness from the journey had disappeared. They were then stripped naked and examined carefully by the surgeons. If one were deformed, or ill-proportioned, or failed to give promise of a strong constitution, he was taken away to be trained as a woinak or drudge of the camps. Perhaps three-fourths of the entire number in Michael's company were thus branded for life with an adverse destiny.
The more favored lads were graded into ojaks, or messes; and among them were daily contests in running and wrestling, according to the results of which the ojaks were constantly changing their members; the strongest and most agile living together in honorary distinction from their fellows.
The officers in charge of these Janizary schools were old or crippled men, whom years or wounds had rendered unfit for service in the field, and who were assigned to the easier task in compensation for past fidelity. The spirit of the veterans was thus infused into the young recruits by constant contact and familiarity with them; and the rigid habits of the after service were acquired almost insensibly through the daily drill and discipline.
Michael's rugged health and mountain training enabled him to advance rapidly through the various grades. Though almost the youngest in his company, he was the first in the race, and no one could take him from his feet in the wrestling match.
"A sturdy little Giaour," said old Selim, a fat and gouty Janizary, the creases of whose double chin were good companions to the sabre-scar across his cheek.
"Ay, tough and handy!" responded Mustapha, an old captain of the corps, ogling Michael with his widowed eye, and stroking his beard with his equally bereaved hand, as he watched the boy wriggling from beneath to the top of a companion nearly double his size. "If the little fellow is as agile in wit as he is in limb he will not long be among the Agiamoglans.[23] A splendid build! broad in the shoulders; deep-chested, but not flat; narrow loins; compact hips—just the make of a lion. As lithe a lad as you were once, my now elephantine Selim, when Bajazet stole you from your Hungarian home. Ah! you have changed somewhat since the old Padishah had you for his page. I remember when your waist was as trim as a squirrel's—but now—from the look of your paunch I would think you were the soldier who drank up the poor woman's supper of goat's milk, and had his belly ripped open by the Padishah to discover his guilt.[24] Only goat's milk swells like that. Let us see if some of the butter sticks not yet to your ribs," said the old soldier, making a pass at his comrade's middle.
"That's not a true soldier's pass, to strike so low," said Selim, laughing. "But you, Mustapha, were once a better runner than yon lad will ever be."
"I was as good with my legs as with my arms," replied the veteran, pleased with the compliment, and fondling his bare calves with his hand. "But at what match did you see me run?"
"I only saw you run once," said Selim, "and that was at Angora, when Timour the Lame[25] was after you to get your ugly head for the pyramid of skulls he left there as a monument. But see the lad! He tosses the big one as a panther topples an ox. We have not had his match in the school since Scanderbeg was a boy."