"Heaven be praised! Were my ears dull as the stones they would open to hear such words," said the man with suppressed emotion. "For since the death of thy noble father—"
"My father's death! I had not heard it. When?" exclaimed the general.
"It is four moons since we buried him beneath the holy stones of the church at Croia, and the Sultan sent us General Sebaly to govern in his stead."
"Do you speak true?" cried Scanderbeg, laying his hand upon the man's shoulder and glaring into his face. "My father dead? and a stranger appointed in his stead? and Sultan Amurath has not even told me! Beware, man, lest you mistake."
"I cannot mistake, Sire, for these hands closed the eyes of John Castriot after he had breathed a prayer for his land and for his son—one prayer for both. Moses Goleme was with us, for you know he was thy father's dearest friend and wisest counsellor, and to him thy father gave charge that word should be sent thee that to thee he bequeathed his lands."
"Stop! Stop!" said Scanderbeg, pacing the little room like a caged lion. "Let me think. But go on. He did not curse me, then? Swear to me,"—and he turned facing the man—"swear to me that my father did not curse me with his dying breath! Swear it!"
"I swear it," said the man, "and that all Albania prays to-day for George Castriot. These are the tidings which the noble Moses bade me bring thee, though I found thee at the Indus or under the throne of the Sultan himself. I have no other message. That I might tell thee this in the free speech of Albania I have kept dumb to all others. If it be treason to the Sultan for thee to hear it, let my head pay the penalty. But know, Sire, that our land will rest under no other rule than that of a Castriot."
"A Castriot!" soliloquized the general. "Well, it is a better name than Scanderbeg. Ho, guard! Take this fellow! Let him share your mess!"
When alone the general threw himself upon the divan for a moment, then paced again the apartment, and muttered to himself——
"And for what has a Castriot given himself to the Turk! Yet I did not betray my land and myself. They stole me. They seduced my judgment as a child. They flattered my conceit as a man. Like a leopard I have fought in the Padishah's arena, and for a leopard's pay—the meat that makes him strong, and the gilded cage that sets off his spots. I have led his armies, for what? For glory. But whose glory? The Padishah cries in every emergency, 'Where is my Scanderbeg? Scanderbeg to the rescue!' But it means, 'Slave, do my bidding!' And I, the tinselled slave, bow my head to the neck of my steed, and the empire rings with the tramp of my squadrons, and the praise of Scanderbeg's loyalty! Pshaw! He calls me his lightning, but he is honored as the invisible Jove who hurls it. And I am a Castriot! A Christian! Ay, a Christian dog,[10] indeed, to fawn and lick the hands of one who would despise me were he not afraid of my teeth. He takes my father's lands and gives them to another; and I—I am of too little account to be even told 'Thy father is dead.'"