The newcomers proved to be a detachment of Albanians. Constantine was instantly captured notwithstanding his declaration that his dress was only assumed.
"Aha! you are a Christian now in a Turk's skin, are you? But yesterday you were a Turk in a Christian's feathers," was the taunt with which he was greeted by one of the foremost riders, who continued his bantering. "Your face is honest, if your heart is not, you Moslem devil; for your ugly features will not lie though your tongue does. I would know that square jaw and red head equally well now, were it under the tiara of the pope instead of under the turban; and I would cut your throat if you carried St. Peter's key in your girdle; you change-skinned lizard!"
"Who is he?" cried the horsemen, gathering about.
"Why! the very knave who escaped us about sundown yesterday, after spying our camp; and he has the impudence to ask us to take him prisoner that he may spy us again."
"Let us hamstring him!" cried another, "and, unless St. Christopher has turned Moslem in paradise and helps the rascal, he will find no legs to run away with again."
"Set him up for a mark when we halt," proposed a third. "A ducat to him whose arrow can split his ear without tearing the cheek at forty paces!"
Constantine was helpless as they adjusted a halter about his neck, with which to lead him at the side of a horseman, the butt of the scurrilous wit and sharper spear-points of his half mad and half merry captors.
They had gone but a few paces when the colonel commanding the detachment made his way through the troopers to the front. He was a venerable man with long flowing white beard. His bodily strength seemed to come solely from the vitality of nerve and the dominance of his spirit; for he was well worn with years.
"What is this noise about?" he asked sternly.
Before any could reply he stared with a moment's incredulity and wonder at Constantine, who relieved his doubts by recognizing him.