CHAPTER XIII.
Weeks and months passed away, during which the physical exercises ofthe lads in the Janizary school were varied with lessons in theTurkish language; and, in the case of a select number, in the Arabic,mastering it at least sufficiently to read the Koran, large sectionsof which they were compelled to commit to memory.
The teachers in the Janizary schools were far from ordinary men. Theywere highly learned, and, like most Orientals of education, giftedwith great eloquence. After the daily tasks had been accomplished theboys were gathered in a semicircle upon the floor about theinstructor, who sat cross-legged among them, and narrated in glowinglanguage the history of the Prophet and his successors in thekhalifate; inflaming their young minds with the most heroic andromantic legends of Arabia and Egypt, Algiers and Granada, where theKoran had conquered the faith of the people whom the swords of thetrue Moslems had subdued. Wild stories of the early days of the Turks,before Ertoghral,[39] "The Right-hearted Man," led the tribes from thebanks of the Euphrates; and earlier still when Seljuk[40] led hispeople from north of the Caspian; of the settlement of their remoteancestors in Afghanistan, where the great chief was first calledSultan;[41] of how they had once held the religious faith ofZoroaster. Indeed, myths from the very dawn of known history, when theTurkius did all sorts of valiant deeds in far-off China.[42]
The Christian books were made to appear to the young proselyte as butimperfect suggestions of the completed teaching of the book ofMahomet; while the peculiar dogmas of the Christians were restatedwith such shrewd perversion that to the child's judgment they seemedpuerile or untrue.
"Behold the sky!" one would exclaim. "Is it not one dome, like thecanopy of one mighty throne? Behold the light! Does it not pour fromone sun and fill all space with one flood? Breathe the air! Is it notthe same over all lands and in all lungs? Do not all birds fly withone mechanism of wings? and all men live by the same beating of theheart? How then can there be three Gods, Allah, and Jesu and Mary, asthe Christians teach?[43] What does reason say? What does the universetestify? What says the true and wise believer?"
"There is one God and Mahomet is His Prophet," would be the responseof the pupils, bowing their heads to the floor.
"Can the less contain or give out the greater? Can a stone bring forththe orange tree? Can a stick give birth to the eagle? A worm be thefather of a man? How, then, can we say with the Christians, that Maryof Bethlehem is the mother of God? What says the faithful and wisebeliever?"
"There is one God, and Mahomet is His prophet," would be the choralresponse.
"Is God weak? Can men thwart His plans? Shall we then believe that theinfidel Jews crucified the Son of God?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," would roll up from thelips of the scholars.
"Shall we, then, kiss the toe of the pope because he calls himself thegrand vizier of Allah, when our Janizaries can cut the throats of hissoldiers, as our brethren of Arabia destroyed the crusaders? Or shallwe kiss the hand of the patriarch of the Greeks, who claims supremacyin the name of Allah, when already our arms have shut up the wholeGreek empire within the walls of Constantinople? What says thefaithful and wise believer?"
"God is great, and Mahomet is His Prophet," is the reply.
"Who would cringe and beg forgiveness at the feet of a dirty priest,when the sword of every Janizary may open for him who holds it thegate of paradise?"
Not only such arguments, but every event of the day that couldemphasize or illustrate the superiority of the Moslem faith, wasskilfully brought to bear upon the susceptible minds of the youths.And within the first year of Michael's cadetship one such significantevent occurred.
In the year of the Hegira 822,[44] six months after the flight ofScanderbeg, it was solemnly agreed between Christian and Moslem thatthe sword should have rest for ten years. A stately ceremony was madeto seal the compact. Vladislaus of Hungary represented in his personthe pledge of kingly honor. Hunyades gave the sanction of a soldier'sword. And Cardinal Julian was supposed to have added to the treaty theconfirmation of all that was sacred in the religion of which he was soexalted a representative. On behalf of the Christians, the concord wassignalized by an oath upon the Gospels. On the other side, SultanAmurath, in the presence of his generals and the holiest of the Moslemdervishes, swore upon the Koran. This compact, guarded by all that menhold to be honorable on earth and sacred in heaven, lulled thesuspicions of the Turks. The rigid drill, the alert espionage, theraids along the border gave way to the indolence of the barracks andthe pastimes of the camp. Thousands of horses and their riders werereturned to till the fields in the Timars, Ziamets and Beyliks[45]scattered throughout distant provinces. The Sultan retired to meditatereligion, or devise the things belonging to permanent peace, in hissecluded palace at Magnesia in Asia Minor. The death of his eldestson, Prince Aladdin, led him to put the crown of associate Padishahupon the brow of the young Mahomet that in these quiet times theprince might learn the minor lessons of the art of ruling.
But this sense of security among the Turks offered too strong atemptation to the cupidity of the Christian leaders. King Vladislausopposed conscientious objections to any breach of the compact.Hunyades maintained his personal honor by at first refusing to drawhis sword. But Cardinal Julian stood sponsor to a breach of faith,and announced that principle which has, in the estimate of history,made his scarlet robe the symbol of his scarlet sin--that no faithneed be kept with infidels; and, in the name of the Holy Father,granted absolution to the chief actors for what they were about to do.
Without warning, the tide of Christian conquest poured from Serviaeastward until it was checked in that direction by the Black Sea. Thehordes of Europe then turned southward, seized upon Varna, and pitchedtheir camps amid the pennants of their ill-gotten victory near to itswalls. To human sight no power could avert irrevocable disaster to thearms, if not the subversion of the entire empire of the Ottomans inEurope.
In their extremity the lands of the Moslem made their solemn appeal toAllah. Every mosque resounded with reiterated prayers. The campsechoed the pious invocations with loud curses and the rattle of thepreparation of armor. Scurrying messengers flew from the centre to thecircumference of the Ottoman domain, and hastily gathered legionsconcentrated for one supreme blow in retaliation for the grossness ofthe insult, and in vindication of what they believed to be the causeof honor and truth, which, in their minds, was one with that of Allahand the Prophet.
The Sultan hurried from his retreat, and with marvellous celeritymarshalled the faithful against the invaders at Varna. Riding at thehead of the Janizaries, he caused the document of the violated treatyto be held aloft on a lance-head in the gaze of the two armies, andwith a loud voice uttered this prayer--a strange one for a Moslem'slips--
"O, Thou insulted Jesu, revenge the wrong done unto Thy good name, andshow Thy power upon Thy perjured people!"
Victory hovered long between the contending hosts, but at last restedwith the Moslems. To make the intervention of Allah more apparent, itwas told everywhere, how, when Amurath believed that he was defeated,and had given the order for retreat, a soldier seized the bridle ofthe Sultan's horse and turned him back again toward the enemy. Thevery beast felt the inspiration of heaven, and led the assault uponthe breaking columns of the Christians, until the victors returned,bearing upon spear-points the heads of Cardinal Julian and KingVladislaus; while Hunyades fled in disgrace from the field.
It is not to be wondered at that such an event, which led many wholecommunities to renounce their alliance with the Christian powers, andmany of the chiefs of Bosnia and Servia to accept the Moslem faith,should have rooted that faith more deeply in the hearts of those whoalready held it. A flame of fanaticism ran throughout the Mohammedanworld. The most rabid sects increased in the number and fury of theirdevotees. Many who were engaged in useful occupations left them tobecame Moslem monks, spending their lives in meditation, if perchancethey might receive more fully the blessings which heaven seemed readyto pour upon ev
ery true believer; or to become preachers of thejehad--the holy war against the infidels.
In the schools of the Janizaries the fanaticism was fed and fanned toa flame of utmost intensity. The square court within their barrackswas transformed into a great prayer place of the dervishes. Here theHowlers formed their circles, and swaying backward and forward withflying hair and glaring eyes, grunted their talismanic words from theKoran, until they fell in convulsions on the pavement. And theWheelers spun round and round in their mystic motions until, full ofthe spirit they sought, they dropped in the dizzying dance. Learnedsheiks preached the gospel of the sword, and the imams watered theseed thus sown with fervent prayers, until the ardent souls of theyouth seemed to have lost their human identity, and to be transformedinto sparks and flashes of some celestial fire which was to destroythe lands of the Christians.
Michael's mind was not altogether unimpressed by the religiousfanaticism that raged around him. While in quiet moments he wastroubled with what he heard against the Christian faith which he hadbeen taught in his mountain home, at other times he was caught in thetide of the general enthusiasm and felt himself borne along with it,swirled around in the rings of the mad maelstrom; not unwilling toyield himself to the excitement, and yet by no definite purposecommitting himself to it. If it requires all the strength of an adultmind, with convictions long held and character well formed, tomaintain its faith and principles against the attrition of dailytemptation in a Christian land, we must not be surprised if the childgave way to the incessant appeal of the Moslem belief, accompanied asit was by extravagant promises of secular pleasure, and counteractedby no word of Christian counsel.
But the spiritual impulse in Michael was less active than the martialinstinct; and this latter was stimulated to the utmost by theassociations of every day and hour. The battles which were fought onthe great fields were all refought in the vivid descriptions of theJanizary teachers, and sometimes in the mimic rencounters of theplayground. Michael rebelled against his childish years whichprevented his joining some of the great expeditions that were fittedout;--against the Greeks of the Peloponnesus, the Giaour lands to thenorth, and the Albanians on the west, who, under Scanderbeg, hadbecome the chief menace against the Ottoman power.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] About 1280 A. D.
[40] About the end of the tenth century.
[41] Between 997 and 1030 A. D.
[42] Tribes of Turkius were mentioned by Pliny.
[43] This perversion of the Christian dogma of the Trinity was taughtby heretical sects in the time of the Prophet Mahomet, and is embodiedin the Koran.
[44] A. D., 1444.
[45] Fiefs or portions of conquered lands given to soldiers.