Chapter XI: The Storming of Chandax

The strange scene had so deeply stirred the vague awe of the Romans, and so fully engaged their attention, that in the gloom which followed the dying down of the great fire they suffered themselves to be surprised by a sudden sally of the Saracens. A light band, stealing out from a concealed postern, dashed upon the advanced works and nearly captured Nicephorus, with his immediate staff. Basil Digenes, who had taken personal command of the ruined turret, was actually surrounded, and after desperate feats of valor in hand-to-hand combats, was struck down, wounded, and dragged back a prisoner into the Moslem fortress. There he was thrown into a dungeon in the great tower which served as headquarters of one of the chief emirs, to wait question by the chief of the staff himself. He strove to destroy any vestige of clothing or accoutrement which could betray his rank or name; for he well knew that if the Moslems discovered that he was the son of the renegade emir of Edessa, he would suffer a more horrid death than that which, in any case, was his almost certain fate. Through the long hours of darkness he lay on the stony floor, sore and stiff with his untended wounds, and he faced the worst with a brave heart, calling upon Mary in heaven, but thinking of Agatha on earth.

Beneath the narrow grating of the slit in the wall of his cell he could hear the tramp of guards in the courtyard, and as he had retained enough of his father's native speech to follow the Arab tongue, he listened to rude jests about the fate which awaited him when questioned by the emir, and loud disputes as to whether he was an ordinary guardsman of the capital or an officer of rank. "He is not tall enough to be one of those accursed Russ," said one fellow. "I saw on his side the baldric of a spathaire, as they call their emirs," said another. "I tell you, he had a ruby ring," cried a third, "but some Syrian thief had stolen it before I seized him," said the last. "We shall know all about it, at any rate, when 'Black Malek' and his singeing tools have begun to loose his tongue!" And the coarse shout with which this sally was received rang harshly in the young hero's ears.

It was still as dark as pitch when a faint streak of light seemed to glimmer around the barred door; and the keen ear of the lord warden detected the slow movement of the bolt, as if it were being cautiously drawn back. Was he to be assassinated quietly in his sleep? If so, well! Thanks be for this to the Virgin Mother and the saints! He closed his eyes and feigned to sleep, with a muttered prayer to be received in mercy by Christ in heaven. Presently he was aware of two figures stealthily approaching him. "He sleeps soundly," said a voice, in whispers. "Allah be praised!" whispered another voice, which sounded to the listener strangely like that of a woman. "Lift up the lantern, nurse; the wound I saw on him was a deep gash in the left shoulder, made by a blow which had shorn away his vest." By the light of a borne lantern the prisoner could dimly perceive standing over him the figure of a black Nubian woman, who had sponge, bandages, and liniment with her, and was stooping down to dress the wound. Digenes forced himself to lie still and feign deep sleep in order to hear more of this unexpected visit.

"Ah! Is the young Nazarene dead?" came with a sigh from the other woman, who had stood behind the door but now came forward sufficiently to let the prisoner perceive a young and beautiful girl, in the most elegant dress of a Saracen lady of high rank. "Is he dead, nurse?" she sighed again. "Not dead, no, nor like to die, my sweet mistress, not until his Excellency, your father, gives the word, as I suppose he will at daybreak."

"Tend him now, at least," said the lady. And the Nubian, with her strong arms and practised skill, bathed, soothed, and bandaged the wound, while the patient still maintained his semblance of slumber, eager as he was to understand what miracle could have won for him, as it seemed, the protection of the emir's daughter, who was evidently now stooping to look at his face in the dim half-light.

"What is it can lead you, my darling lady, to bring help to this cruel giaour, who is fighting against God and His Prophet--one, too, whom your own father will assuredly put to a just death when he has wrung from him all that he knows about the unbelieving host?"

"Hush, nurse, do what I tell you. I saw our men last night as they brought in this prisoner from the fight. Behind our lattice I could see his look, and was struck with amazement at what I saw. He is the very image of my own beloved brother, Hassan, who was taken prisoner in the great battle round Tarsus and died in the castle of the Armenian chief who had captured him. But his last days were made peaceful by the care of the noble lord, who had blood relationship with our family. I have longed to do as much for some captive giaour--and here is one whom I can save."

"Oh, my dearest foster-child, this is a strange delusion," said the slave-woman.

"I tell you, nurse, he is the image of my dear dead brother. It is marvellous, it is incredible, it is some special will of God. This young Christian officer--I am sure he is an officer of high rank--has the same dark eyes, the delicate features, the olive tint, the raven hair of my lost brother. I tell you, nurse, as I saw him dragged bleeding and haggard beneath my lattice, I thought I was looking on my brother just before he breathed his last in the house of a kind Christian chief. It is not true, nurse, that they are all wicked and savage. There are Christian heroes as there are Moslem heroes, and I am fain to think this noble youth is one of them himself. In any case, he shall not die if I can save him for my brother's sake!"

"Thanks, gracious lady, for that word. We are not all savage, as your brother found us, and as your heart tells you," murmured the Akritas, in the sweetest intonation which he could give to such Arabic speech as he still retained.

The maiden started up and rushed towards the door in her amazement and confusion, when she heard such words in her own tongue from one whom but a moment before she believed to be in his last sleep. "Nay, fly not, gentle maiden, fear nothing; I am your helpless and grateful prisoner, but I, too, have known how to soothe the dying hours of an enemy--a gallant Saracen; and from my own father I have the blood and the speech of an emir as my inheritance--ay, and, I trust, something still of the honor of that noble chief in my soul. Fear me not, lady, help me to die in peace, even as, in my father's castle, I eased the dying hours of the young Hassan, the son of my own father's sister."

"What is this? Speak! who are you, then, if no giaour, and how come you to be in arms against our people and our faith?"

"Lady, the Hassan, whose eyes I closed, and whom I buried with the honors due to a gallant chief, was my own kinsman in blood, for I am the only child of the emir of Edessa, Mousour, who forsook Islam when he wedded the daughter of Prince Dukas."

"What!" cried the girl, quite beside herself with wonder and excitement, "you are then cousin-germain to my own loved brother! You are the lord who protected him! This, then, is how it came to pass that when I saw you I thought that my brother himself had returned to earth and was before me. Praise be to Allah, for in spite of your faith and mine we are of one blood, and your father and my mother were brother and sister of one house; and Allah in his mercy has brought us at last together, so that blood of yours shall not lie at our door after all, if the word of Fatima can suffice to prevent this crime!"

Crimson with blushes and panting with excitement as the terrible nature of her promise struck her mind, the Saracen maiden fell on her knees before the prisoner, and, taking his right hand in hers, she raised it solemnly to her lips, as she uttered to her God a silent vow. Then she gave the hand she still held a gentle but meaning pressure, and rose up in haste.

"Come, nurse, haste! bring these things away. There is much to be done. Everything has to be arranged within an hour. Prisoner, who stood friend to Hassan in prison, remember that Hassan's sister will be friend to you, or will die in the attempt!"

The fair Fatima in fact persuaded her father that, her Nubian nurse having been summoned to save the prisoner's life that he might be questioned, it had been ascertained that he had Saracen blood in his veins, but had been brought up from youth among the giaours. If he were carefully nursed back to life and his wounds dressed he might be led to return to the faith of his Moslem ancestors, and would then prove of great service to the defence by what he could reveal. The emir, absorbed in the cares of his desperate situation, and having no reason to suppose that he had in his power a prisoner of importance, consented to the man remaining in his dungeon, under guard, and permitted the Nubian nurse to visit him and care for his life, if she had any means of so doing.

When it was supposed that the prisoner was sufficiently restored to bear examination, he was carried, chained to two stout guards, into the audience-chamber of the emir-in-chief, Abd-el-Aziz, whom the Byzantine historians call the kouropas--a curious corruption of curopalatas, which itself is a corruption of curator palatii, or lord high chamberlain. The kouropas was seated on a curiously carved throne, in a hall hung with arms, Persian carpets, and embroidery, and was surrounded by a fierce band of officers and orderlies. He had already ordered the execution of some prisoners taken in the late sortie, and Digenes was about to be dragged into his presence, when an officer rushed forward to announce that the envoys he had despatched at the beginning of the siege to the Caliph Abd-er-Rahman in Cordova were just returning with ambassadors from the great Ommeyad, the powerful sovereign of the West. As the city of Chandax was so closely invested, the Spanish Moors had only with great difficulty and hair-breadth escapes found their way to the walls; and at last they had been drawn up to the ramparts in baskets hung out over the fosse by a crane. The kouropas ordered them at once to be admitted with all possible ceremony, and rose to do honor to the representatives of his powerful fellow-believer, and, as he hoped, his ally.

After the customary salaams and exchange of compliments, the ambassadors were seated and opened their business, to which Digenes listened, as he was thrust aside behind a throng of guards and officials. The two envoys of Abd-er-Rahman reported that their lord and master had despatched them from Andalusia in two of his swiftest cruisers to ascertain the condition of their brethren in Crete. They had been shocked to find to how terrible a strait they were reduced. The giaour was master of the whole island. Far and wide the Saracen cities had been sacked and occupied. The land had been ravaged, and the bones and goods of the true believers lay scattered over the fields. Chandax itself was closely invested, and was on every side being bombarded with powerful engines. They saw with horror and pity as they passed through the streets crowds of country people who had taken refuge within its walls, old men, women, and children, in sore destitution, pinched with cold and hunger and cumbering the market-place with dead and dying. And, even while they were trying to force their way through the giaour lines outside, they had witnessed a ghastly scene. A helpless crowd of infirm men, children reduced to the state of skeletons, and women dragging moaning infants beside them, were forced out of the city as "useless mouths," driven, as sheep are hunted by wolves, to the enemies' lines, from which again they were forced back by the bloody Nazarenes with curses, blows, and weapons, so that they lay down, gasping, in the trenches now reeking with rotting bodies of men and beasts. It was a hideous sight. And however anxious was the caliph of the West to succor his kinsmen and fellow-believers in the Prophet, it seemed hopeless to enter on so desperate an enterprise in a crisis so appalling.

"Noble envoys of the great caliph in Andalusia," said Abd-el-Aziz, "we are indeed sore bested, but our case is not yet hopeless. We are reduced to a remnant of fighting men, but we are sworn to defend this city or die; and to keep a remnant alive and fit for arms, we have to sacrifice those who cannot fight. They, too, are martyrs to our faith, and God in His mercy will not suffer them to perish forever. There is still hope left; for we learned but a few days ago that the imaum of west Africa has succeeded in landing a large force of gallant Moors, who even now are advancing with haste and will attack the unbelievers in the rear."

"If ye can maintain your defence yet two months longer," said the Spanish envoys, "our master will endeavor to give you succor or offer you a refuge. His fleets scour the western sea from the island of Sicily, but he is not yet prepared to make war on the sovereign of Roum."

But at this moment a fresh despatch reached the kouropas, to the effect that by a sudden night march Nicephorus had fallen unawares on the African army of relief, had surprised them in their tents and bivouac, and had annihilated the entire command and taken all their stores, arms, and munitions of war.

A spasm of rage, grief, and disappointment ran through the council when this news was made known; and the hall was a scene of frenzied excitement and almost of panic as they saw how the wisdom of the politic Abd-er-Rahman was justified, how little could be hoped from the side of the Spanish caliphate.

The kouropas rose with an air of heroic resolution and calmed the storm. "Illustrious envoys of the mighty caliph of the West, emirs, officers, and soldiers of the Prophet--we have sworn to defend this city of the true believers to the last drop of our blood. If the great ones of our faith in Spain, in Asia, or in Africa come not to our help, we Moslems of Crete will fight the Nazarene while we can hold our swords. We will never be slaves to the foul brood that eats swine, that worships stones and painted boards, that prostrates itself to a wanton. Sons of Islam, if we are to die, let us prepare for the Galilean a bloody victory!"

In the mean time the Roman commander-in-chief, sore grieved at the loss of his young lieutenant-general, the akritas, and made anxious by the determined energy of the enemy and his own daily losses, was indefatigable in his efforts to force the siege to a triumphant end. He was now pressing on the device of a mine, since he found that his movable turrets could not overtop the wall, nor his rams or his bores suffice to shake it. For a month his engineers had been at work on a deep mine beneath the curtain that lay between two principal towers, where at last he had detected a soil soft enough to be pierced by mining. The main circuit of the wall rested on impenetrable rock; but now he had found a bit which, with incessant labor, it was possible to traverse. A vast, subterranean chamber was now prepared, supported only on beams, which, on the appointed day, could be destroyed by fire.

It was now ready for the great assault; and during the night the whole Roman forces had been marshalled in their respective posts. The catapults and balistæ were plied with new vehemence. The air rang with missiles of every kind--rocks, bolts, darts, and bombs of Greek fire. Nicephorus traversed the ranks, calling on his men to smite these blaspheming sons of the concubine--these Ishmaelites, who eat unclean camel's flesh and pollute themselves with a multitude of women, who revile Christ and His Mother, who murder the innocent, and practise all the abominations of the great Impostor. Christ and His Holy Mother would welcome in Heaven all who fell in this sacred war against the infidel, and their king in Rome would honor and reward them on earth.

His engineers now reported to the general that the great mine was quite ready to be fired when the order should be given. Thereupon Nicephorus ordered a solemn service to be performed. He had caused an army of artificers to be sent from Constantinople, who had raised a church in an incredibly short time (Michael of Attala, the historian, solemnly tells us that it was miraculously built in three days). It was placed in the rear of the camp, behind an eminence which concealed it from the city. It was a miniature Santa Sophia, with a spherical dome, marble columns, bronze doors, and mosaic pictures similar to the old Byzantine churches still standing in Greece. It was, of course, dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin, and it was filled with emblems and figures of the warrior saints, but it long bore the popular name given to it by the soldiers--the "Church of the Lord General." There Nicephorus was wont to worship daily, but on this eventful day he chose to attend the service with more than ordinary state. In his most resplendent uniform, with his gilt corselet, his plumed helmet, and burnished greaves, he called round him his principal officers and the entire body of the priests and chaplains of the army. From the church he issued forth in a brilliant procession, both military and sacerdotal. On his white charger he rode forth, followed by his staff, and surrounded by priests, choristers, and acolytes, bearing the golden crucifixes, incense, miraculous ikons, and the host in chased ciboria of gold and jewels. General and priests visited each post and detachment in turn. The priests pronounced absolution and gave the holy wafer, and offered to the fervid kisses of the soldiers on their knees the relics of martyrs in their encolpia, the jewelled lockets they carried hung by chains round their necks.

Nicephorus again harangued them, galloping from post to post. "Their royal master, Romanus, had offered rewards of valor to all who should distinguish themselves. These holy servants of Christ here, with the bones of martyrs and the body and blood of their Saviour in their hands, promised the palm of martyrs and the glory of heaven to all who should fall in the fight. Smite these black sons of the False Prophet, these revilers of God's name, these miscreants who commit their abominations to-day in the holy spot where Mary our mother first laid on earth the Divine Child, begotten of the Father; nay, they polluted the hallowed sepulchre wherein the apostles laid their crucified Lord and Master. Smite and spare them not, sons of Rome and followers of Christ, even as the children of Israel smote the sons of Amalek and the brood of Goliath! Smite--for God in heaven with His holy ones this very hour is looking down on each of you from heaven above!"

And then Nicephorus, carried beyond himself into something like religious illusion, broke into a rhapsody which raised the enthusiasm of his men to white heat: "I see," he cried, "the heaven opening before my eyes. There sits in glory the Immaculate Mother of God: I see her smile on you the assurance of her divine protection!" The chief dismounted, and taking off his helmet, he prostrated himself thrice on the bare rock, as if he stood before the altar of God. Then rising, and raising his hands in an attitude of adoration, he cried: "See the Blessed Mary of Victory as she beckons us to march against the infidel! See Christ, the Son, the Creator of heaven and earth, raising His holy hands to bless you, and to promise you His Help. See! around the Saviour stand there St. Demetrius and St. George, both in golden cuirass, St. Theodore, and the archangel Michael with his flaming sword. Soldiers! Romans! Christians! can ye not see the white wings of the mighty archangel beating the air as he sweeps on in front of your lines? Can ye not see the flaming sword that led the angels on to victory against the rebel crew of Satan, as it points to you the path to victory and to glory?"

A deep and muffled roar ran along the Roman lines as the general resumed his helmet and his charger; for in that age of imaginative excitement and religious passion the troops were as easily brought to believe they saw in the white clouds, tinted with the morning sun, the figures of the celestial host, as truly as their commander in his zealous trance had believed himself to have seen them. The strain on the mind of Nicephorus, who alone knew the intense crisis of that moment, was almost unbearable. He had just sent the order to spring the mine by firing the props of timber. As he rode forward to watch the issue an appalling crash rent the sky. The two main towers heaved, toppled, and fell in masses into the fosse below, dragging with them nearly the whole of the curtain of wall between them, with battlements, engines, and defenders in one ghastly heap, and from the fragments clouds of dust rose up, which covered both the city within and the attacking forces without.

And now, before they could see each other, swarms of wild Saracens rushed forth over the debris and from the gates of the city, suddenly thrown wide open. Haggard dervishes in white vests flung themselves madly on the Roman spears. Arab horsemen, on foaming chargers, dashed into the advancing columns; turbaned emirs in gleaming coats of mail frantically cheered on their men to slay the dogs who ate swine's flesh and reviled the Prophet, promising the gold of the infidel camp to those who survived and the houris of paradise to those who fell. Abd-el-Aziz, the commander-in-chief, passed from one corner of the field to the other, while the gigantic Emir Ben-Senoussi, the captor of Digenes and the father of Fatima, charged full at Nicephorus himself. The tremendous duel for an instant arrested the attention of both sides. Spurring his powerful charger to his utmost speed, and couching his lance, Ben-Senoussi rode at the general, who was now equipped in his full panoply. As the Bedouin bore down on him, Nicephorus caught the lance dexterously on his shield, and caused it to swerve aside without piercing the weapon. Then, as the huge Saracen came abreast of him, the general swung his mighty falchion straight on to the turban of his adversary, and clove him in twain down to the chine.

With a roar of joy, and triumphant shouts of "Rome!" "Mother of God!" "St. George!" "St. Theodore!" the Roman army dashed on, slaying the dervishes in heaps, and pouring over the fallen wall and through the breach and the still open gates. The kouropas had been swept back by the tide of victors and defeated in the _mêlée_, and still with heroic determination he directed the combat within the walls. It had now become a pitiless struggle from house to house, from one winding alley to another. All day long the bloody work raged on. As each house was stormed all within it were massacred, and it was then burned or destroyed. Neither age nor sex was spared. Portable valuables were seized; that which could not be carried was destroyed. Lust, rapine, slaughter ruled unbridled. Violation did not save the women who were victims of the license, nor did innocence and helplessness avail to save the children of the accursed race. Hell was enacted in all its atrocities in the name of Christ and for the honor of the Immaculate Mother of God. Here and there was heard the voice of a priest chanting a hymn from the psalm of David: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel." "The Lord shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them." "O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed!" "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth Thy little ones against the stones."

Long did the infernal orgy of destruction, rape, torture, and murder run riot through the length and breadth of the doomed city of the Saracens. But in the afternoon, as the sun was setting, the generalissimo of the Romans succeeded in quelling the outbreak. He had been detained on the field in order to protect his own rear, which was threatened by some roving bands which had made a circuitous advance on to his camp. Now he rode into the thick of the street fight, ordering the promiscuous slaughter and destruction to cease. He directed tried officers of his own to collect and protect the booty seized, with orders to execute all soldiers taken in the act of rape, plunder, or massacre. Coming suddenly on a soldier in the very act of mutilating a girl whom he had already raped, the general ordered a sergeant to arrest him, have him flogged, and his nose cut off. As he passed on, his officers reported that the soldier, with a bag of gold that he had just plundered, had bribed the sergeant to remit the punishment and let him escape free. Flagrant insubordination such as this always roused the passion of Nicephorus. He instantly ordered the same punishment to be inflicted on the sergeant which that officer had failed to execute on the original offender.

As he rode up to the gateway of one of the central habitations, the general found a group of fierce irregulars from the Euxine steppes attacking a man who was defending himself with nothing but a light buckler and a Saracen scimitar. He stood at bay, with his back to the wall in a corner of the court-yard, apparently protecting a girl in Moorish dress, who lay fainting on the ground at his feet. The gallant swordsman, who looked more like an Arab than a Roman, was now bleeding from three wounds, and was nearly overpowered by the wild fellows who had surrounded them. "Back, you ruffians!" he shouted in Greek: "I tell you I am a Roman, and an officer on the staff of your commander, and have been a prisoner here in the enemies' dungeon!" But the Tartars, who knew no Greek and judged him by his look and dress to be a Saracen, redoubled their strokes, and were on the point of completing their work by slaughtering him and ravishing the girl.

What was the amazement of Nicephorus when, in spite of the blood on the swordsman's face and his Saracen costume, he recognized his beloved Digenes Akritas, whom he saved in the last moment, driving back the Tartars with curses and threats.

"Arrest these miscreants!" he shouted to the provost-marshal, "who dishonor the victory of Our Lord the King, and shame the favor of Our Virgin Mistress in heaven. Take this girl, be she Moslem or Christian, and treat her in all honor. My beloved brother-in-arms, who art risen from the grave, they shall take you to my tent and attend to your wounds. I must hasten forward to hold these demons in hand. Carry my orders to my captains as peremptory on pain of death to stay this massacre and prevent further plunder and riot, or Christ above and His Immaculate Mother will visit us sorely, in that we have turned the victory they have given us into abominations that the infidels themselves could not surpass in sin."