Chapter IX: The Muster of the Crusade

A glorious July morning in the year of Our Lord, 960, was irradiating the shores of the Propontis and the porticos and domes of Byzantium, and already the city and palace of the Cæsars were crowded with brilliant throngs and gala trappings of expectant triumph. All the terraces which commanded a view of the sea were full of eager sight-seers. The walls that girdled the city on the sea-side were covered with dense groups; and the sea itself, from the Golden Horn to the Princes' Islands, was alive with thousands of vessels of every description as far as the eye could reach. The mighty expedition to recover Crete from the infidel was at last about to sail.

In the Sacred Palace itself a throng of courtiers and high officials were gathered in the Tzikanisterion, or polo-ground, and in the gardens, porticos, and arcades that adjoined it, waiting for their Majesties and the great ministers of state, who were to watch the fleet at its departure and wish godspeed to its illustrious commander. In the corridors and cloisters of the palace all was animation and a hubbub of greetings, inquiries, and ardent anticipations. A group of gentlemen of the wardrobe, grooms of the chamber, and a silentiary, were discussing the exact constitution of the vast expedition. Nicetas, the Paphlagonian, a _vestiarius_, or gentleman of the wardrobe, was loudly exclaiming that so powerful an armament had never left the Golden Horn since the age of the great Heraclius.

"It is so many generations since that occurred," rejoined Dionysius, attached to the cubicular service, "that we cannot make any comparisons; and no one is bound to take literally all the fulsome eulogies we read in the Heracliads of George of Pisidia, I suppose."

Here they were joined by Theodosius the deacon, who already was preparing materials for his own iambics on "The Conquest of Crete." "Let us remember," said he, "the well-omened words of George, when he addressed his king:

"'Return triumphant with thy sable greaves
Dyed crimson in the blood of heathen foes."

"If thou canst compose such a poem as that of George, most reverend deacon, thou wilt, indeed, be famous," said Dionysius; "but is it not a somewhat doubtful compliment to insinuate that Nicephorus when he returns in triumph is to be installed in the vermilion buskins?"

"A truce to unseemly gibes on such an auspicious day," said the poetic deacon. "I have been collecting in my note-book the exact figures which show the strength of the fleet and army, and from a friend of mine, who is employed as scribe on the general staff, I have obtained a copy of the official return prepared for the privy council."

"Well! let us hear as much of it as is lawful to be divulged to mere civilians as we are," said the other speakers, with one voice.

"Know, then," said the deacon, with importance, "that the entire armament, both on sea and on land, has been organized and equipped by the ever-victorious Nicephorus Phocas, commander-in-chief, whom God and His Mother preserve."

"And have the ministers of state, and above all the most noble lord of the bedchamber, had no hand in the work? We know that they have been toiling night and day for six months," said Stephanos, the silentiary, who was a creature of the eunuch Joseph.

"Certainly," rejoined the deacon, anxious to retrieve his slip of speech, "the great minister of our imperial master has brought to bear on the task the whole of his unequalled energy and experience. And he has toiled to satisfy the demands and plans of the commander. Nicephorus designed the whole array, which the parakeimomenos carried into execution. As both soldier and statesman recognized that the future of Rome hangs on the issue of this critical war, they have worked together as one brain--the general bringing to bear his consummate mastery of tactics, the minister exerting his wonderful control over all the resources of the empire."

"And Rome has at last risen to the occasion," said Dionysius; "it was time that she did!"

"Everything has been ordered in the manner prescribed by our late blessed Lord Constantine Born-in-the-Purple, whom the saints are now conducting to paradise, as he has set forth in the first book of his _Memoirs and Regulations_. But in many arms, and especially in cavalry, the strength has been much increased by the foresight of Nicephorus. The first brigade is formed of Thracians and Macedonians from the mountains of Rhodope and Hæmus. Then are enrolled picked troops from the eastern themes, Cappadocians, Lycaonians, Anatolians, Isaurians, Mardaites, Opsicians, and Galatians--those tall, fierce descendants of the northern invaders of old. Of course, Nicephorus has selected, for the centre and bulk of his army, his own Armenian regiments, whom he has so often led to victory. But Bringas himself has insisted on adding a division of Russ, those Scandinavian mercenary giants who are willing to serve under our eagle. And there are no less than twenty-five squadrons of the wild horsemen from the northern frontier, beyond the Ister and the Euxine, who call themselves Hungarians, Patzinaks, and Khazars, and I know not what outlandish names they bear--names uncouth enough to fit into iambic verse!" said the poet, with a sigh.

"Unspeakable barbarians and unbaptized heathen is what I call them," said Dionysius.

"They fight for the Cross stoutly enough, and they follow the general to the death," said the deacon; "they are undoubtedly the finest light horsemen that God ever made. The Hagarenes of the desert, for all their pure-bred steeds, are no match for these hairy barbarians of the steppes."

"And what may the total of the forces amount to?" asked Dionysius, eagerly.

"The roll that I have seen copied from the lists signed by General Nicephorus himself, and countersigned by Lord Bringas, brings up the total of all arms, of all nations and tongues, to fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and ninety. Each nation fights with its own arms, costume, and officers, interpreters to each company conveying in their barbarous jargons the Greek word of command."

"No such army ever left the Golden Horn!" they all cried at once. "May Mary Hodogetria bring them home in triumph!"

Here a movement in the gay throng led the speakers to pass into the lovely garden adjoining the polo-ground, the arcades around which were crowded with ladies of the court. The parterres and terraces, as they rose one above another, were bowers of roses, myrtles, vines, oleanders, and carnations, and the air was heavy with the perfume of their blossom. A group of fair women, in their brightest robes of silk gauze and lace, saluted the poet and his friends, as they joined them in the open terrace hung with awnings of Oriental tapestry.

"Tell us poor, ignorant women, O most reverend deacon," said the beautiful Theodora, the young wife of a new lord-in-waiting, "what are the names and uses of all these myriads of ships that we see at anchor in the bay; and explain to us all the mysteries of the marvellous instruments with which they are filled."

The poet was only too ready to dilate on his favorite theme, and to display his official information.

"Gracious Lady Theodora, and sweet ladies," he said, "I am delighted to do your bidding. The entire fleet consists of vessels, large and small, no less than three hundred and sixty in number, but, of course, most of these are transports, cutters, and smaller boats. The great ships of war that they call dromons are one hundred and twenty-three in number, each carrying from two hundred and fifty to three hundred men, about one-quarter of whom are from the regular army. The cruisers of the Pamphylian build carry one hundred and thirty to one hundred and fifty men. Of these swift ships there are ninety-five. The ships of war, with double or single banks of oarsmen, thus number two hundred and eighteen, and carry altogether forty-nine thousand two hundred and fifty men, about half of whom are oarsmen and seamen from the Peloponnesus and the Ægean Islands, and from the Asian coasts."

"And what do you call this great ship moored close against the harbor of Boucoleon near us?" asked Theodora--"the one with three banks of oars, I mean."

"That is the commander's own flag-ship--_The Archangel Michael_--one of the largest dromons or war-ships that we have. It is waiting now to receive him on board."

"And what is the great turret in the middle of her?" asked the fair girl.

"That is the war-tower to which the fighting men ascend in action--the _xylocastron_--from the bulwarks of which they pour down missiles, stones, and molten lead."

"And the smaller turret in front, with the brazen throat like the dragon which St. George slew with his spear?" she asked again.

"Oh, that is the barbette, from which our siphons shoot forth the Greek fire that is the terror of our foes. Each dromon carries three of these guns, which spout forth streams of this liquid and unquenchable fire through the brazen throat of the dragon at the prow. Beside which, the ships carry grenades, or pots of this combustible liquid, arranged in rows round the bulwarks. You can see them hung like oil-jars round the bulwarks of the _St. Michael_. This is our secret; and our Greek fire makes our ships invincible at close quarters."

"And for what are all these clumsy-looking merchant and traffic vessels which seem to be swarming on the sea?"

"These are the great transports, filled with the men, horses, artillery, and stores. They number one hundred and forty-two. They carry an average of fifty men each, and number in all seven thousand one hundred, thus making a grand total of fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and ninety. Everything has been carefully thought out by the general and the council. I can even show you the figures," said the deacon, in his ardor drawing forth his tablets, wherein he had copied down the main items of the equipment. "Yes, here are the lists. Every war-ship carries aboard her some seventy men-at-arms. In her storage are seventy coats of mail, eighty helmets, twenty-four light corselets, one hundred swords, eighty lances, seventy shields, twenty halberts, one hundred javelins, and one hundred bolts, with twenty cross-bows, and fifty bows with double strings each; ten thousand arrows, two hundred darts, ten thousand caltrops or prongs, fifty surcoats, fifty steel caps, and seventy baking-pans."

"Oh, spare us these catalogues of weapons, good deacon; poor girls as we are do not so much as know what all these mean!"

"Ah, but I have not nearly done," said Theodosius, "for there are all the munitions of war--battering-rams, with their iron rams' heads, and turtle-back shields to protect them from assault; catapults, with their windlasses, to hurl rocks and bolts at the walls; cranes, palisades, mallets, barrels, cables, spars, ropes, one hundred axes, one hundred ship's adzes, three thousand pounds of lead, two hundred pounds of zinc, two hundred pounds of tin, three thousand pounds of iron, three thousand nails, one thousand spades, two thousand buckets; and, for each ship, one hundred and twenty spare oars, masts, sails, hawsers, and anchors--"

But here the poet was interrupted by shouts of laughter from the women, who had been deluged with too much of his official catalogues. "We are not in training for the admiral's cabinet!" cried they.

"And how will you get these uncouth names into the iambics of your cantos, O friend of the Muses?" asked Nicetas, of the robing-room, and turned the laugh against the poor deacon.

"Well," said he, "did not Homer fill the second _Iliad_ with his catalogue of the ships and their captains? The world shall rehearse my _Iliad--The Taking of Crete_--a thousand years hence. Have you heard my invocation? Something new and sublime, I can assure you. Listen to this:

"Old Rome, our mother, grudge not to thy child
That New Rome shall an equal glory boast.
Thy Scipios and thy Cæsars have not yet
Drained to the dregs the flowing cup of Fame--"

But before the poet could recite any more of his epic, which he fondly believed would outlive the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, and which has certainly fulfilled his boast by surviving a thousand years, the courtiers thronged to the upper terrace, where the heralds and ushers announced the approach of their Majesties. Presently Romanus appeared, in a magnificent tunic and robe of soft samite, embroidered and brocaded with a pattern of the Basileus spearing a lion, and with other quaint devices, and a light diadem that shone with emeralds and rubies. He was surrounded by a suite of his principal officials and not a few of his parasites, among whom the fair young Glaucus of Miletus had been enrolled, much against his own desire. And foremost rose the tall form of the parakeimomenos, Joseph Bringas, to-day more than ever the real wielder of power.

"The saints above have vouchsafed to us a glorious morning for the great start, most fortunate of lord chamberlains and most mighty of eunuchs," said the prince, gayly. "At whose altar have you besought such a boon?"

"At the shrine of St. Romanus, my sovereign lord, most fortunate of kings," said the politic Joseph. "My task has been but to carry out the orders of your Majesty, and to satisfy the demands of the soldier to whom your wisdom has committed the fortune of Rome."

"Let the chief be summoned, then, that we may give him our royal blessing and speed him on his enterprise, which you men of craft and forebodings will not suffer me to lead in person."

"Rome and this city, which God guards, would not be safe if Cæsar had quitted it, sire! The lord commander-in-chief waits your Majesty's summons."

The crowds parted and formed in an expectant circle as the form of Nicephorus was seen advancing to do homage to the Basileus. Arrayed in resplendent armor, he looked grave, resolute, and confident as he rose from the ceremonial obeisances that custom prescribed.

The Basileus received his great vassal with dignity, honor, and friendliness, and addressed him his vows for his triumph with all the graciousness that made Romanus popular with his servants and people.

"We envy you the honor of leading so vast a host, which my taskmasters of the council will not permit me to join, greatly as I desire to fight by the side of so illustrious a warrior. Nor need I tell you, my lord general, that the whole resources of our empire are committed to your charge, and that Rome has now no other army, and no second fleet."

"Most gracious sovereign, no man knows so well as Nicephorus himself how great a trust has been committed to his hands; and no man is more sensible of the supreme confidence with which his king has honored his demands for men, arms, ships, and material, nor of the zeal with which your Majesty's council have supplied him with all that he required. We whose lives have been passed on the Asian frontier, in battling with the ever-increasing hordes of the False Prophet, well know that Rome or Islam must fall in the end; that this royal city itself must become one day the chief throne of the infidel, unless we drive him back into his deserts and his steppes. For some hundred and fifty years he has been master of Crete, and has continually strengthened his power, and defied all our efforts to recover it. While he holds it, thy empire is being bled to death, O king! It must be won back, or Rome is ruined. We must stake our all on this venture, and no sacrifice is too great for such an end. My lord Basileus, we go forth with the aid of Christ and His Blessed Mother to save the Cross and His people. We will win back Crete for the Cross and for Rome, or I and my men, or such parts of us as the Hagarene dogs have not devoured, will lie rotting on the soil of that island. God be merciful to us miserable sinners, and strengthen the hands of us weak servants of His holy name!"

But here, as the chief ended his audience with the Basileus and was passing away with the official reverences in use, he received a special summons from the empress, who, with her officers and ladies, was standing apart in a more retired part of the royal portico. Theophano was radiant in her most lovely smile and in her most airy draperies of summer. She was wrapped in diaphanous clouds of silk gauze, dyed with the hues of the softest sunrise, and all dazzling with pendent jewels and patins of gold. She beamed on the hero, as he advanced to her feet, and overwhelmed him with her praises and fervent prayers for his return in triumph. Nicephorus prostrated himself before her, and seized the hand she permitted him to kiss. She bent over him till her lips almost touched his head, and she whispered in his ear, as her perfumed breath filled the soul of the warrior to intoxication: "Come back to us, thou new Belisarius, in glory, and thou wilt find in the Sacred Palace a more generous Theodora. Forget not that the savior of Rome is ever destined to become its master!--master of Rome, and master of Rome's mistress."

Stunned by the manner of his reception, with these mysterious words ringing in his ears, the chief bowed himself from the presence and nerved his whole nature to the great task he had in hand. His officers and staff, after the prescribed ceremonies of presentation and leave-taking were fulfilled, followed him to the port of Boucoleon, with its marble quays and staircase, whence the barges in waiting took them to their ships. When the commander-in-chief and his captains were on board and all was ready to weigh anchor, the Basileus and Basilissa, each surrounded with a brilliant court, mounted the imperial stand that had been built up at the water's edge to witness the scene. It was surely one of the most magnificent that the eye of man had ever till that day beheld. Far out to sea, across that grand bay, now glancing in the morning sun and surrounded with mountains, headlands, and distant towers and churches, the vast fleet was spreading its colored sails. The decks were crowded with soldiers in various arms and accoutrements; some were the mail-clad cataphracti, the Varangian guards, with huge axes and gilt corselets, the Thracians in their stout jerkins of leather and sheepskins, the Scythians and Russ in bearskin and sables, the Isaurian mountaineers in white capotes. The masts of the war-ships were topped with emblems and banners of fantastic design, and their gilt and bronze prows represented the gaping jaws of beasts of prey. The shouts of the captains standing on high in their turrets, re-echoed by the boatswains below, as the anchors and hawsers were swung in to the monotonous songs of the seamen, resounded across the waters. And now the rowers settled down in their benches and the huge sweeps slowly began to plunge through the foaming waves in response to the rhythmic beat of their leaders. At the appointed moment the Basileus himself gave the sign to the patriarch, who was stationed in a commanding spot, surrounded by his prelates, clergy, deacons, choir, and acolytes, who carried aloft the most venerated ikons, pictures, and crucifixes that the sacred edifices could yield.

A profound hush then fell on the vast throng, and the rowers held up their vessels on their oars, as one by one the captains ceased to shout and commanded a solemn silence for prayer. Then was heard far across the waters the shrill voice of the aged Polyeuctus, blessing the fleet and invoking the Divine aid, and ending with the "Holy! Holy! Holy! Triune God and Blessed Mother of God, preserve in Thy holy keeping this army and this fleet which goes forth to save Thy people from the apostate children of Ismael!" Then the choir took up the words, and thrice repeated the invocation of the patriarch. This was followed by a hymn, wherein the immense body of monks, churchmen, and catechumens joined, so that the volume of voices rang out across the sea to the shores on the other side of the strait. And as the last notes of the choir died away, a roar of cheers broke forth in endless bursts of farewell and godspeed from the hundreds of thousands who lined the walls and terraces and who had been gathered to see the great departure--from the point where the light-house stands on the Golden Horn at the eastern corner of the city, round to the shore of Hebdomon on the western plain beyond the walls. As each battle-ship and transport passed within hearing of the mighty roar of voices, the crews and troops on board returned the shout, and the trumpets and cymbals, drums and fifes, rang out their martial notes with a crashing sound. They were followed for some short distance by crowds of light-sailing craft and gayly trimmed caiques, which carried out to the fleet the holiday sight-seers from the city. And so, with wild hopes, resounding cheers, and solemn anthems of prayer and blessing, the great crusade of the tenth century sailed forth to do battle with the Saracen.

All through the day the vast fleet of war-ships and lighter vessels kept on their southwesterly course in the bright sunshine, with a gentle breeze that blew down the straits from the Euxine Sea, and till late in the evening eager crowds from the city remained watching the sight on the walls and on the open terraces above. As the last battle-ship disappeared in the offing they gathered in the fora and porticos discussing the event, while the churches, shrines, and wayside oratories were filled with worshippers in supplication and silent prayer. All through that eventful day, and far into the night, the priests and monks throughout the city kept pouring forth their endless chants and monotonous invocations to all the saints and divinities in turn, amid ten thousand Trisagions and Kyries, clouds of incense and procession of ikons.

But all this time of national exultation and hope, gloom and despair hung heavily in the massive convents wherever women who had been forced to take the veil as nuns lived out their dreary lives "with the angels," as the euphemism in use would put it. And in none was there a deeper despair than in the Myrelaeon convent, where the princesses Anna and Agatha were immured. After the terrible scene with their brother, as told in the last chapter, the queen-mother and her five daughters had been dragged forth by the eunuchs and cubiculars of the Sacred Palace and carried off to the convent of Canicleion (or the Rubric). It had once been the palace of the magnificent Theoctistus, the finance minister, who held the vermilion seals and had been murdered under Michael the Drunkard, when the Basileus had converted his victim's splendid abode into a monastery. Once within its fatal portals, the royal ladies were at the mercy of the inexorable John, the abbot of the Stoudion, who had torn them from the weakness of Romanus. In spite of their protests, their shrieks of rage, and on the part of the younger women their convulsive struggles, the monk had their long hair cut short, their royal vesture taken off; and while three sturdy sisters held them by main force, they were dressed in the coarse brown serge robes of the order of St. Basil. They were literally dragged to the altar and the mockery of the consecration service was gone through, the fanatic John troubling himself little that the vows of the order were not distinctly uttered by any of them, and were not uttered at all, even as a pretence, by the two youngest princesses, who obstinately refused to give any consent to the act of their immolation as brides of Christ.

It was soon found that the queen-mother was so cruelly affected in mind and in body by all that she had suffered that her very life and reason were despaired of, and Romanus was easily induced by her entreaties to suffer her to return to a secluded wing of the palace, where she remained in strict retirement and a hopeless invalid for the few months that she had still to breathe. Nor did Theophano herself offer any opposition to this, when she found the queen-mother so utterly fallen from power and so feeble in body and mind.

The five princesses in the Canicleion nunnery were enabled to meet and take counsel together, and by their prestige as sisters of the reigning emperor, their rank as undoubted porphyrogennetoi, and their own ability and force of character, they soon recovered much of their influence. It became known to the confidantes of the empress that they were conspiring to recover their liberty and rank, that in spite of all the exhortations and orders of the abbot, who insisted on confessing them himself, they still retained in private their lay dresses and habits, and obstinately declined to observe the fastings and austere rules of the order to which they were supposed to be vowed. Secret friends and partisans of influence obtained the ear of the politic Joseph, who thought it high time to have some counterpoise to the ambition of the empress; and at length, by his secret connivance, the good-natured Romanus was willing to mitigate his cruel decree, and a tacit compromise was effected. The princesses were allowed to inhabit royal palaces and to receive the appanages and privileges of their rank, upon their formal consent to accept their consecration to the virgin life of professed nuns. The three elder princesses outwardly conformed to this arrangement. They were installed in the palace of Antiochus, near the Hippodrome and the great church of St. Sophia, living like the noble and royal canonesses of western Europe, but, except in the matter of betrothal and marriage, not otherwise deprived of their imperial honors. And ultimately, as we know, the Princess Theodora became herself empress, as wife of John Tzimisces.

The two younger princesses stoutly refused the compromise, and would not accept the obligation of nunship; and Agatha, her father's favorite and the most thoughtful of the whole family, insisted on treating the ceremony of her consecration as a blasphemous mockery. She persuaded her sister Anna to join her in the refusal. Both of them were therefore removed to a still more secluded nunnery, that of Myrelaeon, a palace formerly built by their mother's father, Lecapenus, when regent. It stood on the upper reaches of the Golden Horn, at the water-side, not far from the walls beyond Blachernæ. In that which once was the guard-room of old, a chamber which hung over the sea and was far removed from the sights and gayeties of the city, the Princess Agatha was immured as a prisoner of state, but even there she was able to have occasional intercourse with her sister Anna, and also with her aunt, the ex-Empress Augusta Sophia, widow of Christopher, eldest son of Romanus Lecapenus. She also, at the fall of that family from the purple, had been consigned to the life of a strict nun in the same convent of Myrelaeon. It was, in truth, a kind of suttee of Byzantine manners that the widow or discarded wife of a fallen prince or noble should be consigned to a nunnery in some secluded monastery near the capital. The fall of the House of Lecapenus had been so complete, and the good-will of the Empress Helena towards her unfortunate sister-in-law was so effective, that the ex-Empress Augusta Sophia was still able, through the old adherents of her family, to obtain very considerable authority, always short of her own delivery from the convent, which at her age she no longer sought.

This night she was exerting all her powers of persuasion to induce the sisters Anna and Agatha to accept the conditions of comparative restoration to lay life to which the three elder princesses had already consented. She pressed them to remember the youth, generous nature, and unquestioned autocracy of their brother, the emperor, the hope of gradual improvement in their terms, and the danger of further incensing so terrible a woman as the empress.

"Twenty years have passed," said the aged ex-empress, "since I, too, was thrust from the Sacred Palace, where I once was honored as the wife of a Cæsar. I have grown accustomed to my quiet lot in my old age, and I would not now exchange these sombre robes for those of an Augusta, even if I could. I, too, once had a proud spirit, but it is broken and dead as I am to the world. My sweet child, you will never be able to endure the trial. Yield to your brother, who with all his faults has a heart to be touched, and you may yet find a happy life, and, who knows, perhaps an illustrious marriage, worthy of your birth in the purple and your royal race."

The clear-sighted Agatha might feel the worldly wisdom of her aunt's advice, which had already brought the gentle Anna to the melting mood, but the last words of the ex-Empress Augusta Sophia, about her birth and royal race, touched a secret chord in the heart of the girl who had so often quivered when she heard it said that few were fit to mate with princesses of the House of Basil.

She flushed, and with a look of resolution and fire that would become a virgin martyr, she replied: "Never will I dishonor myself and forswear the teaching that my mother gave me, by consenting to treat as a consecration to Christ the outrage inflicted on me when the monk and his nuns forced on me the mockery of this garb. I have poured out my soul in prayer to my Saviour and to His Blessed Mother in heaven. They have heard my cries and my sorrows, and a spirit within me has revealed it to my heart, that the good Lord Himself does not vouchsafe to accept the forced sacrifice of his devoted handmaiden. No, my dear aunt, they may imprison me, they may torture me, they may kill me, but they shall never force me to profess myself by a lie the bride of Christ!" This conversation was now interrupted by the entrance of one of the sisters of the nunnery who had been assigned as attendants of the princess. She came, she said, with a peremptory message from the Abbot John himself, who required the immediate presence of the nun, Sister Euphemia, the name given to Agatha "in religion," in the confessional of the chapel. This unexpected summons the princess was inclined to defy, but her aunt warned her of the danger of flagrant disobedience to the all-powerful prelate, and the attendant sister whispered in her ear that a great surprise and unexpected deliverance might yet be in store for her. The princess accordingly submitted to the command, and was conducted through the corridors to the darkened chapel of the convent, where she took her place on her knees in the accustomed place of confession. The prelate was already seated in his recess, and as usual had chosen to cover his whole person in his monastic garb, and to conceal his face in his cowl.

"My daughter," he began, in a voice purposely simulated and subdued to a whisper, "I have called thee to confession to learn if thou art still resolved to resist the superior of thy order, and to defy the mandates of Mother Church in repudiating thy consecration to Christ as His bride."

"Father, I tell thee plainly, for I will treat thee with more frankness and with more courtesy than thou hast treated me--I am no bride of Christ. No threat and no cruelty shall ever force me to utter or to act a falsehood, which I hold to be a profanation of His holy name. I am no bride in heaven--no, nor shall I ever be a bride on earth," she uttered, with a deep sigh that she could not restrain, and abruptly ended her half-spoken sentence.

"My daughter, hast thou indeed registered a vow to lead a solitary life, and never to listen to the love of any man?" said the monk, with a new eagerness in his voice, that seemed to tremble at his own words.

"No man has ever sought my love, I tell thee," she said haughtily to such a question, "nor will I, even in confession, bring my lips to utter what Agatha might answer if he did. If she ever had such dreams, they are vanished in the black night that has fallen upon my miserable life. But what means, my father abbot, this sudden summons to me this night, and what are my maiden dreams or vows to thee or to thine? Why am I here? What is it that thou askest of me?"

"Royal lady," said the monk, now dropping his voice to an impassioned whisper, "thy maiden dreams are all in all to one who loves thee better than his own soul, and who is at this moment risking life, torture, and mutilation, in the effort to protect and save thee. Nay, do not start or flee, noblest, purest, bravest of women! Steel thy nerves to be still, and listen to our schemes to rescue thee from this dungeon of the priests. Nay, by the Mother of God! do not move or cry out, for three sisters of the convent wait within sight of us, and only one of them is in our plot. Remain as thou art, and listen to one who, on the field of battle, on the stormy seas, on the solitary mountains of his home, has learned to pray to thy image along with that of the blessed Agatha, whose name thou bearest, as the true saint of his faith and his hope. Listen to him now, for he has come through fire and water to save thee!"

At the first words of this most startling address the maiden had detected the manly tones of the young hero of her day-dreams, and wild hopes and exultation thrilled through her veins as she steeled herself to retain her attitude of a penitent, and to hear out the mysterious story of the confessor.

"See who it is that has dared to seek thee thus," said he, as he threw back the cowl and showed her the gallant features of Basil Digenes, the Romanized son of the emir of Edessa.

"By the aid of the venerable princess, thy aunt and fellow-prisoner, I have matured a plan of escape for thee. Three of the sisters of this convent are our confederates in the scheme, and by their help I have succeeded to-night in assuming the part of thy tyrant, the abbot. My own lady-sister, Theodosia, as thou knowest, the wife of the patrician, George Comnenus, is now in her summer palace on the island of Proconnesus, where she will receive and conceal thee until the heart of Romanus is softened, for the family of the Comneni is too powerful to be defied. To-night, at midnight, I will be waiting beneath thy chamber window with two of thy ladies who served thee in the palace, and a stout crew of boatmen. The three sisters of this convent who are entirely devoted to our service will supply thee with fitting lay dress, and also with a rope-ladder to descend from the window on to the waters below, where the boat shall be ready to convey thee to my sister. Thou hast heart for such an enterprise, true daughter of the lion race of Basil, I know full well, if thou canst trust the honor of the son of the Saracen," said the enamored young hero of the marches, who, even in his stormy life of adventure, had never embarked upon a more chivalrous escapade. He gazed on the maiden with a deep and rapturous appeal in his countenance.

Agatha paused and communed with herself. Then without a word she took the hand of the pretended confessor, and gently pressed it with her own.

"And can Agatha learn to love him whom she has already learned to trust?" said her ardent lover, as he kissed her hand again and again.

"It will be time to speak to her of love," she said, softly, "when Agatha has put off the garb of Euphemia the nun. But that I will do this very night, with the help of Our Lady in heaven above. Into her holy keeping I commit my body and my soul!"