take command of to-morrow if you will; for that scarlet-knobbed coxcomb of an ecclesiastic, Julian, is not fitted for it. Or Brankovitch, the Servian Despot, will hail you as chief voivode.[15] You have but to choose from our armies, and put yourself at the head of whatever nation you will: for the legions will follow the pointing of your invincible sword as bravely as if it were the sword of Michael, the Archangel."

"No! No! These things tempt me not," said Scanderbeg. "I must live only for Albania. That strange spirit which counsels me comes into my soul like a pure blast from off my Albanian hills. The voices that call me are like the dying voice of my father, the sainted Duke John, who prayed then for his land and for his son—for both in the one breath that floated his soul to God. Let me look again upon the rocky fastnesses of the Vitzi, the waters of little Ochrida and Skidar, and call them mine; I shall then not envy even the plume on your helmet, generous Hunyades; nor regret what I forsake among the Moslems, though my estate were that of the entire empire which the Padishah sees in his dreams, when, not the city of Adrian, but the city of Constantine shall have become his capital."

"Christendom will hardly forgive the slight you put upon it, noble Castriot, by declining some general command, and will soon grow jealous of your exclusive devotion to little Albania," said Hunyades, with evident candor.

"Christendom will not lose, but gain, thereby," replied Scanderbeg. "For is not Albania, after all, a key point in the mighty battle which is still to be waged with the Turk over these Eastern countries of Europe, from Adria to the Euxine?"

"How so?" asked Hunyades. "Have we not this day broken the power of the Turk in Europe? and is he not now in headlong haste to the sea of Marmora?"

Scanderbeg replied with slow, but ominous, words:

"General Hunyades, the Moslem power was not this day broken. Trust not the semblance. My arm could have hurled your soldiers down the northern declivities of yonder mountains with as much ease as yours shattered the Turkish ranks at Vasag and Hermannstadt. The armies still in front of you wait but the word to assail your camp with dire vengeance for their mysterious defeat—ay, mysterious to them. And the Padishah is hasting with the hordes released by his victories over the Caramanians, to join them. No, Sire, the battle for empire on these plains, and in Macedonia, and along the Danube, has not ended: it has but just begun. And Albania will be the key spot for a generation to come. No Ottoman wave can strike central Europe but over the Albanian hills. A Christian power entrenched there will be a counter menace to every invasion from the side of the Moslem, and a tremendous auxiliary in any movement from the side of Christendom. My military judgment concurs with the voice of that spirit which speaks within me, and bids me as a Christian to live for Albania."

"I see in your plan," replied Hunyades, "a gleam of that far wisdom that won for you the title of 'The eye of the Ottoman,' as your valor made you the 'right hand of the Sultan.' While my view of the relative power of the two civilizations now fronting each other on our battle-lines might be different from yours, and I should place the key point in the great field rather on the lower Danube than so far to the west, I yet submit my judgment to yours. Assign to me my part in the affair you would execute, and, my word as a soldier and a Christian, you shall have my help."

"Nay," replied Scanderbeg. "As I said, I can share the responsibility of my action with no one. Grave charges will ring against my name. My old comrades will scorn my deed as treacherous. Even history will fail to understand me. Let me act alone; obeying that strange voice which will justify me, if not before men, at least at the last day of the world's judgment. The Moslem has wronged me; outraged my humanity; slit the tongue of my conscience that it should not speak to me of my duty; and tried to put out the eyes of my faith. The Divinity bids me avenge myself. But the vengeance is only mine, and God's. No other hand must be stained with the blood of it, least of all thine, noble Hunyades. My plan must be all my own. I only ask that, when I have extricated myself from Moslem ties, I may have the friendship of Hunyades. Especially that the way may be left open for my passing through the places now held by your troops, without challenge and delay. All else has been arranged by a handful of faithful Albanian patriots."

"It shall be as you desire, General Castriot. Choose your password, and it shall open the way for you though it were through the back door of the Vatican."