BOOK IV

THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE

CHAPTER I

THE PALACE OF BLACHERNE

The Prince of India was not given to idle expectations. He might deceive others, but he seldom deceived himself. His experience served him prophetically in matters largely dependent on motives ordinarily influential with men. He was confident the Emperor would communicate with him, and soon.

The third day after the adventure at the White Castle, a stranger, mounted, armed, and showily caparisoned, appeared at the Prince's door under guidance of Uel. In the study, to which he was hidden, he announced himself the bearer of a complimentary message from His Majesty, concluding with an invitation to the palace of Blacherne. If agreeable, His Majesty would be pleased to receive the Indian dignitary in the afternoon at three o'clock. An officer of the guard would be at the Grand Gate for his escort. The honor, needless to say, was accepted in becoming terms.

When the Prince descended to the hall of entry on the ground floor to take the sedan there, the unusual care given his attire was apparent. His beard was immaculately white. His turban of white silk, balloon in shape, and with a dazzle of precious stones in front, was a study. Over a shirt of finest linen, with ruffles of lace at the throat and breast, there was a plain gown of heavy black velvet, buttoned at the neck, but open down to a yellow sash around the waist. The sash was complemented by a belt which was a mass of pearls in relief on a ground of gold embroidery. The belt-plate and crescented sword scabbard were aflame with brilliants on blue enamelling. His trousers, ample as a skirt, were of white satin overflowing at the ankles. Pointed red slippers, sparkling with embroidery of small golden beads, completed the costume.

The procession in the street was most striking. First Nilo, as became a king of Kash-Cush, barbarously magnificent; the sedan next, on the shoulders of four carriers in white livery; at the rear, two domestics arrayed a la Cipango, their strange blue garments fitting them so close as to impede their walking; yet as one of them bore his master's paper sunshade and ample cloak, and the other a cushion bloated into the proportions of a huge pillow, they were by no means wanting in self-importance. Syama, similarly attired, though in richer material, walked at the side of the sedan, ready to open the door or answer such signal as he might receive from within.

The appearance of this retinue in the streets was a show to the idle and curious, who came together as if rendered out of the earth, and in such numbers that before fairly reaching the thoroughfare by which the Grand Gate of Blacherne was usually approached from the city side, the gilded box on the shoulders of its bearers looked, off a little way, not unlike a boat rocking in waves.

Fortunately the people started in good humor, and meeting nothing to break the mood, they permitted the Prince to accomplish his journey without interruption. The companionship of the crowd was really agreeable to him; he hardly knew whether it were pleasanter to be able to excite such respectful curiosity than to gratify it successfully. It might have been otherwise had Lael been with him.

The Very High Residence, as the Palace of Blacherne was generally spoken of by Greeks, was well known to the Prince of India. The exclamation with which he settled himself in the sedan at setting out from his house—"Again, again, O Blacherne!"—disclosed a previous personal acquaintance with the royal property. And over and over again on the way he kept repeating, "O Blacherne! Beautiful Blacherne! Bloom the roses as of old in thy gardens? Do the rivulets in thy alabaster courts still run singing to the mosaic angels on the walls?"

As to the date of these recollections, if, as the poets tell us, time is like a flowing river, and memory a bridge for the conveniency of the soul returning to its experiences, how far had this man to travel the structure before reaching the Blacherne he formerly knew? Over what tremendous spaces between piers did it carry him!

The street traversed by the Prince carried him first to the Grate of St. Peter on the Golden Horn, and thence, almost parallel with the city wall, to Balat, a private landing belonging to the Emperor, at present known as the gate of Blacherne.

At the edge of an area marble paved, the people stopped, it being the limit of their privilege. Crossing the pavement, the visitor was set down in front of the Grand Gate of the Very High Residence. History, always abominating lapses, is yet more tender of some places than others. There, between flanking towers, an iron-plated valve strong enough to defy attack by any of the ancient methods was swung wide open, ready nevertheless to be rolled to at set of sun. The guard halted the Prince, and an officer took his name, and apologizing for a brief delay, disappeared with it. Alighting from his sedan, the worthy proceeded to take observation and muse while waiting.

The paved area on which he stood was really the bottom of a well-defined valley which ran off and up irregularly toward the southeast, leaving an ascent on its right memorable as the seventh hill of Constantinople. A stone wall marked here and there by sentinel boxes, each with a red pennon on its top, straggled down along the foot of the ascent to the Grand Gate. There between octangular towers loopholed and finished battlement style was a covered passage suggestive of Egypt. Two Victories in high relief blew trumpets at each other across the entrance front. Ponderous benches of porphyry, polished smooth by ages of usage, sat one on each side for the guards; fellows in helmets of shining brass, cuirasses of the same material inlaid with silver, greaves, and shoes stoutly buckled. Those of them sitting sprawled their bulky limbs broadly over the benches. The few standing seemed like selected giants, with blond beards and blue eyes, and axes at least three spans in length along their whetted edges. The Prince recognized the imperial guards—Danes, Saxons, Germans, and Swiss—their nationalities merged into the corps entitled Varangians.

Conscious, but unmindful of their stare, he kept his stand, and swept the hill from bottom to top, giving free rein to memory.

In 449 A. D.—he remembered the year and the circumstance well—an earthquake threw down the wall then enclosing the city. Theodosius restored it, leaving the whole height outside of this northwestern part a preserve wooded, rocky, but with one possession which had become so infinitely sanctified in Byzantine estimation as to impart the quality to all its appurtenances, that was the primitive but Very Holy Church of Blacherne, dedicated to the Virgin.

Near the church there was a pleasure house to which the Emperors, vainly struggling to escape the ceremonies the clergy had fastened upon them to the imbitterment of life, occasionally resorted, and down on the shore of the Golden Horn a zoological garden termed the Cynegion had been established. The latter afterwhile came to have a gallery in which the public was sometimes treated to games and combats between lions, tigers, and elephants. There also criminals and heretics were frequently carried and flung to the beasts.

Nor did the Prince fail to recall that in those cycles the sovereigns resided preferably in the Bucoleon, eastwardly by the sea of Marmora. He remembered some of them as acquaintances with whom he had been on close terms—Justinian, Heraclius, Irene, and the Porphyrogentes.

The iconoclastic masters of that cluster of magnificent tenements, the Bucoleon, had especial claims upon his recollection. Had he not incited them to many of their savageries? They were incidents, it is true, sadly out of harmony with his present dream; still their return now was with a certain fluttering of the spirit akin to satisfaction, for the victims in nearly every case had been Christians, and his business of life then was vengeance for the indignities and sufferings inflicted on his countrymen.

With a more decided flutter, he remembered a scheme he put into effect just twenty years after the restoration of the wall by Theodosius. In the character of a pious Christianized Israelite resident in Jerusalem, he pretended to have found the vestments of the Holy Mother of Christ. The discovery was of course miraculous, and he reported it circumstantially to the Patriarchs Galvius and Candidus. For the glory of God and the exaltation of the Faith, they brought the relics to Constantinople. There, amidst most solemn pomp, the Emperor assisting, they were deposited in the Church of Saints Peter and Mark, to be transferred a little later to their final resting-place in the holier Church of the Virgin of Blacherne. There was a world of pious propriety in the idea that as the vestments belonged to the Mother of God they would better become her own house. The Himation or Maphorion, as the robe of the Virgin was called, brought the primitive edifice in the woods above the Cynegion a boundless increase of sanctity, while the discoverer received the freedom of the city, the reverence of the clergy, and the confidence of the Basileus.

Nor did the prodigious memory stay there. The hill facing the city was of three terraces. On the second one, half hidden among cypress and plane trees, he beheld a building, low, strong, and, from his direction, showing but one window. Some sixteen years previous, during his absence in Cipango, a fire had destroyed the Church of the Virgin, and owing to the poverty of the people and empire, the edifice had not been rebuilt. This lesser unpretentious structure was the Chapel of Blacherne which the flames had considerately spared. He recognized it instantly, and remembered it as full of inestimable relics—amongst them the Himation, considered indestructible; the Holy Cross which Heraclius, in the year 635, had brought from Jerusalem, and delivered to Sergius; and the Panagia Blachernitissa, or All Holy Banner of the Image of the Virgin. Then rose another reminiscence, and though to reach him it had to fly across a chasm of hundreds of years, it presented itself with the distinctness of an affair of yesterday. In 626, Heraclius being Emperor, a legion of Avars and Persians sacked Scutari, on the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and laid siege to Constantinople. The Byzantines were in awful panic; and they would have yielded themselves had not Sergius the Patriarch been in control. With a presence of mind equal to the occasion, he brought the Panagia forth, and supported by an army of clerics and monks, traversed the walls, waving the All Holy Banner. A volley of arrows from invisible archers fell upon the audacious infidels, and the havoc was dreadful; they fled, and their prince, the Khagan, fled with them, declaring he had seen a woman in shining garments but of awful presence on the walls. The woman was the Holy Mother; and with a conceit easily mistaken for gratitude, the Byzantines declared their capital thenceforward guarded by God. When they went out to the Church in the Woods and found it unharmed by the enemy, they were persuaded the Mother had adopted them; in return, what could they else than adopt her? Pisides, the poet, composed a hymn, to glorify her. The Church consecrated the day of the miraculous deliverance a fete day observable by Greeks forever. The Emperor removed the old building, and on its site raised another of a beauty more expressive of devotion. To secure it from ravage and profanation, he threw a strong wall around the whole venerated hill, and by demolishing the ancient work of Theodosius, made Blacherne a part of the city.

By and by the Church required enlargement, and it was then cruci-formed by the addition of transepts right and left. Still later, a Chapel was erected specially for the relics and the All Holy Banner. This was contiguous to the Church, and besides being fireproof, it covered a spring of pure water, afterwards essential in many splendid ceremonies civil as well as religious. The Chamber of Relics was prohibited to all but the Basileus. He alone could enter it. By great favor, the Prince of India was once permitted to look into the room, and he remembered it large and dimly lighted, its shadows alive, however, with the glitter of silver and gold in every conceivable form, offered there as the Wise Men laid their gifts before the Child in the Cave of the Nativity.

Again and again the Church was burned, yet the Chapel escaped. It seemed an object of divine protection. The sea might deliver tempests against the Seven Hills, earthquakes shake the walls down and crack the hanging dome of St. Sophia, cinders whiten paths from the porphyry column over by the Hippodrome to the upper terrace of Blacherne; yet the Chapel escaped—yet the holy fountain in its crypt flowed on purer growing as the centuries passed.

The Prince, whose memories we are but weaving into words, did not wonder at the increase of veneration attaching to the Chapel and its precious deposits—manuscripts, books, bones, flags, things personal to the Apostles, the Saints, the Son and His Mother, parings of their nails, locks of their hair, spikes and splinters of the Cross itself—he did not wonder at it, or smile, for he knew there is a devotional side to every man which wickedness may blur but cannot obliterate. He himself was going about the world convinced that the temple of Solomon was the House of God.

The guards sprawling on the benches kept staring at him; one of them let his axe fall without so much as attracting the Prince's attention. His memory, with a hold on him too firm to be disturbed by such trifles, insisted on its resurrectionary work, and returned him to the year 865. Constantinople was again besieged, this time by a horde from the Russian wilderness under the chiefs Dir and Askold. They had passed the upper sea in hundreds of boats, and disembarking on the European shore, marched down the Bosphorus, leaving all behind them desolate. Photius was then Patriarch. When the fleet was descried from the walls, he prevailed on the Emperor to ask the intervention of the Virgin. The Maphorion or Sacred Robe was brought out, and in presence of the people on their knees, the clergy singing the hymn of Pisides, the holy man plunged it into the waves.

A wind arose under which the water in its rocky trough was as water in a shaken bowl. The ships of the invaders sunk each other. Not one survived. Of the men, those who lived came up out of the vortexes praying to be taken to the Church of Blacherne for baptism. This was two hundred years and more after the first deliverance of the city, and yet the Mother was faithful to her chosen!—Constantinople was still the guarded of God!—The Penagia was still the All Holy! Having repulsed the Muscovite invasion, what excuse for his blasphemy would there be left the next to challenge its terrors?

The Prince of India saw the blackened walls of the burned Church, an appealing spectacle which the surrounding trees tried to cover with their foliage, but could not; then he lifted his eyes to the Palace upon the third terrace.

To the hour decay sets in the touches of Time are usually those of an artist who loves his subject, and wishes merely to soften or ennoble its expression. So had he dealt with the Very High Residence.

It began in the low ground down by the Cynegion, and arose with the city wall, which was in fact its southwestern front. Though always spoken of in the singular, like the Bucoleon, it was a collection of palaces, vast, irregular, and declarative of the taste of the different eras they severally memorialized. The spaces between them formed courts and places under cover; yet as the architects had adhered to the idea of a main front toward the northeast, there appeared a certain unity of design in the structures.

This main front, now under the Prince's view, was frequently broken, advancing here, retreating there; one section severely plain and sombre; another relieved by porticos with figured friezes resting on tall columns. The irregularities were pleasing; some of them were stately; and they were all helped not a little by domes and pavilions without which the roof lines would have been monotonous.

Lifting his gaze up the ascent from the low ground, it rested presently on a Tower built boldly upon the Heraclian wall. This was the highest pinnacle of the Palace, first to attract the observer, longest to hold his attention. No courier was required to tell its history to him through whose eyes we are now looking—it was the tower of Isaac Angelus. How clearly its outlines cut the cloudless sky! How strong it seemed up there, as if built by giants! Yet with windows behind balconies, how airy and graceful withal! The other hills of the city, and the populated valleys between the hills, spread out below it, like an unrolled map. The warders of the Bucoleon, or what is now Point Serail, the home-returning mariner shipping oars off Scutari, the captain of the helmeted column entering the Golden Gate down by the Seven Towers, the insolent Genoese on the wharves of Galata, had only to look up, and lo! the perch of Isaac. And when, as often must have happened, the privileged lord himself sat midafternoons on the uppermost balcony of the Tower, how the prospect soothed the fever of his spirit! If he were weary of the city, there was the Marmora, always ready to reiterate the hues of the sky, and in it the Isles of the Princes, their verdurous shades permeated with dreamful welcome to the pleasure-seeker as well as the monk; or if he longed for a further flight, old Asia made haste with enticing invitation to some of the villas strewing its littoral behind the Isles; and yonder, to the eye fainting in the distance, scarce more than a pale blue boundary cloud, the mountain beloved by the gods, whither they were wont to assemble at such times as they wished to learn how it fared with Ilium and the sons of Priam, or to enliven their immortality with loud symposia. A prospect so composed would seem sufficient, if once seen, to make a blind man's darkness perpetually luminous.

Sometimes, however, the superlative magnate preferred the balcony on the western side of the Tower. There he could sit in the shade, cooled by waftures from a wide campania southward, or, peering over the balustrade, watch the peasantry flitting through the breaks of the Kosmidion, now the purlieus of Eyoub.

Again the Prince was carried back through centuries. It had been determined to build at Blacherne; but the hill was steep. How could spaces be gained for foundations, for courts and gardens? The architects pondered the problem. At last one of bolder genius came forward. We will accept the city wall for a western front, he said, and build from it; and for levels, allow us to commence at the foot of the height, and rear arches upon arches. The proposal was accepted; and thereafter for years the quarter was cumbered with brick and skeleton frames, and workingmen were numerous and incessantly busy as colonized ants. Thus the ancient pleasure house disappeared, and the first formal High Residence took its place; at the same time the Bucoleon, for so many ages the glory of Constantinople, was abandoned by its masters.

Who was the first permanent occupant of the Palace of Blacherne? The memory, theretofore so prompt, had now no reply. No matter—the Prince recalled sessions had with Angelus on the upper balcony yonder. He remembered them on account of his host one day saying: "Here I am safe." The next heard of him he was a captive and blind.

Passing on rapidly, he remembered the appearance of Peter the Hermit in the gorgeous reception room of the Palace in 1096. Quite as distinctly, he also remembered the audience Alexis I. tendered Godfrey of Bouillon and his Barons in the same High Residence.

What a contrast the host and his guests presented that day! The latter were steel clad from head to foot and armed for battle, while Alexis was a spectacle of splendor unheard of in the barbarous West. How the preachers and eunuchs in the silk-gowned train of the one trembled as the redoubtables of the West mangled the velvet carpets with their cruel spurs! How peculiarly the same redoubtables studied the pearls on the yellow stole of the wily Comnene and the big jewels in his Basilean mitre—as if they were counting and weighing them mentally, preliminary to casting up at leisure a total of value! And the table ware—this plate and yon bowl—were they really gold or some cunning deception? The Greeks were so treacherous! And when the guests were gone, the Greeks, on their part, were not in the least surprised at the list of spoons and cups subtly disappeared—gifts, they supposed, intended by the noble "Crosses" for the most Holy Altar in Jerusalem!

Still other remembrances of the Prince revived at sight of the Palace—many others—amongst them, how the Varangians beat the boastful Montferrat and the burly Count of Flanders in the assault of 1203, specially famous for the gallantry of old Dandolo, operating with his galleys on the side of the Golden Horn. Brave fellows, those Varangians! Was the corps well composed now as then? He glanced at the lusty examples before him on the stone benches, thinking they might shortly have to answer the question.

These reminiscences, it must not be forgotten, were of brief passage with the Prince, much briefer than the time taken in writing them. They were interrupted by the appearance of a military official whose uniform and easy manner bespoke palace life. He begged to be informed if he had the honor of addressing the Prince of India; and being affirmatively assured, he announced himself sent to conduct him to His Majesty. The hill was steep, and the way somewhat circuitous; did the Prince need assistance? The detention, he added, was owing to delay in getting intelligence of the Prince's arrival to His Majesty, who had been closely engaged, arranging for certain ceremonies which were to occur in the evening. Perhaps His Majesty had appointed the audience imagining the ceremonies might prove entertaining to the Prince. These civilities, and others, were properly responded to, and presently the cortege was in motion.

The lower terrace was a garden of singular perfection.

On the second terrace, the party came to the ruined Church where, during a halt, the officer told of the fire. His Majesty had registered a vow, he said, at the end of the story, to rebuild the edifice in a style superior to any former restoration.

The Prince, while listening, observed the place. Excepting the Church, it was as of old. There the grove of cypresses, very ancient, and tall and dark. There, too, the Chapel of purplish stone, and at one side of it the sentry box and bench, and what seemed the identical detail of Varangians on duty. There the enclosed space between the edifices, and the road across the pavement to the next terrace only a little deeper worn. There the arched gateway of massive masonry through which the road conducted, the carving about it handsome as ever; and there, finally, from the base of the Chapel, the brook, undiminished in volume and song, ran off out of sight into the grove, an old acquaintance of the Prince's.

Moving on through the arched way, the guide led up to the third and last terrace. Near the top there was a cut, and on its right embankment a party of workmen spreading and securing a canopy of red cloth.

"Observe, O Prince," the officer said. "From this position, if I mistake not, you will witness the ceremony I mentioned as in preparation."

The guest had time to express his gratification, when the Palace of Blacherne, the Very High Residence, burst upon him in long extended view, a marvel of imperial prodigality and Byzantine genius.

CHAPTER II

THE AUDIENCE

The sedan was set down before a marble gate on the third terrace.

"My duty is hardly complete. Suffer me to conduct you farther," the officer said, politely, as the Prince stepped from the box.

"And my servants?"

"They will await you."

The speakers were near the left corner of a building which projected considerably from the general front line of the Palace. The wall, the gateway, and the building were of white marble smoothly dressed.

After a few words with Syama, the Prince followed his guide into a narrow enclosure on the right of which there was a flight of steps, and on the left a guard house. Ascending the steps, the two traversed a passage until they came to a door.

"The waiting-room. Enter," said the conductor.

Four heavily curtained windows lighted the apartment. In the centre there were a massive table, and, slightly removed from it, a burnished copper brazier. Bright-hued rugs covered the floor, and here and there stools carven and upholstered were drawn against the painted walls. The officer, having seen his charge comfortably seated, excused himself and disappeared.

Hardly was he gone when two servants handsomely attired came in with refreshments—fruits in natural state, fruits candied, sweetened bread, sherbet, wine and water. A chief followed them, and, with much humility of manner, led the Prince to a seat at the table, and invited him to help himself. The guest was then left alone; and while he ate and drank he wondered at the stillness prevalent; the very house seemed in awe.

Ere long another official entered, and after apologizing for introducing himself, said: "I am Dean of the Court. In the absence of my lord Phranza, it has fallen to me to discharge, well as I can, the duties of Grand Chamberlain."

The Prince, observant of the scrutinizing glance the Dean gave his person, acknowledged the honor done him, and the pleasure he derived from the acquaintance. The Dean ought to be happy; he had great fame in the city and abroad as a most courteous, intelligent, and faithful servant; there was no doubt he deserved preeminently the confidence his royal master reposed in him.

"I am come, O Prince," the old functionary said, after thanks for the friendly words, "to ascertain if you are refreshed, and ready for the audience."

"I am ready."

"Let us to His Majesty then. If I precede you, I pray pardon."

Drawing the portiere aside, the Dean held it for the other's passage.

They entered an extensive inner court, surrounded on three sides by a gallery resting on pillars. On the fourth side, a magnificent staircase ascended to a main landing, whence, parting right and left, it terminated in the gallery. Floor, stairs, balustrading, pillars, everything here was red marble flooded with light from a circular aperture in the roof open to the sky.

Along the stairs, at intervals, officers armed and in armor were stationed, and keeping their positions faced inwardly, they seemed like statues. Other armed men were in the galleries. The silence was impressive. Coming presently to an arched door, the Prince glanced into a deep chamber, and at the further end of it beheld the Emperor seated in a chair of state on a dais curtained and canopied with purple velvet.

"Take heed now, O Prince," said the Dean, in a low voice. "Yonder is His Majesty. Do thou imitate me in all things. Come."

With this kindly caution the Dean led into the chamber of public audience. Just within the door, he halter, crossed hands upon his breast, and dropped to his knees, his eyes downcast; rising, he kept on about halfway to the dais, and again knelt; when near his person's length from the dais, he knelt and fully prostrated himself. The Prince punctiliously executed every motion, except that at the instant of halting the last time he threw both hands up after the manner of Orientals. A velvet carpet of the accepted imperial color stretched from door to dais greatly facilitated the observances.

A statuesque soldier, with lance and shield, stood at the left of the dais, a guard against treachery; by the chair, bare-headed, bare-legged, otherwise a figure in a yellow tunic lightly breastplated, appeared the sword-bearer, his slippers stayed with bands of gold, a blade clasped to his body by the left forearm, the hilt above his shoulder; and spacious as the chamber was, a row of dignitaries civil, military, and ecclesiastical lined the walls each in prescribed regalia. The hush already noticed was observable here, indicative of rigid decorum and awful reverence. "Rise, Prince of India," the Emperor said, without movement.

The visitor obeyed.

The last of the Palaeologae was in Basilean costume; a golden circlet on his head brilliantly jewelled and holding a purple velvet cap in place; an overgown of the material of the cap but darker in tint, and belted at the waist; a mantle stiff with embroidery of pearls hanging by narrow bands so as to drop from the shoulder over the breast and back, leaving the neck bare; an ample lap-robe of dark purple cloth sparkling with precious stones covering his nether limbs. The chair was square in form without back or arms; its front posts twined and intricately inlaid with ivory and silver, and topped each with a golden cone for hand-rest. The bareness of the neck was relieved by four strings of pearls dropped from the circlet two on a side, and drawn from behind the ears forward so as to lightly tip the upper edge of the mantle. The right hand rested at the moment on the right cone of the chair; the left was free. The attitude of the figure thus presented was easy and unconstrained, the countenance high and noble, and altogether the guest admitted to himself that he had seldom been introduced to royalty more really imposing.

There was hardly an instant allowed for these observations. To set his guest at ease, Constantine continued: "The way to our door is devious and upward. I hope it has not too severely tried you."

"Your Majesty, were the road many times more trying I would willingly brave it to be the recipient of honors and attentions which have made the Emperor of Constantinople famous in many far countries, and not least in mine."

The courtierly turn of the reply did not escape the Emperor. It had been strange if he had not put the character of his guest to question; indeed, an investigation had proceeded by his order, with the invitation to audience as a result; and now the self-possession of the stranger, together with his answer, swept the last doubt from, the imperial mind. An attendant, responding to a sign, came forward.

"Bring me wine," and as the servant disappeared with the order, Constantine again addressed his visitor. "You maybe a Brahman or an Islamite," he said, with a pleasant look to cover any possible mistake: "in either case, O Prince, I take it for granted that the offer of a draught of Chian will not be resented."

"I am neither a Mohammedan, nor a devotee of the gentle son of Maya. I am not even a Hindoo in religion. My faith leads me to be thankful for all God's gifts to his creatures. I will take the cup Your Majesty deigns to propose."

The words were spoken with childlike simplicity of manner; yet nowhere in these pages have we had a finer example of the subtlety which, characteristic of the speaker, seemed inspiration rather than study. He knew from general report how religion dominated his host, and on the spur of the moment, thought to pique curiosity with respect to his own faith; seeing, as he fancied, a clear path to another audience, with ampler opportunity to submit and discuss the idea of Universal Brotherhood in God.

The glance with which he accompanied assent to the cup was taken as a mere accentuation of gratitude; it was, however, for discovery. Had the Emperor noticed the declaration of what he was not? Did his intelligence suggest how unusual it was for an Indian to be neither a Mohammedan, nor a Brahman, nor even a Buddhist in religion? He saw a sudden lifting of the brows, generally the preliminary of a question; he even made an answer ready; but the other's impulse seemed to spend itself in an inquiring look, which, lingering slightly, might mean much or nothing. The Prince resolved to wait.

Constantine, as will be seen presently, did observe the negations, and was moved to make them the subject of remark at the moment; but inordinately sensitive respecting his own religious convictions, he imagined others like himself in that respect, and upon the scruple, for which the reader will not fail to duly credit him, deferred inquiry until the visitor was somewhat better understood.

Just then the cupbearer appeared with the wine; a girlish lad he was, with long blond curls. Kneeling before the dais, he rested a silver platter and the liquor sparkling on it in a crystal decanter upon his right knee, waiting the imperial pleasure.

Taking the sign given him, the Dean stepped forward and filled the two cups of chased gold also on the platter, and delivered them. Then the Emperor held his cup up while he said in a voice sufficiently raised for general hearing:

"Prince of India, I desired your presence to-day the rather to discharge myself of obligations for important assistance rendered my kinswoman, the Princess Irene of Therapia, during her detention at the White Castle; a circumstance of such late occurrence it must be still fresh in your memory. By her account the Governor was most courteous and hospitable, and exerted himself to make her stay in his stronghold agreeable as possible. Something truly extraordinary, considering the forbidding exterior of the house, and the limited means of entertainment it must have to offer, she declared he succeeded in converting what threatened to be a serious situation into an adventure replete with pleasant surprises. A delegate is now at the Castle assuring the Governor of my appreciation of his friendly conduct. By her account, also, I am bounden to you, Prince, scarcely less than to him."

The gravity of the visitor at hearing this was severely attacked. Great as was his self-control, he smiled at thought of the dilemma the Governor was in, listening to a speech of royal thanks and receiving rich presents in lieu of his young master Mahommed. When the envoy returned and reported, if perchance he should describe the Turk whom he found in actual keeping of the Castle, the discrepancy between his picture of the man and that of the Princess would be both mysterious and remarkable.

"Your Majesty," the Prince returned, with a deprecating gesture, "the storm menaced me quite as much as the Princess, and calls for confession of my inability to see wherein I rendered her service free of regard for myself. Indeed, it is my duty to inform Your Majesty, all these noble witnesses hearing me, that I am more beholden to your noble kinswoman for help and deliverance in the affair than she can be to me. But for the courage and address, not to mention the dignity and force with which she availed herself of her royal relationship, resolving what was at first a simple invitation to refuge into a high treaty between the heads of two great powers, I and my daughter"—

"Daughter, said you?"

"Yes, Your Majesty—Heaven has so favored me—I, my daughter, and my frightened boatmen would have been committed to the river near the Castle, without recourse except in prayer to Heaven. Nay, Your Majesty, have I permission to say on, Charity had never a sweeter flowering than when the Princess remembered to take the stranger under her protection. I am past the age of enthusiasm and extravagance—my beard and dimming eyes prove the admission—yet I declare, weighing each word, she has the wit, the spirit, the goodness, the loveliness to be the noblest of queens to the best of kings; and fails she such choice, it will be because destiny has been struck by some unaccountable forgetfulness."

By this time the courtiers, drawn in from the walls, composed a very brilliant circle around the throne, each one curious to hear the stranger as he had been to see him; and they were quick to point his last sentence; for most of them had been with the Emperor in the voyage to Therapia, which was still a theme of wager and wrangle scarcely less interesting than in its first hour. By one impulse they ventured a glance at the royal face, seeking a revelation; but the countenance was steady as a mask.

"The encomium is well bestowed, and approves thy experience, Prince, as a reader of women," Constantine said, with just enough fervor. "Henceforth I shall know the degree of trust to repose in thy judgment, other problems as difficult being in controversy. Nevertheless, is the lady to be believed, then, O Prince, I repeat my acknowledgment of indebtedness. It pleases me to greatly estimate thy influence and good judgment happily exerted. Mayst thou live long, Prince of India, and always find thyself as now among friends who charge themselves to be watchful for opportunities to befriend thee."

He raised the cup.

"It is Your Majesty's pleasure," the guest replied, and they drank together.

"A seat for the Prince of India," the Emperor next directed.

The chair, when brought, was declined.

"In my palace—for at home I exercise the functions of a king—it often falls to me to give audiences; if public, we call them durbars; and then an inferior may not sit in my presence. The rule, like all governing the session, is of my own enactment. I see plainly how greatly Your Majesty designs to heap me with honors; and if I dare decline this one, it is not from disposition to do a teacher's part, but from habit which has the sanction of heredity, and the argument self addressed: Shall I despise my own ordinances? God forbid!"

A murmur from the concourse was distinctly audible, which the Dean interpreted by repeated affirmative nods. In other words, by this stroke the able visitor won the court as he had already won its head; insomuch that the most doubting of the doubters would not have refused to certify him on belief the very Prince of India he claimed to be. The Emperor, on his part, could not but defer to scruples so cogently and solemnly put; at the same time, out of his very certainty respecting the guest, he passed to a question which in probability the reader has been for some time entertaining.

"The makers of a law should be first to observe it; for having done so, they then have God's license to exert themselves in its enforcement; and when one is found observant of a principle which has root so perceptibly in conscience, to deny him his pleasure were inexcusable. Have thy will, Prince."

The applause which greeted the decision of His Majesty was hardly out of ear when he proceeded:

"Again I pray you, Sir Guest—I greatly misapprehend the travellers who tell of India, if the people of that venerable country are not given to ceremonials religious as well as secular. Many of our own observances of a sacred nature are traceable to study and discernment of the good effects of form in worship, and since some of them are unquestionably borrowed from temples of the Pagan gods, yet others may be of Hindoo origin. Who shall say? Wherefore, speaking generally, I should fear to ask you to any of our Church mysteries which I did not know were purely Greek. One such we have this evening. We call it Pannychides. Its principal feature is a procession of monastic brethren from the holy houses of the city and Islands—all within the jurisdiction of our Eastern Church, which, please God, is of broader lines than our State. The fathers have been assembling for the celebration several days. They will form in the city at set of sun, throwing the march into the night. Here, within our grounds, more particularly at the door of the Chapel of our Holy Virgin of Blacherne, I will meet them. They will pass the night in prayer, an army on bended knees, sorrowing for the pains of our Saviour in Gethsemane. I was uncertain what faith you profess; yet, Prince, I thought—forgive me, if it was an error—a sight of the spirit of our Churchmen as it will be manifested on this occasion might prove interesting to you; so I have taken the liberty of ordering a stand erected for your accommodation at a position favorable to witnessing the procession in movement up the terraces. No one has seen the spectacle without realizing as never before the firmness of the hold Christ has taken upon the souls of men." The last words startled the Prince. Christ's hold upon the souls of men! The very thing he wanted to learn, and, if possible, measure. A cloud of thoughts fell about him; yet he kept clear head, and answered quietly:

"Your Majesty has done me great kindness. I am already interested in the Mystery. Since we cannot hope ever to behold God with these mortal eyes, the nearest amend for the deprivation is the privilege of seeing men in multitudes demonstrating their love of Him."

Constantine's eyes lingered on the Prince's face. The utterances attracted him. The manner was so artfully reverential as not to leave a suspicion of the guile behind it. Going down great galleries, every one has had his attention suddenly arrested; he pauses, looks, and looks again, then wakes to find the attraction was not a picture, but only a flash within his own mind. So, with the guest before him, the Emperor was thinking of the man rather than seeing him—thinking of him with curiosity fully awakened, and a desire to know him better. And had he followed up the desire, he would have found its source in the idea that India was a region in which reflection and psychological experiment had been exhausted—where if one appeared with a thought it turned old ere it could be explained—where wisdom had fructified until there was no knowledge more—where the teaching capacity was all there was remaining. That is to say, in the day of the last Byzantine Emperor, centuries ago, humanity in India was, as now, a clock stopped, but stopped in the act of striking, leaving a glory in the air imaginable like the continuing sound of hushed cathedral bells.

"Prince," he at length said, "you will remain here until the procession is announced at the Grand Gate. I will then give you a guide and a guard. Our steward has orders to look after your comfort." Turning then to the acting Chamberlain, he added: "Good Dean, have we not a little time in which to hear our guest further?"

"Your Majesty, an hour at least."

"You hear, O Prince? Provided always that it be not to your displeasure, tell me what I am to understand by the disclaimer which, broadly interpreted, leaves you either a Jew or a Christian?"

CHAPTER III

THE NEW FAITH PROCLAIMED

The question came earlier than the Prince expected, and in different form. Those in position to observe his face saw it turn a trifle pale, and he hesitated, and glanced around uneasily, as though not altogether assured of his footing. This might have been by-play; if so, it was successful; every countenance not sympathetic was serious.

"Your Majesty's inquiry must be for information. I am too humble for an unfriendly design on the part of one so exalted as the Emperor of Constantinople. It might be otherwise if I represented a church, a denomination, or a recognized religion; as it is, my faith is my own."

"But bethink thee, Prince, thou mayst have the truth—the very God's truth," Constantine interposed, with kindly intent. "We all know thy country hath been the cradle of divine ideas. So, speak, and fear not."

The glance the Emperor received was winsomely grateful.

"Indeed, Your Majesty, indeed I have need of good countenance. The question put me has lured more men to bloody graves than fire, sword and wave together. And then why I believe as I believe demands time in excess of what we have; and I am the bolder in this because in limiting me Your Majesty limits yourself. So I will now no more than define my Faith. But first, it does not follow from my disclaimer that I can only be a Jew or a Christian; for as air is a vehicle for a multitude of subtleties in light, faith in like manner accommodates a multitude of opinions."

While speaking, the Prince's voice gradually gained strength; his color returned, and his eyes enlarged and shone with strange light. Now his right hand arose, the fingers all closed except the first one, and it was long and thin, and he waved it overhead, like a conjuring wand. If the concourse had been unwilling to hear him, they could not have turned away.

"I am not a Hindoo, my Lord; because I cannot believe men can make their own gods."

The Father Confessor to the Emperor, at the left of the dais in a stole of gold and crimson cloth, smiled broadly.

"I am not a Buddhist," the Prince continued; "because I cannot believe the soul goes to nothingness after death."

The Father Confessor clapped his hands.

"I am not a Confucian; because I cannot reduce religion to philosophy or elevate philosophy into religion."

The blood of the audience began to warm.

"I am not a Jew; because I believe God loves all peoples alike, or if he makes distinctions, it is for righteousness' sake."

Here the chamber rang with clapping.

"I am not an Islamite; because when I raise my eyes to Heaven, I cannot tolerate sight of a man standing between me and God—no, my Lord, not though he be a Prophet."

The hit was palpable, and from hate of the old enemy, the whole assemblage broke into an uproar of acclamation. Only the Emperor kept his gravity. Leaning heavily on the golden cone at the right of his chair, his chin depressed, his eyes staring, scarcely breathing, he waited, knowing, that having gone so far, there was before the speaker an unavoidable climax; and seeing it in his face, and coming, he presently aroused, and motioned for silence.

"I am not"—

The Prince stopped, but when the hush was deepest went on—"I am not a Christian; because—because I believe—God is God."

The Father Confessor's hands were ready to clap, but they stayed so; the same spell took hold of the bystanders, except that they looked at the Emperor, and he alone seemed to comprehend the concluding phrase. He settled back easily in his seat, saying, "Thy Faith then is—"

"God!"

The monosyllable was the Prince's.

And with clear sight of the many things reprobated—Images, Saints, the Canonized, even the worship of Christ and the Holy Mother—with clear sight also of the wisdom which in that presence bade the guest stop with the mighty name—at the same time more curious than ever to hear in full discourse the man who could reduce religion to a single word and leave it comprehensible, Constantine drew a breath of relief, and said, smiling, "Of a surety, O Prince, there was never a Faith which, with such appearance of simplicity in definition, is capable of such infinity of meaning. I am full of questions; and these listening, my lords of the court, are doubtless in a similar mood. What sayest thou, O my most orthodox Confessor?" The Father bowed until the hem of his blazing stole overlaid the floor.

"Your Majesty, we too are believers in God; but we also believe in much beside; so, if but for comparison of creeds, which is never unprofitable while in good nature, I should like to hear the noble and fair speaking guest further."

"And you, my Lords?"

The throng around answered, "Yes, yes!"

"We will have it so then. Look, good Logothete, for the nearest day unoccupied."

A handsome man of middle age approached the dais, and opening a broad-backed book, evidently the record of the royal appointments, turned a number of leaves, and replied: "Your Majesty, two weeks from tomorrow."

"Note the same set aside for the Prince of India.-Dost hear, Prince?"

The latter lowered his face the better to conceal his pleasure.

"All days are alike to me," he answered.

"In this our palace, then—two weeks from to-morrow at the hour of noon. And now"—the rustle and general movement of the courtiers was instantly stayed—"and now, Prince, didst thou not speak of exercising the functions of a king at home? Thy capital must be in India, but where, pray? And how callest thou thyself? And why is this city so fortunate as to have attracted thy wandering feet? It is not every king so his own master as to turn traveller, and go about making study of the world; although, I admit, it would be better could every king do so."

These questions were rapidly put, but as the Prince was prepared for them, he responded pleasantly:

"In answering the questions Your Majesty now honors me with. I am aware how serious the mistake would be did I think of your curiosity alone. A most excellent quality in a great man is patience. Alas, that it should be one of the most abused! ... Among the oldest of Hindoo titles is Rajah. It means King rather than Prince, and I was born to it. Your Majesty may have heard of Oodeypoor, the bosom jewel of Rajpootana, the white rose just bloomed of Indian cities. At the foot of a spur of the Arawalli mountains, a river rises, and on its right bank reposes the city; from which, southeast a little way, a lake lies outspread, like a mirror fallen face upward. And around the lake are hills, tall and broken as these of the Bosphorus; and seen from the water the hills are masses of ivy and emerald woods thickly sprinkled with old fortresses and temples, and seven-roofed red pagodas, each the home of a great gold-decked Buddha, with lesser Buddhas in family. And in the lake are islands all palaces springing from the water line in open arches, and sculptured walls, and towered gates; and of still days their wondrous cunning in the air is renewed afresh in the waveless depths below them. If they are glorious then, what are they when reconstructed for festal nights in shining lamps? For be it said, my Lord, if a stranger in the walls of this centre of empire may speak a word which has the faintest savor of criticism, the Indian genius analyzed beauty before there was a West, and taking suggestions from spark and dewdrop, applied them to architecture. Smile not, I pray, for you may see the one in the lamp multiplied for outline traceries, and the other in the fountain, the cascade, and the limpid margin at the base of walls. Or if still you think me exaggerating, is not the offence one to be lightly forgiven where the offender is telling of his birthplace? In one of the palaces of that Lake of Palaces I was born, the oldest son of the Rajah of Meywar, Oodeypoor his capital. In these words, which I hope may be kindly judged, Your Majesty will find answers to one, if not two of the questions you were pleased to ask me—Why I am here? And why making study of the world? Will Your Majesty pardon my boldness, if I suggest that a reply to those inquiries would be better at the audience set for me next? I fear it is too long for telling now."

"Be it so," said Constantine, "yet a hint of it may not be amiss. It may set us to thinking; and, Prince, a mind prepared for an idea is like ground broken and harrowed for seed."

The Prince hesitated.

"Your Majesty—my Lord"—he then said firmly, "the most sorrowful of men are those with conceptions too great for them, and which they must carry about with nothing better to sustain their sinking spirits than a poor hope of having them one day adopted; for until that day they are like a porter overladen and going from house to house unknowing the name of the owner of his burden or where to look for him. I am such an unfortunate.... Oodeypoor, you must understand, is more than comely to the eye of a native; it is a city where all religions are tolerated. The Taing, the Brahman, the Hindoo, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist live together there, protected and in peace, with their worship and houses of worship; nor is there any shutting of mouths, because controversy long since attained finality amongst them; or perhaps it were better saying, because opinions there have now their recognized grooves, and run in them from generation to generation—opinions to which men are born as to their property, only without right of change or modification; neither can they break away from them. There is no excuse if an intelligent man in such a situation does not comprehend all the religions thus in daily practice; or if one does comprehend them he should not flatter himself possessed of any superior intellect.... The Rajah, my father, died, and I mounted his silver throne, and for ten years administered justice in the Hall of Durbars to which he had been used, he and his father's father, Children of the Sun, most pure of blood. By that time I was of mature mind, and having given myself up to study, came to believe there is but one doctrine—principle—call it what you will, my Lord—but one of heavenly origin—one primarily comprehensible by all—too simple indeed to satisfy the egotism of men; wherefore, without rejecting, they converted it into a foundation, and built upon it each according to his vanity, until, in course of ages, the foundation was overlaid with systems of belief, childish, unnatural, ridiculous, indecent, or else too complicated for common understanding"—

"This principle—what is it, Prince?" Constantine asked nervously.

"Your Majesty, I have already once named it."

"Mean you God?"

"And now, my Lord, thou hast pronounced it."

The stillness in the chamber was very deep. Every man seemed to be asking, what next?

"One day, Your Majesty—it was in my tenth year of government—a function was held in a tent erected for the purpose—a shamiana vastly larger than any hall. I went up to it in state, passing through lines of elephants, an hundred on either hand, covered with cloth of gold and with houdahs of yellow silk roofed with the glory of peacocks. Behind the mighty brutes soldiery blotted out the landscape, and the air between them and the sky was a tawny cloud of flaunting yak-tails; nor had one use for ears, so was he deafened by beat of drums and blowing of brazen horns twice a tall man's height. I sat on a throne of silver and gold, all my ministers present. My brother entered, he the next entitled. Halfway down the aisle of chiefs I met him, and then led him to my seat, and saluted him Rajah of Meywar. Your Majesty, so I parted with crown and title—laid them down voluntarily to search the world for men in power in love with God enough to accept him as their sum of faith. Behold why I travel making the earth a study! Behold why I am in Constantinople!"

Constantine was impressed.

"Where hast thou been?" he at length asked—"where before coming here?"

"It were easier did Your Majesty ask where I have not been. For then I could answer, Everywhere, except Rome."

"Dost thou impugn our devotion to God?"