walking barefoot, he came upon a young wild sheep and killed it with his thrown ax. By now the villages had been left behind and below and the moon stared at him steadily from above the pillars of huge pines as he entered the forest-belt.
Another thought came to Michael. He remembered that, in the tower of ill-fitting stones on the sea cliffs of Brittany where the grass was short because of the ceaseless winds, a black-haired woman waited, sitting by her weaving. He had vowed that he would come back to sit at his mother’s table and tell of the voyages to the East. And this, she would know, he would do. A lawless boy, with his father’s hot blood in him, he always kept his word.
From time to time he was forced to beat off the attacks of wild dogs with his ax as he worked through the passes of the Caucasian foothills. His bloodshot eyes closed to slits under the lash of the cold wind and he swayed as his heavily thewed limbs carried him down toward the place where he had seen a glimmer of water in the distance.
It was bodily weakness that drew his thoughts home to the tower and the coast where he had played as a child. For a space he forgot Bayezid and the torture. He had been hale and strong as a boy. Was he to go through life a cripple? Was that the will of God of which his mother had spoken, saying—
“The ways of God are beyond our knowing.”
Thirst had been his invisible companion and the water-courses that he crossed were dry. They led him down to a plain of gray rocks and white salt, where the salt particles in the air dried up the moisture in his throat and brought blood to his lips.
The smell of water coming toward him from the wide shore fired him with longing. He went forward in a staggering run and knelt to dash up some of the water in his hand.
It was thick with salt and dull green in color.
“The Sarai Sea,” he reflected, “the sea of salt. Eh, a rare jest to a thirsty man.”
He knew then that he had come out on the border of the sea now called the Caspian and not the Mormaior (Black) Sea. But, rising, he saw some dull-faced Karabagh fishermen staring at him from a skiff in an adjoining inlet and he laughed exultantly, lifting his hand to the sunset in the west.
The skiff would fetch him to a Muscovite trading-galley, and in time Astrakhan, then Constantinople. He had heard at the court of Bayezid that the Franks were mustering a crusade, to assemble at that city. The chivalry of Europe was taking up arms against the Turk.
“There will be a battle,” he whispered to himself, “and I shall have a share in it, God willing.”
II
THE RIVER OF DEATH
ANOTHER sunset, and a war galleass was feeling its way with a double bank of oars against the sluggish current of a broad river. There was no wind and the heavy red pennon emblazoned with a winged lion hung nearly to the water between the steering-oars of the high stern castle.
The dark figures of men-at-arms pressed close to the rail of the benches that ran along each side of the waist of the vessel, above the moving gray shapes that were the rowers’ backs.
“Give way, to the shore,” called a voice from the stern platform.
As the heavy-timbered galleass drew in, fully manned for action, toward the rushes of the bank, the speaker cupped his left hand to his eyes and stared at the ruddy light of countless fires. His right arm hung stiffly at his side.
A year had not availed to restore the use of his injured arm to the man who had been a Turk’s slave. Now by infinite pains he could manage with his left. Unlike the men-at-arms and the mailed Venetian archers clustered upon the stern, he wore no weapon.
Michael Bearn had reached the Venetian fleet in the Black Sea at an opportune moment. Experienced ship-masters were needed to take command of the new galleys that were to cooperate under the Venetian flag with the Christian army on the mainland.
The body of the Venetian fleet lay off the mouth of the Danube, waiting to convey the victorious army of the Christian Allies to Asia Minor and Jerusalem.
It was a great array that had come against the Ottoman. Besides the Venetian war-craft, Sigismund of Hungary was up the river and the cohorts of Slavs, Magyars and the Serbs. With these were the pick of the chivalry of France, the forces of the Elector Palatine and the Knights of Saint John.
They had struck down through the mountains of the Serbs and besieged Nicopolis, on the river. Warnings of the approach of the conqueror Bayezid had reached them, and the French knights who had brought shiploads of women and wine down the Danube had laughed, saying that if the sky were to fall, they would hold it up with their spears.
Verily it was a goodly array of Christendom before Nicopolis—an army blessed by the Pope and dispatched against the Ottoman, who had swept over Arabia, Egypt, Asia Minor—far into Greece, now impotent, and the rugged mainland behind Constantinople.
The Moslems held Gallipoli and a khadi held court beside the marble and gold palace of Paleologus. Bayezid the Conqueror, surnamed the Thunderbolt, had never met defeat.
Bayezid had advanced to the relief of the Moslem governor of Nicopolis and Emperor Sigismund and Count Nevers, commander of the French, had given battle.
For days, hearing of the coming struggle, Michael Bearn had chafed upon the narrow after-deck of his galleass. He had urged the Venetian commander to make his way up the river, to assist in the struggle if possible.
Bearn had been told by the proveditore that the fleet of the Signory of Venice had promised to convey the army only to Asia Minor. It was not the policy of the Maritime Council to risk the loss of good ships—but Bearn was allowed to go, to bring news.
It had been a dangerous path up the Danube, for small Turkish craft thronged the shore and bodies of Janissaries were to be seen from time to time in openings in the dense forests.
Now, conning the darkened galleass close to the bank, Michael Bearn strained his ears to read the meaning of the tumult on shore. He could see horsemen riding past the glow of burning huts and the clash of weapons drifted out over the quiet waters.
“Sigismund pursues the Saracen!” exulted a man among the archers on deck.
Wild hope leaped into the heart of Michael Bearn. Was the issue of the battle so soon decided? Had the armed chivalry of France outmatched the power and skill of Bayezid? He yearned for the first glimpse of victorious French standards. Yet, knowing the discipline and power of the veteran Moslem army, he doubted the evidence of his eyes that the emperor and the French could have pursued their foe so far.
“What ship is that?” cried a high voice, and the splash of hoofs sounded in the rushes as a man rode out toward the galleass.
“Venetian,” answered Michael promptly. “Is the battle won?”
The men on the vessel held their breath as the rider, before answering, swam his horse out to them and, grasping at ropes lowered over the stern where the oar-banks permitted him to gain the side of the galleass, climbed heavily upon the deck.
“If you are a Venetian—fly!” he cried, staggering against Michael. “Never have the eyes of God seen
