The Last Man
discerned. It was a troop sent by Karazza, the Admiral; they bore
dispatches to the Lord General. The contents of these papers were
important. The night before, the watch, on board one of the smaller
vessels anchored near the seraglio wall, was roused by a slight
splashing as of muffled oars; the alarm was given: twelve small boats,
each containing three Janizaries, were descried endeavouring to make
their way through the fleet to the opposite shore of Scutari. When they
found themselves discovered they discharged their muskets, and some
came to the front to cover the others, whose crews, exerting all their
strength, endeavoured to escape with their light barks from among the
dark hulls that environed them. They were in the end all sunk, and,
with the exception of two or three prisoners, the crews drowned. Little
could be got from the survivors; but their cautious answers caused it
to be surmised that several expeditions had preceded this last, and
that several Turks of rank and importance had been conveyed to Asia.
The men disdainfully repelled the idea of having deserted the defence
of their city; and one, the youngest among them, in answer to the taunt
of a sailor, exclaimed, “Take it, Christian dogs! take the palaces, the
gardens, the mosques, the abode of our fathers—take plague with them;
pestilence is the enemy we fly; if she be your friend, hug her to your
bosoms. The curse of Allah is on Stamboul, share ye her fate.”
Such was the account sent by Karazza to Raymond: but a tale full of
monstrous exaggerations, though founded on this, was spread by the
accompanying troop among our soldiers. A murmur arose, the city was the
prey of pestilence; already had a mighty power subjugated the
inhabitants; Death had become lord of Constantinople.
I have heard a picture described, wherein all the inhabitants of earth
were drawn out in fear to stand the encounter of Death. The feeble and
decrepid fled; the warriors retreated, though they threatened even in
flight. Wolves and lions, and various monsters of the desert roared
against him; while the grim Unreality hovered shaking his spectral
dart, a solitary but invincible assailant. Even so was it with the army
of Greece. I am convinced, that had the myriad troops of Asia come from
over the Propontis, and stood defenders of the Golden City, each and
every Greek would have marched against the overwhelming numbers, and
have devoted himself with patriotic fury for his country. But here no
hedge of bayonets opposed itself, no death-dealing artillery, no
formidable array of brave soldiers—the unguarded walls afforded easy
entrance—the vacant palaces luxurious dwellings; but above the dome of
St. Sophia the superstitious Greek saw Pestilence, and shrunk in
trepidation from her influence.
Raymond was actuated by far other feelings. He descended the hill with
a face beaming with triumph, and pointing with his sword to the gates,
commanded his troops to—down with those barricades—the only obstacles
now to completest victory. The soldiers answered his cheerful words
with aghast and awe-struck looks; instinctively they drew back, and
Raymond rode in the front of the lines:—“By my sword I swear,” he
cried, “that no ambush or stratagem endangers you. The enemy is already
vanquished; the pleasant places, the noble dwellings and spoil of the
city are already yours; force the gate; enter and possess the seats of
your ancestors, your own inheritance!”
An universal shudder and fearful whispering passed through the lines;
not a soldier moved. “Cowards!” exclaimed their general, exasperated,
“give me an hatchet! I alone will enter! I will plant your standard;
and when you see it wave from yon highest minaret, you may gain
courage, and rally round it!”
One of the officers now came forward: “General,” he said, “we neither
fear the courage, nor arms, the open attack, nor secret ambush of the
Moslems. We are ready to expose our breasts, exposed ten thousand times
before, to the balls and scymetars of the infidels, and to fall
gloriously for Greece. But we will not die in heaps, like dogs poisoned
in summer-time, by the pestilential air of that city—we dare not go
against the plague!”
A multitude of men are feeble and inert, without a voice, a leader;
give them that, and they regain the strength belonging to their
numbers. Shouts from a thousand voices now rent the air—the cry of
applause became universal. Raymond saw the danger; he was willing to
save his troops from the crime of disobedience; for he knew, that
contention once begun between the commander and his army, each act and
word added to the weakness of the former, and bestowed power on the
latter. He gave orders for the retreat to be sounded, and the regiments
repaired in good order to the camp.
I hastened to carry the intelligence of these strange proceedings to
Perdita; and we were soon joined by Raymond. He looked gloomy and
perturbed. My sister was struck by my narrative: “How beyond the
imagination of man,” she exclaimed, “are the decrees of heaven,
wondrous and inexplicable!”
“Foolish girl,” cried Raymond angrily, “are you like my valiant
soldiers, panic-struck? What is there inexplicable, pray, tell me, in
so very natural an occurrence? Does not the plague rage each year in
Stamboul? What wonder, that this year, when as we are told, its
virulence is unexampled in Asia, that it should have occasioned double
havoc in that city? What wonder then, in time of siege, want, extreme
heat, and drought, that it should make unaccustomed ravages? Less
wonder far is it, that the garrison, despairing of being able to hold
out longer, should take advantage of the negligence of our fleet to
escape at once from siege and capture. It is not pestilence —by the God
that lives! it is not either plague or impending danger that makes us,
like birds in harvest-time, terrified by a scarecrow, abstain from the
ready prey—it is base superstition—And thus the aim of the valiant is
made the shuttlecock of fools; the worthy ambition of the high-souled,
the plaything of these tamed hares! But yet Stamboul shall be ours! By
my past labours, by torture and imprisonment suffered for them, by my
victories, by my sword, I swear—by my hopes of fame, by my former
deserts now awaiting their reward, I deeply vow, with these hands to
plant the cross on yonder mosque!”
“Dearest Raymond!” interrupted Perdita, in a supplicating accent.
He had been walking to and fro in the marble hall of the seraglio; his
very lips were pale with rage, while, quivering, they shaped his angry
words— his eyes shot fire—his gestures seemed restrained by their very
vehemence. “Perdita,” he continued, impatiently, “I know what you would
say; I know that you love me, that you are good and gentle; but this is
no woman’s work—nor can a female heart guess at the hurricane which
tears me!”
He seemed half afraid of his own violence, and suddenly quitted the
hall: a look from Perdita shewed me her distress, and I followed him.
He was pacing the garden: his passions were in a state of inconceivable
turbulence. “Am I for ever,” he cried, “to be the sport of fortune!
Must man, the heaven-climber, be for ever the victim of the crawling
reptiles of his species! Were I as you, Lionel, looking forward to many
years of life, to a succession of love-enlightened days, to refined
enjoyments and fresh-springing hopes, I might yield, and breaking my
General’s staff, seek repose in the glades of Windsor. But I am about
to die!—nay, interrupt me not—soon I shall die. From the many-peopled
earth, from the sympathies of man, from the loved resorts of my youth,
from the kindness of my friends, from the affection of my only beloved
Perdita, I am about to be removed. Such is the will of fate! Such the
decree of the High Ruler from whom there is no appeal: to whom I
submit. But to lose all—to lose with life and love, glory also! It
shall not be!
“I, and in a few brief years, all you,—this panic-struck army, and all
the population of fair Greece, will no longer be. But other generations
will arise, and ever and for ever will continue, to be made happier by
our present acts, to be glorified by our valour. The prayer of my youth
was to be one among those who render the pages of earth’s history
splendid; who exalt the race of man, and make this little globe a
dwelling of the mighty. Alas, for Raymond! the prayer of his youth is
wasted—the hopes of his manhood are null!
“From my dungeon in yonder city I cried, soon I will be thy lord! When
Evadne pronounced my death, I thought that the title of Victor of
Constantinople would be written on my tomb, and I subdued all mortal
fear. I stand before its vanquished walls, and dare not call myself a
conqueror. So shall it not be! Did not Alexander leap from the walls of
the city of the Oxydracae, to shew his coward troops the way to
victory, encountering alone the swords of its defenders? Even so will I
brave the plague—and though no man follow, I will plant the Grecian
standard on the height of St. Sophia.”
Reason came unavailing to such high-wrought feelings. In vain I shewed
him, that when winter came, the cold would dissipate the pestilential
air, and restore courage to the Greeks. “Talk not of other season than
this!” he cried. “I have lived my last winter, and the date of this
year, 2092, will be carved upon my tomb. Already do I see,” he
continued, looking up mournfully, “the bourne and precipitate edge of
my existence, over which I plunge into the gloomy mystery of the life
to come. I am prepared, so that I leave behind a trail of light so
radiant, that my worst enemies cannot cloud it. I owe this to Greece,
to you, to my surviving Perdita, and to myself, the victim of
ambition.”
We were interrupted by an attendant, who announced, that the staff of
Raymond was assembled in the council-chamber. He requested me in the
meantime to ride through the camp, and to observe and report to him the
dispositions of the soldiers; he then left me. I had been excited to
the utmost by the proceedings of the day, and now more than ever by the
passionate language of Raymond. Alas! for human reason! He accused the
Greeks of superstition: what name did he give to the faith he lent to
the predictions of Evadne? I passed from the palace of Sweet Waters to
the plain on which the encampment lay, and found its inhabitants in
commotion. The arrival of several with fresh stories of marvels, from
the fleet; the exaggerations bestowed on what was already known; tales
of old prophecies, of fearful histories of whole regions which had been
laid waste during the present year by pestilence, alarmed and occupied
the troops. Discipline was lost; the army disbanded itself. Each
individual, before a part of a great whole moving only in unison with
others, now became resolved into the unit nature had made him, and
thought of himself only. They stole off at first by ones and twos, then
in larger companies, until, unimpeded by the officers, whole battalions
sought the road that led to Macedonia.
About midnight I returned to the palace and sought Raymond; he was
alone, and apparently composed; such composure, at least, was his as is
inspired by a resolve to adhere to a certain line of conduct. He heard
my account of the self-dissolution of the army with calmness, and then
said, “You know, Verney, my fixed determination not to quit this place,
until in the light of day Stamboul is confessedly ours. If the men I
have about me shrink from following me, others, more courageous, are to
be found. Go you before break of day, bear these dispatches to Karazza,
add to them your own entreaties that he send me his marines and naval
force; if I can get but one regiment to second me, the rest would
follow of course. Let him send me this regiment. I shall expect your