re the Turkish fleet was at anchor. The plain was strewn
with corpses and arms, and tents and standards. The sun was now high in
the heavens. The mist had cleared away; but occasional clouds of smoke
still sailed about.

A solitary Christian knight entered a winding pass in the green hills,
apart from the scene of strife. The slow and trembling step of his
wearied steed would have ill qualified him to join in the triumphant
pursuit, even had he himself been physically enabled; but the Christian
knight was covered with gore, unhappily not alone that of his enemies.
He was, indeed, streaming, with desperate wounds, and scarcely could his
fainting form retain its tottering seat.

The winding pass, which for some singular reason he now pursued in
solitude, instead of returning to the busy camp for aid and assistance,
conducted the knight to a small green valley, covered with sweet herbs,
and entirely surrounded by hanging woods. In the centre rose the ruins
of a Doric fane: three or four columns, grey and majestic. All was still
and silent, save that in the clear blue sky an eagle flew, high in the
air, but whirling round the temple.

The knight reached the ruins of the Doric fane, and with difficulty
dismounting from his charger, fell upon the soft and flowery turf, and
for some moments was motionless. His horse stole a few yards away,
and though scarcely less injured than its rider, instantly commenced
cropping the inviting pasture.

At length the Christian knight slowly raised his head, and leaning on
his arm, sighed deeply. His face was very pale; but as he looked up, and
perceived the eagle in the heaven, a smile played upon his pallid cheek,
and his beautiful eye gleamed with a sudden flash of light.

"Glorious bird!" murmured the Christian warrior, "once I deemed that my
career might resemble thine! 'Tis over now and Greece, for which I would
have done so much, will soon forget my immemorial name. I have stolen
here to die in silence and in beauty. This blue air, and these green
woods, and these lone columns, which oft to me have been a consolation,
breathing of the poetic past, and of the days wherein I fain had
lived, I have escaped from the fell field of carnage to die among
them. Farewell my country! Farewell to one more beautiful than Greece,
farewell, Iduna!"

These were the last words of Nicaeus, Prince of Athens.

CHAPTER 22

While the unhappy lover of the daughter of Hunniades breathed his las