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196 towards this desired goal lay in their early adoption of the Mohammedan faith. No pang of pity, no sentiment of honor, interfered with this relentless purpose. When John Castriota, the hereditary lord of Croia, yielded up his four sons as hostages to Amurath the Second, he relied on the abundant promises made him by that sovereign, who had, on the whole, a fair reputation for keeping his royal word. The lads were carried to Adrianople and reared in the sultan's palace, where one at least of the little prisoners attracted dangerous notice by his vivacity and grace,—inheritances, it is said, from his beautiful mother, Voisava. The fair-haired boy, then only eight years old, became first the plaything of the seraglio, and afterwards the jealously guarded favorite of Amurath himself. He was carefully taught, and was forced to conform to the ceremonial rites of the Ottomans, and to make an open profession of his new creed, receiving on this occasion the name of Scanderbeg, a name destined to carry with it a just retribution in the universal terror it excited. How much of Christian belief still lingered in the child's soul, or how much he gained afterwards from