This decided the fate of the battle; and it turned out that they had been aiding the Sultan of Iconium, the great ruler of that land.
In gratitude for this service, the Sultan gave to Etrogruhl a large piece of territory, and he became the chief of a clan in this beautiful tract of land, which was all his own, bordering on the Byzantine Empire (as it was then called), and almost within sight of the Bosphorus and the city of Constantinople.
This was the beginning of the great Turkish Empire.
Othman, the son of this nameless adventurer, for whom the Ottoman Empire was named, was the first of a line of thirty-five sovereigns reaching down to our own time--where his descendant sits in Constantinople to-day defying and confounding European statesmanship.
The first thing we hear of this young Othman is that he fell in love. The beautiful "moon-faced" maiden was the daughter of a learned Doctor of Laws, who scorned the idea of giving his daughter to this obscure young person.
But Othman had a dream, which changed all that. He dreamed that a full moon came from the doctor's breast and sank into his own. Immediately a great outspreading tree arose from his loins, and over it hung a crescent moon. Suddenly a great wind came and dashed the Crescent over against the Cross and the Crown of Constantine, and broke it into pieces.
So the moon-faced maiden was given to Othman just one hundred and seventy years before the Crescent did break the Crown of Constantine in pieces.
Etrogruhl's clan grew apace; and so did his territory: the one by accessions from other wandering Turkish tribes, and the other by extending it by force as he had a chance. Then the Sultan of Iconium died, and his land and authority were divided among ten states, of which Etrogruhl's was one. So now he was an independent ruler with none to call him to account.
In the mean time his son Othman had developed great ability as a warrior and as a leader. He had met the armies of the Byzantine Emperor, and had defeated them, and had captured fortresses and cities. And the Emperor from the roof of his palace at Constantinople had seen across the Bosphorus the smoke of his burning towns and villages. So when his father died and Othman came into his inheritance, he found himself the ruler of a powerful and inspiring state, and the Ottoman Empire had commenced its extraordinary career of conquest.