Ali Pacha

By

Alexandre Dumas, Pere

Web-Books.Com
 Ali Pacha
Chapter 1............................................................................................................................. 3

Chapter 2............................................................................................................................. 8

Chapter 3........................................................................................................................... 18

Chapter 4........................................................................................................................... 27

Chapter 5........................................................................................................................... 36

Chapter 6........................................................................................................................... 42

Chapter 7........................................................................................................................... 46

Chapter 8........................................................................................................................... 57

Chapter 9........................................................................................................................... 64

Chapter 10......................................................................................................................... 77

Chapter 11......................................................................................................................... 86
 Chapter 1

The beginning of the nineteenth century was a time of audacious enterprises and
strange vicissitudes of fortune. Whilst Western Europe in turn submitted and
struggled against a sub-lieutenant who made himself an emperor, who at his
pleasure made kings and destroyed kingdoms, the ancient eastern part of the
Continent; like mummies which preserve but the semblance of life, was gradually
tumbling to pieces, and getting parcelled out amongst bold adventurers who
skirmished over its ruins. Without mentioning local revolts which produced only
short-lived struggles and trifling changes, of administration, such as that of
Djezzar Pacha, who refused to pay tribute because he thought himself
impregnable in his citadel of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, or that of Passevend-Oglou
Pacha, who planted himself on the walls of Widdin as defender of the Janissaries
against the institution of the regular militia decreed by Sultan Selim at Stamboul,
there were wider spread rebellions which attacked the constitution of the Turkish
Empire and diminished its extent; amongst them that of Czerni-Georges, which
raised Servia to the position of a free state; of Mahomet Ali, who made his
pachalik of Egypt into a kingdom; and finally that of the man whose, history we
are about to narrate, Ali Tepeleni, Pacha of Janina, whose long resistance to the
suzerain power preceded and brought about the regeneration of Greece.

Ali's own will counted for nothing in this important movement. He foresaw it, but
without ever seeking to aid it, and was powerless to arrest it. He was not one of
those men who place their lives and services at the disposal of any cause
indiscriminately; and his sole aim was to acquire and increase a power of which
he was both the guiding influence, and the end and object. His nature contained
the seeds of every human passion, and he devoted all his long life to their
development and gratification. This explains his whole temperament; his actions
were merely the natural outcome of his character confronted with circumstances.
Few men have understood themselves better or been on better terms with the
orbit of their existence, and as the personality of an individual is all the more
striking, in proportion as it reflects the manners and ideas of the time and country
in which he has lived, so the figure of Ali Pacha stands out, if not one of the most
brilliant, at least one of the most singular in contemporary history.

From the middle of the eighteenth century Turkey had been a prey to the political
gangrene of which she is vainly trying to cure herself to-day, and which, before
long, will dismember her in the sight of all Europe. Anarchy and disorder reigned
from one end of the empire to the other. The Osmanli race, bred on conquest
alone, proved good for nothing when conquest failed. It naturally therefore came
to pass when Sobieski, who saved Christianity under the walls of Vienna, as
before his time Charles Martel had saved it on the plains of Poitiers, had set
bounds to the wave of Mussulman westward invasion, and definitely fixed a limit
which it should not pass, that the Osmanli warlike instincts recoiled upon
themselves. The haughty descendants of Ortogrul, who considered themselves
born to command, seeing victory forsake them, fell back upon tyranny. Vainly did
reason expostulate that oppression could not long be exercised by hands which
had lost their strength, and that peace imposed new and different labours on
those who no longer triumphed in war; they would listen to nothing; and, as
fatalistic when condemned to a state of peace as when they marched forth
conquering and to conquer, they cowered down in magnificent listlessness,
leaving the whole burden of their support on conquered peoples. Like ignorant
farmers, who exhaust fertile fields by forcing crops; they rapidly ruined their vast
and rich empire by exorbitant exactions. Inexorable conquerors and insatiable
masters, with one hand they flogged their slaves and with the other plundered
them. Nothing was superior to their insolence, nothing on a level with their greed.
They were never glutted, and never relaxed their extortions. But in proportion as
their needs increased on the one hand, so did their resources diminish on the
other. Their oppressed subjects soon found that they must escape at any cost
from oppressors whom they could neither appease nor satisfy. Each population
took the steps best suited to its position and character; some chose inertia,
others violence. The inhabitants of the plains, powerless and shelterless, bent
like reeds before the storm and evaded the shock against which they were
unable to stand. The mountaineers planted themselves like rocks in a torrent,
and dammed its course with all their might. On both sides arose a determined
resistance, different in method, similar in result. In the case of the peasants
labour came to a stand-still; in that of the hill folk open war broke out. The
grasping exactions of the tyrant dominant body produced nothing from waste
lands and armed mountaineers; destitution and revolt were equally beyond their
power to cope with; and all that was left for tyranny to govern was a desert
enclosed by a wall.

But, all the same, the wants of a magnificent sultan, descendant of the Prophet
and distributor of crowns, must be supplied; and to do this, the Sublime Porte
needed money. Unconsciously imitating the Roman Senate, the Turkish Divan
put up the empire for sale by public auction. All employments were sold to the
highest bidder; pachas, beys, cadis, ministers of every rank, and clerks of every
class had to buy their posts from their sovereign and get the money back out of
his subjects. They spent their money in the capital, and recuperated themselves
in the provinces. And as there was no other law than their master's pleasure, so
there, was no other guarantee than his caprice. They had therefore to set quickly
to work; the post might be lost before its cost had been recovered. Thus all the
science of administration resolved itself into plundering as much and as quickly
as possible. To this end, the delegate of imperial power delegated in his turn, on
similar conditions, other agents to seize for him and for themselves all they could
lay their hands on; so that the inhabitants of the empire might be divided into
three classes--those who were striving to seize everything; those who were trying
to save a little; and those who, having nothing and hoping for nothing, took no
interest in affairs at all.
Albania was one of the most difficult provinces to manage. Its inhabitants were
poor, brave, and, the nature of the country was mountainous and inaccessible.
The pashas had great difficulty in collecting tribute, because the people were
given to fighting for their bread. Whether Mahomedans or Christians, the
Albanians were above all soldiers. Descended on the one side from the
unconquerable Scythians, on the other from the ancient Macedonians, not long
since masters of the world; crossed with Norman adventurers brought eastwards
by the great movement of the Crusades; they felt the blood of warriors flow in
their veins, and that war was their element. Sometimes at feud with one another,
canton against canton, village against village, often even house against house;
sometimes rebelling against the government their sanjaks; sometimes in league
with these against the sultan; they never rested from combat except in an armed
peace. Each tribe had its military organisation, each family its fortified stronghold,
each man his gun on his shoulder. When they had nothing better to do, they tilled
their fields, or mowed their neighbours', carrying off, it should be noted, the crop;
or pastured their, flocks, watching the opportunity to trespass over pasture limits.
This was the normal and regular life of the population of Epirus, Thesprotia,
Thessaly, and Upper Albania. Lower Albania, less strong, was also less active
and bold; and there, as in many other parts of Turkey, the dalesman was often
the prey of the mountaineer. It was in the mountain districts where were
preserved the recollections of Scander Beg, and where the manners of ancient
Laconia prevailed; the deeds of the brave soldier were sung on the lyre, and the
skilful robber quoted as an example to the children by the father of the family.
Village feasts were held on the booty taken from strangers; and the favourite dish
was always a stolen sheep. Every man was esteemed in proportion to his skill
and courage, and a man's chances of making a good match were greatly
enhanced when he acquired the reputation of being an agile mountaineer and a
good bandit.

The Albanians proudly called this anarchy liberty, and religiously guarded a state
of disorder bequeathed by their ancestors, which always assured the first place
to the most valiant.

It was amidst men and manners such as these that Ali Tepeleni was born. He
boasted that he belonged to the conquering race, and that he descended from an
ancient Anatolian family which had crossed into Albania with the troops of
Bajazet Ilderim. But it is made certain by the learned researches of M. de
Pouqueville that he sprang from a native stock, and not an Asiatic one, as he
pretended. His ancestors were Christian Skipetars, who became Mussulmans
after the Turkish invasion, and his ancestry certainly cannot be traced farther
back than the end of the sixteenth century.

Mouktar Tepeleni, his grandfather, perished in the Turkish expedition against

Corfu, in 1716. Marshal Schullemburg, who defended the island, having repulsed
the enemy with loss, took Mouktar prisoner on Mount San Salvador, where he
was in charge of a signalling party, and with a barbarity worthy of his adversaries,
hung him without trial. It must be admitted that the memory of this murder must
have had the effect of rendering Ali badly disposed towards Christians.

Mouktar left three sons, two of whom, Salik and Mahomet, were born of the same
mother, a lawful wife, but the mother of the youngest, Veli, was a slave. His origin
was no legal bar to his succeeding like his brothers. The family was one of the
richest in the town of Tepelen, whose name it bore, it enjoyed an income of six
thousand piastres, equal to twenty thousand francs. This was a large fortune in a
poor country, where, all commodities were cheap. But the Tepeleni family,
holding the rank of beys, had to maintain a state like that of the great financiers
of feudal Europe. They had to keep a large stud of horses, with a great retinue of
servants and men-at-arms, and consequently to incur heavy expenses; thus they
constantly found their revenue inadequate. The most natural means of raising it
which occurred to them was to diminish the number of those who shared it;
therefore the two elder brothers, sons of the wife, combined against Veli, the son
of the slave, and drove him out of the house. The latter, forced to leave home,
bore his fate like a brave man, and determined to levy exactions on others to
compensate him for the losses incurred through his brothers. He became a
freebooter, patrolling highroads and lanes, with his gun on his shoulder and his
yataghan in his belt, attacking, holding for ransom, or plundering all whom he
encountered.

After some years of this profitable business, he found himself a wealthy man and
chief of a warlike band. Judging that the moment for vengeance had arrived, he
marched for Tepelen, which he reached unsuspected, crossed the river Vojutza,
the ancient Aous, penetrated the streets unresisted, and presented himself
before the paternal house, in which his brothers, forewarned, had barricaded
themselves. He at once besieged them, soon forced the gates, and pursued
them to a tent, in which they took a final refuge. He surrounded this tent, waited
till they were inside it, and then set fire to the four corners. "See," said he to
those around him, "they cannot accuse me of vindictive reprisals; my brothers
drove me out of doors, and I retaliate by keeping them at home for ever."

In a few moments he was his father's sole heir and master of Tepelen. Arrived at
the summit of his ambition, he gave up free-booting, and established himself in
the town, of which he became chief ago. He had already a son by a slave, who
soon presented him with another son, and afterwards with a daughter, so that he
had no reason to fear dying without an heir. But finding himself rich enough to
maintain more wives and bring up many children, he desired to increase his
credit by allying himself to some great family of the country. He therefore solicited
and obtained the hand of Kamco, daughter of a bey of Conitza. This marriage
attached him by the ties of relationship to the principal families of the province,
among others to Kourd Pacha, Vizier of Serat, who was descended from the
illustrious race of Scander Beg. After a few years, Veli had by his new wife a son
named Ali, the subject of this history, and a daughter named Chainitza.
Ire spite of his intentions to reform, Veli could not entirely give up his old habits.
Although his fortune placed him altogether above small gains and losses, he
continued to amuse himself by raiding from time to time sheep, goats, and other
perquisites, probably to keep his hand in. This innocent exercise of his taste was
not to the fancy of his neighbours, and brawls and fights recommenced in fine
style. Fortune did not always favour him, and the old mountaineer lost in the town
part of what he had made on the hills. Vexations soured his temper and injured
his health. Notwithstanding the injunctions of Mahomet, he sought consolation in
wine, which soon closed his career. He died in 1754.
 Chapter 2

Ali thus at thirteen years of age was free to indulge in the impetuosity of his
character. From his early youth he had manifested a mettle and activity rare in
young Turks, haughty by nature and self-restrained by education. Scarcely out of
the nursery, he spent his time in climbing mountains, wandering through forests,
scaling precipices, rolling in snow, inhaling the wind, defying the tempests,
breathing out his nervous energy through every pore. Possibly he learnt in the
midst of every kind of danger to brave everything and subdue everything;
possibly in sympathy with the majesty of nature, he felt aroused in him a need of
personal grandeur which nothing could satiate. In vain his father sought to calm
his savage temper; and restrain his vagabond spirit; nothing was of, any use. As
obstinate as intractable, he set at defiance all efforts and all precautions. If they
shut him up, he broke the door or jumped out of the window; if they threatened
him, he pretended to comply, conquered by fear, and promised everything that
was required, but only to break his word the first opportunity. He had a tutor
specially attached to his person and charged to supervise all his actions. He
constantly deluded him by fresh tricks, and when he thought himself free from the
consequences, he maltreated him with gross violence. It was only in his youth,
after his father's death, that he became more manageable; he even consented to
learn to read, to please his mother, whose idol he was, and to whom in return he
gave all his affection.

If Kamco had so strong a liking for Ali, it was because she found in him, not only
her blood, but also her character. During the lifetime of her husband, whom she
feared, she seemed only an ordinary woman; but as soon as his eyes were
closed, she gave free scope to the violent passions which agitated her bosom.
Ambitious, bold, vindictive; she assiduously cultivated the germs of ambition,
hardihood, and vengeance which already strongly showed themselves in the
young Ali. "My son," she was never tired of telling him, "he who cannot defend
his patrimony richly deserves to lose it. Remember that the property of others is
only theirs so long as they are strong enough to keep it, and that when you find
yourself strong enough to take it from them, it is yours. Success justifies
everything, and everything is permissible to him who has the power to do it."

Ali, when he reached the zenith of his greatness, used to declare that his
success was entirely his mother's work. "I owe everything to my mother," he said
one day to the French Consul; "for my father, when he died, left me nothing but a
den of wild beasts and a few fields. My imagination, inflamed by the counsels of
her who has given me life twice over, since she has made me both a man and a
vizier, revealed to me the secret of my destiny. Thenceforward I saw nothing in
Tepelen but the natal air from which I was to spring on the prey which I devoured
mentally. I dreamt of nothing else but power, treasures, palaces, in short what
time has realised and still promises; for the point I have now reached is not the
limit of my hopes."

Kamco did not confine herself to words; she employed every means to increase
the fortune of her beloved son and to make him a power. Her first care was to
poison the children of Veli's favourite slave, who had died before him. Then, at
ease about the interior of her family, she directed her attention to the exterior.
Renouncing all the habit of her sex, she abandoned the veil and the distaff, and
took up arms, under pretext of maintaining the rights of her children. She
collected round her her husband's old partisans, whom she attached to her,
service, some by presents, others by various favours, and she gradually enlisted
all the lawless and adventurous men in Toscaria. With their aid, she made herself
all powerful in Tepelen, and inflicted the most rigorous persecutions on such as
remained hostile to her.

But the inhabitants of the two adjacent villages of Kormovo and Kardiki, fearing
lest this terrible woman, aided by her son, now grown into a man, should strike a
blow against their independence; made a secret alliance against her, with the
object of putting her out of the way the first convenient opportunity. Learning one
day that Ali had started on a distant expedition with his best soldiers; they
surprised Tepelen under cover of night, and carried off Kamco and her daughter
Chainitza captives to Kardiki. It was proposed to put them to death; and sufficient
evidence to justify their execution was not wanting; but their beauty saved their
lives; their captors preferred to revenge themselves by licentiousness rather than
by murder. Shut up all day in prison, they only emerged at night to pass into the
arms of the men who had won them by lot the previous morning. This state of
things lasted for a month, at the end of which a Greek of Argyro-Castron, named
G. Malicovo, moved by compassion for their horrible fate, ransomed them for
twenty thousand piastres, and took them back to Tepelen.

Ali had just returned. He was accosted by his mother and sister, pale with
fatigue, shame, and rage. They told him what had taken place, with cries and
tears, and Kamco added, fixing her distracted eyes upon him, "My son! my son!
my soul will enjoy no peace till Kormovo and Kardikil destroyed by thy scimitar,
will no longer exist to bear witness to my dishonour."
Ali, in whom this sight and this story had aroused, sanguinary passions,
promised a vengeance proportioned to the outrage, and worked with all his might
to place himself in a position to keep his word. A worthy son of his father, he had
commenced life in the fashion of the heroes of ancient Greece, stealing sheep
and goats, and from the age of fourteen years he had acquired an equal
reputation to that earned by the son of Jupiter and Maia. When he grew to
manhood, he extended his operations. At the time of which we are speaking, he
had long practised open pillage. His plundering expeditions added to his mother's
savings, who since her return from Kardiki had altogether withdrawn from public
life, and devoted herself to household duties, enabled him to collect a
considerable force for am expedition against Kormovo, one of the two towns he
had sworn to destroy. He marched against it at the head of his banditti, but found
himself vigorously opposed, lost part of his force, and was obliged to save
himself and the rest by flight. He did not stop till he reached Tepelen, where he
had a warm reception from Kamco, whose thirst for vengeance had been
disappointed by his defeat. "Go!" said she, "go, coward! go spin with the women
in the harem! The distaff is a better weapon for you than the scimitar! "The young
man answered not a word, but, deeply wounded by these reproaches, retired to
hide his humiliation in the bosom of his old friend the mountain. The popular
legend, always thirsting for the marvellous in the adventures of heroes, has it that
he found in the ruins of a church a treasure which enabled him to reconstitute his
party. But he himself has contradicted this story, stating that it was by the
ordinary methods of rapine and plunder that he replenished his finances. He
selected from his old band of brigands thirty palikars, and entered, as their
bouloubachi, or leader of the group, into the service of the Pacha of Negropont.
But he soon tired of the methodical life he was obliged to lead, and passed into
Thessaly, where, following the example of his father Veli, he employed his time in
brigandage on the highways. Thence he raided the Pindus chain of mountains,
plundered a great number of villages, and returned to Tepelen, richer and
consequently more esteemed than ever.

He employed his fortune and influence in collecting a formidable guerilla force,

and resumed his plundering operations. Kurd Pacha soon found himself
compelled, by the universal outcry of the province, to take active measures
against this young brigand. He sent against him a division of troops, which
defeated him and brought him prisoner with his men to Berat, the capital of
Central Albania and residence of the governor. The country flattered itself that at
length it was freed from its scourge. The whole body of bandits was condemned
to death; but Ali was not the man to surrender his life so easily. Whilst they were
hanging his comrades, he threw himself at the feet of the pacha and begged for
mercy in the name of his parents, excusing himself on account of his youth, and
promising a lasting reform. The pacha, seeing at his feet a comely youth, with fair
hair and blue eyes, a persuasive voice, and eloquent tongue, and in whose veins
flowed the same blood as his own, was moved with pity and pardoned him. Ali
got off with a mild captivity in the palace of his powerful relative, who heaped
benefits upon him, and did all he could to lead him into the paths of probity. He
appeared amenable to these good influences, and bitterly to repent his past
errors. After some years, believing in his reformation, and moved by the prayers
of Kamco, who incessantly implored the restitution of her dear son, the generous
pacha restored him his liberty, only giving him to under stand that he had no
more mercy to expect if he again disturbed the public peace. Ali taking the threat
seriously; did not run the risk of braving it, and, on the contrary, did all he could to
conciliate the man whose anger he dared not kindle. Not only did he keep the
promise he had made to live quietly, but by his good conduct he caused his,
former escapades to be forgotten, putting under obligation all his neighbours, and
attaching to himself, through the services he rendered them, a great number of
friendly disposed persons. In this manner he soon assumed a distinguished and
honourable rank among the beys of the country, and being of marriageable age,
he sought and formed an alliance with the daughter of Capelan Tigre, Pacha of
Delvino, who resided at Argyro-Castron. This union, happy on both sides, gave
him, with one of the most accomplished women in Epirus, a high position and
great influence.

It seemed as if this marriage were destined to wean Ali forever from his former
turbulent habits and wild adventures. But the family into which he had married
afforded violent contrasts and equal elements of good and mischief. If Emineh,
his wife, was a model of virtue, his father-in-law, Capelan, was a composition of
every vice--selfish, ambitious, turbulent, fierce. Confident in his courage, and
further emboldened by his remoteness from the capital, the Pacha of Delvino
gloried in setting law and authority at defiance.

Ali's disposition was too much like that of his father-in-law to prevent him from
taking his measure very quickly. He soon got on good terms with him, and
entered into his schemes, waiting for an opportunity to denounce him and
become his successor. For this opportunity he had not long to wait.

Capelan's object in giving his daughter to Tepeleni was to enlist him among the
beys of the province to gain independence, the ruling passion of viziers. The
cunning young man pretended to enter into the views of his father-in-law, and did
all he could to urge him into the path of rebellion.

An adventurer named Stephano Piccolo, an emissary of Russia, had just raised

in Albania the standard of the Cross and called to arms all the Christians of the
Acroceraunian Mountains. The Divan sent orders to all the pachas of Northern
Turkey in Europe to instantly march against the insurgents and quell the rising in
blood.

Instead of obeying the orders of the Divan and joining Kurd Pacha, who had
summoned him, Capelan, at the instigation of his son-in-law, did all he could to
embarrass the movement of the imperial troops, and without openly making
common cause with the insurgents, he rendered them substantial aid in their
resistance. They were, notwithstanding, conquered and dispersed; and their
chief, Stephano Piccolo, had to take refuge in the unexplored caves of
Montenegro.

When the struggle was over, Capelan, as Ali had foreseen, was summoned to
give an account of his conduct before the roumeli-valicy, supreme judge over
Turkey in Europe. He was not only accused of the gravest offences, but proofs of
them were forwarded to the Divan by the very man who had instigated them.
There could be no doubt as to the result of the inquiry; therefore, the pacha, who
had no suspicions of his son-in-law's duplicity, determined not to leave his
pachalik. That was not in accordance with the plans of Ali, who wished to
succeed to both the government and the wealth of his father-in-law. He
accordingly made the most plausible remonstrances against the inefficacy and
danger of such a resistance. To refuse to plead was tantamount to a confession
of guilt, and was certain to bring on his head a storm against which he was
powerless to cope, whilst if he obeyed the orders of the roumeli-valicy he would
find it easy to excuse himself. To give more effect to his perfidious advice, Ali
further employed the innocent Emineh, who was easily alarmed on her father's
account. Overcome by the reasoning of his son-in-law and the tears of his
daughter, the unfortunate pacha consented to go to Monastir, where he had been
summoned to appear, and where he was immediately arrested and beheaded.

Ali's schemes had succeeded, but both his ambition and his cupidity were
frustrated. Ali, Bey of Argyro-Castron, who had throughout shown himself
devoted to the sultan, was nominated Pacha of Delvino in place of Capelan. He
sequestered all the property of his predecessor, as confiscated to the sultan, and
thus deprived Ali Tepeleni of all the fruits of his crime.

This disappointment kindled the wrath of the ambitious Ali. He swore vengeance
for the spoliation of which he considered himself the victim. But the moment was
not favourable for putting his projects in train. The murder of Capelan, which its
perpetrator intended for a mere crime, proved a huge blunder. The numerous
enemies of Tepeleni, silent under the administration of the late pacha, whose
resentment they had cause to fear, soon made common cause under the new
one, for whose support they had hopes. Ali saw the danger, sought and found
the means to obviate it. He succeeded in making a match between Ali of Argyro-
Castron, who was unmarried, and Chainitza, his own sister. This alliance secured
to him the government of Tigre, which he held under Capelan. But that was not
sufficient. He must put himself in a state of security against the dangers he had
lately, experienced, and establish himself on a firm footing' against possible
accidents. He soon formed a plan, which he himself described to the French
Consul in the following words:--

"Years were elapsing," said he, "and brought no important change in my position.
I was an important partisan, it is true, and strongly supported, but I held no title or
Government employment of my own. I recognised the necessity of establishing
myself firmly in my birthplace. I had devoted friends, and formidable foes, bent on
my destruction, whom I must put out of the way, for my own safety. I set about a
plan for destroying them at one blow, and ended by devising one with which I
ought to have commenced my career. Had I done so, I should have saved much
time and pains.

"I was in the habit of going every day, after hunting, for a siesta in a neighbouring
wood. A confidential servant of mine suggested to my enemies the idea of
surprising me and assassinating one there. I myself supplied the plan of the
conspiracy, which was adopted. On the day agreed upon, I preceded my
adversaries to the place where I was accustomed to repose, and caused a goat
to be pinioned and muzzled, and fastened under the tree, covered with my cape;
I then returned home by a roundabout path. Soon after I had left, the conspirators
arrived, and fired a volley at the goat.

"They ran up to make certain of my death, but were interrupted by a piquet of my

men, who unexpectedly emerged from a copse where I had posted them, and
they were obliged to return to Tepelen, which they entered, riotous with joy,
crying 'Ali Bey is dead, now we are free!' This news reached my harem, and I
heard the cries of my mother and my wife mingled with the shouts of my
enemies. I allowed the commotion to run its course and reach its height, so as to
indicate which were my friends and which my foes. But when the former were at
the depth of their distress and the latter at the height of their joy, and, exulting in
their supposed victory, had drowned their prudence and their courage in floods of
wine, then, strong in the justice of my cause, I appeared upon the scene. Now
was the time for my friends to triumph and for my foes to tremble. I set to work at
the head of my partisans, and before sunrise had exterminated the last of my
enemies. I distributed their lands, their houses, and their goods amongst my
followers, and from that moment I could call the town of Tepelen my own."

A less ambitious man might perhaps have remained satisfied with such a result.
But Ali did not look upon the suzerainty of a canton as a final object, but only as a
means to an end; and he had not made himself master of Tepelen to limit himself
to a petty state, but to employ it as a base of operations.

He had allied himself to Ali of Argyro-Castron to get rid of his enemies; once free
from them, he began to plot against his supplanter. He forgot neither his
vindictive projects nor his ambitious schemes. As prudent in execution as bold in
design, he took good care not to openly attack a man stronger than himself, and
gained by stratagem what he could not obtain by violence. The honest and
straightforward character of his brother-in-law afforded an easy success to his
perfidy. He began by endeavouring to suborn his sister Chainitza, and several
times proposed to her to poison her husband; but she, who dearly loved the
pacha, who was a kind husband and to whom she had borne two children,
repulsed his suggestions with horror, and threatened, if he persisted, to
denounce him. Ali, fearing the consequences if she carried out her threat,
begged forgiveness for his wicked plans, pretended deep repentance, and spoke
of his brother-in-law in terms of the warmest affection. His acting was so
consummate that even Chainitza, who well knew her brother's subtle character,
was deceived by it. When he saw that she was his dupe, knowing that he had
nothing more either to fear or to hope for from that side, he directed his attention
to another.

The pacha had a brother named Soliman, whose character nearly resembled that
of Tepeleni. The latter, after having for some time quietly studied him, thought he
discerned in him the man he wanted; he tempted him to kill the pacha, offering
him, as the price of this crime, his whole inheritance and the hand of Chainitza,
only reserving for himself the long coveted sanjak. Soliman accepted the
proposals, and the fratricidal bargain was concluded. The two conspirators, sole
masters of the secret, the horrible nature of which guaranteed their mutual
fidelity, and having free access to the person of their victim; could not fail in their
object.

One day, when they were both received by the pacha in private audience,
Soliman, taking advantage of a moment when he was unobserved, drew a pistol
from his belt and blew out his brother's brains. Chainitza ran at the sound, and
saw her husband lying dead between her brother and her brother-in-law. Her
cries for help were stopped by threats of death if she moved or uttered a sound.
As she lay, fainting with grief and terror, Ali made, a sign to Soliman, who
covered her with his cloak, and declared her his wife. Ali pronounced the
marriage concluded, and retired for it to be consummated. Thus was celebrated
this frightful wedding, in the scene of an awful crime; beside the corpse of a man
who a moment before had been the husband of the bride and the brother of the
bridegroom.

The assassins published the death of the pacha, attributing it, as is usual in
Turkey, to a fit of cerebral apoplexy. But the truth soon leaked out from the lying
shrouds in which it had been wrapped. Reports even exceeded the truth, and
public opinion implicated Chainitza in a crime of which she had been but the
witness. Appearances certainly justified these suspicions. The young wife had
soon consoled herself in the arms of her second husband for the loss of the first,
and her son by him presently died suddenly, thus leaving Soliman in lawful and
peaceful possession of all his brother's wealth. As for the little girl, as she had no
rights and could hurt no one, her life was spared; and she was eventually married
to a bey of Cleisoura, destined in the sequel to cut a tragic figure in the history of
the Tepeleni family.

But Ali was once more deprived of the fruit of his bloody schemes.
Notwithstanding all his intrigues, the sanjak of Delvino was conferred, not upon
him, but upon a bey of one of the first families of Zapouria. But, far from being
discouraged, he recommenced with new boldness and still greater confidence
the work of his elevation, so often begun and so often interrupted. He took
advantage of his increasing influence to ingratiate himself with the new pasha,
and was so successful in insinuating himself into his confidence, that he was
received into the palace and treated like the pacha's son. There he acquired
complete knowledge of the details of the pachalik and the affairs of the pacha,
preparing himself to govern the one when he had got rid of the other.

The sanjak of Delvino was bounded from Venetian territory by the district of
Buthrotum. Selim, a better neighbour and an abler politician than his
predecessors, sought to renew and preserve friendly commercial relations with
the purveyors of the Magnificent Republic. This wise conduct, equally
advantageous for both the bordering provinces, instead of gaining for the pacha
the praise and favours which he deserved, rendered him suspected at a court
whose sole political idea was hatred of the name of Christian, and whose sole
means of government was terror. Ali immediately perceived the pacha's error,
and the advantage which he himself could derive from it. Selim, as one of his
commercial transactions with the Venetians, had sold them, for a number of
years, the right of felling timber in a forest near Lake Reloda. Ali immediately took
advantage of this to denounce the pasha as guilty of having alienated the
territory of the Sublime Porte, and of a desire to deliver to the infidels all the
province of Delvino. Masking his ambitious designs under the veil of religion and
patriotism, he lamented, in his denunciatory report, the necessity under which he
found himself, as a loyal subject and faithful Mussulman, of accusing a man who
had been his benefactor, and thus at the same time gained the benefit of crime
and the credit of virtue.

Under the gloomy despotism of the Turks, a man in any position of responsibility
is condemned almost as soon as accused; and if he is not strong enough to
inspire terror, his ruin is certain. Ali received at Tepelen, where he had retired to
more conveniently weave his perfidious plots, an order to get rid of the pacha. At
the receipt of the firman of execution he leaped with joy, and flew to Delvino to
seize the prey which was abandoned to him.

The noble Selim, little suspecting that his protege had become his accuser and
was preparing to become his executioner, received him with more tenderness
than ever, and lodged him, as heretofore, in his palace. Under the shadow of this
hospitable roof, Ali skilfully prepared the consummation of the crime which was
for ever to draw him out of obscurity. He went every morning to pay his court to
the pacha, whose confidence he doubted; then, one day, feigning illness, he sent
excuses for inability to pay his respects to a man whom he was accustomed to
regard as his father, and begged him to come for a moment into his apartment.
The invitation being accepted, he concealed assassins in one of the cupboards
without shelves, so common in the East, which contain by day the mattresses
spread by night on the floor for the slaves to sleep upon. At the hour fixed, the
old man arrived. Ali rose from his sofa with a depressed air, met him, kissed the
hem of his robe, and, after seating him in his place, himself offered him a pipe-
and coffee, which were accepted. But instead of putting the cup in the hand
stretched to receive it, he let it fall on the floor, where it broke into a thousand
pieces. This was the signal. The assassins sprang from their retreat and darted
upon Selim, who fell, exclaiming, like Caesar, "And it is thou, my son, who takest
my life!"

At the sound of the tumult which followed the assassination, Selim's bodyguard,
running up, found Ali erect, covered with blood, surrounded by assassins, holding
in his hand the firman displayed, and crying with a menacing voice, "I have killed
the traitor Selim by the order of our glorious sultan; here is his imperial
command." At these words, and the sight of the fatal diploma, all prostrated
themselves terror-stricken. Ali, after ordering the decapitation of Selim, whose
head he seized as a trophy, ordered the cadi, the beys, and the Greek archons to
meet at the palace, to prepare the official account of the execution of the
sentence. They assembled, trembling; the sacred hymn of the Fatahat was sung,
and the murder declared legal, in the name of the merciful and compassionate
God, Lord of the world.

When they had sealed up the effects of the victim, the murderer left the palace,
taking with him, as a hostage, Mustapha, son of Selim, destined to be even more
unfortunate than his father.

A few days afterwards, the Divan awarded to Ali Tepeleni, as a reward for his
zeal for the State and religion, the sanjak of Thessaly, with the title of Dervendgi-
pacha, or Provost Marshal of the roads. This latter dignity was conferred on the
condition of his levying a body of four thousand men to clear the valley of the
Peneus of a multitude of Christian chiefs who exercised more power than the
officers of the Grand Seigneur. The new pacha took advantage of this to enlist a
numerous body of Albanians ready for any enterprise, and completely devoted to
him. With two important commands, and with this strong force at his back, he
repaired to Trikala, the seat of his government, where he speedily acquired great
influence.

His first act of authority was to exterminate the bands of Armatolis, or Christian
militia, which infested the plain. He laid violent hands on all whom he caught, and
drove the rest back into their mountains, splitting them up into small bands whom
he could deal with at his pleasure. At the same time he sent a few heads to
Constantinople, to amuse the sultan and the mob, and some money to the
ministers to gain their support. "For," said he, "water sleeps, but envy never
does." These steps were prudent, and whilst his credit increased at court, order
was reestablished from the defiles of the Perrebia of Pindus to the vale of Tempe
and to the pass of Thermopylae.

These exploits of the provost-marshal, amplified by Oriental exaggeration,

justified the ideas which were entertained of the capacity of Ali Pacha. Impatient
of celebrity, he took good care himself to spread his fame, relating his prowess to
all comers, making presents to the sultan's officers who came into his
government, and showing travellers his palace courtyard festooned with
decapitated heads. But what chiefly tended to consolidate his power was the
treasure which he ceaselessly amassed by every means. He never struck for the
mere pleasure of striking, and the numerous victims of his proscriptions only
perished to enrich him. His death sentences always fell on beys and wealthy
persons whom he wished to plunder. In his eyes the axe was but an instrument
of fortune, and the executioner a tax-gatherer.
 Chapter 3

Having governed Thessaly in this manner during several years, Ali found himself
in a position to acquire the province of Janina, the possession of which, by
making him master of Epirus, would enable him to crush all his enemies and to
reign supreme over the three divisions of Albania.

But before he could succeed in this, it was necessary to dispose of the pacha
already in possession. Fortunately for Ali, the latter was a weak and indolent
man, quite incapable of struggling against so formidable a rival; and his enemy
speedily conceived and put into execution a plan intended to bring about the
fulfilment of his desires. He came to terms with the same Armatolians whom he
had formerly treated so harshly, and let them loose, provided with arms and
ammunition, on the country which he wished to obtain. Soon the whole region
echoed with stories of devastation and pillage. The pacha, unable to repel the
incursions of these mountaineers, employed the few troops he had in oppressing
the inhabitants of the plains, who, groaning under both extortion and rapine,
vainly filled the air with their despairing cries. Ali hoped that the Divan, which
usually judged only after the event, seeing that Epirus lay desolate, while
Thessaly flourished under his own administration, would, before long, entrust
himself with the government of both provinces, when a family incident occurred,
which for a time diverted the course of his political manoeuvres.

For a long time his mother Kamco had suffered from an internal cancer, the
result of a life of depravity. Feeling that her end drew near, she despatched
messenger after messenger, summoning her son to her bedside. He started, but
arrived too late, and found only his sister Chainitza mourning over the body of
their mother, who had expired in her arms an hour previously. Breathing
unutterable rage and pronouncing horrible imprecations against Heaven, Kamco
had commanded her children, under pain of her dying curse, to carry out her last
wishes faithfully. After having long given way to their grief, Ali and Chainitza read
together the document which contained these commands. It ordained some
special assassinations, mentioned sundry villages which, some day; were to be
given to the flames, but ordered them most especially, as soon as possible, to
exterminate the inhabitants of Kormovo and Kardiki, from whom she had endured
the last horrors of slavery.

Then, after advising her children to remain united, to enrich their soldiers, and to
count as nothing people who were useless to them, Kamco ended by
commanding them to send in her name a pilgrim to Mecca, who should deposit
an offering on the tomb of the Prophet for the repose of her soul. Having perused
these last injunctions, Ali and Chainitza joined hands, and over the inanimate
remains of their departed mother swore to accomplish her dying behests.
The pilgrimage came first under consideration. Now a pilgrim can only be sent as
proxy to Mecca, or offerings be made at the tomb of Medina, at the expense of
legitimately acquired property duly sold for the purpose. The brother and sister
made a careful examination of the family estates, and after long hunting, thought
they had found the correct thing in a small property of about fifteen hundred
francs income, inherited from their great-grandfather, founder of the Tepel-Enian
dynasty. But further investigations disclosed that even this last resource had
been forcibly taken from a Christian, and the idea of a pious pilgrimage and a
sacred offering had to be given up. They then agreed to atone for the
impossibility of expiation by the grandeur of their vengeance, and swore to
pursue without ceasing and to destroy without mercy all enemies of their family.

The best mode of carrying out this terrible and self-given pledge was that Ali
should resume his plans of aggrandizement exactly where he had left them. He
succeeded in acquiring the pachalik of Janina, which was granted him by the
Porte under the title of "arpalik," or conquest. It was an old custom, natural to the
warlike habits of the Turks, to bestow the Government provinces or towns
affecting to despise the authority of the Grand Seigneur on whomsoever
succeeded in controlling them, and Janina occupied this position. It was
principally inhabited by Albanians, who had an enthusiastic admiration for
anarchy, dignified by them with the name of "Liberty," and who thought
themselves independent in proportion to the disturbance they succeeded in
making. Each lived retired as if in a mountain castle, and only went out in order to
participate in the quarrels of his faction in the forum. As for the pachas, they were
relegated to the old castle on the lake, and there was no difficulty in obtaining
their recall.

Consequently there was a general outcry at the news of Ali Pacha's nomination,
and it was unanimously agreed that a man whose character and power were
alike dreaded must not be admitted within the walls of Janina. Ali, not choosing to
risk his forces in an open battle with a warlike population, and preferring a slower
and safer way to a short and dangerous one, began by pillaging the villages and
farms belonging to his most powerful opponents. His tactics succeeded, and the
very persons who had been foremost in vowing hatred to the son of Kamco and
who had sworn most loudly that they would die rather than submit to the tyrant,
seeing their property daily ravaged, and impending ruin if hostilities continued,
applied themselves to procure peace. Messengers were sent secretly to Ali,
offering to admit him into Janina if he would undertake to respect the lives and
property of his new allies. Ali promised whatever they asked, and entered the
town by night. His first proceeding was to appear before the cadi, whom he
compelled to register and proclaim his firmans of investiture.

In the same year in which he arrived at this dignity, really the desire and object of
Ali's whole life, occurred also the death of the Sultan Abdul Hamid, whose two
sons, Mustapha and Mahmoud, were confined in the Old Seraglio. This change
of rulers, however, made no difference to Ali; the peaceful Selim, exchanging the
prison to which his nephews were now relegated, for the throne of their father,
confirmed the Pacha of Janina in the titles, offices, and privileges which had
been conferred on him.

Established in his position by this double investiture, Ali applied himself to the
definite settlement of his claims. He was now fifty years of age, and was at the
height of his intellectual development: experience had been his teacher, and the
lesson of no single event had been lost upon him. An uncultivated but just and
penetrating mind enabled him to comprehend facts, analyse causes, and
anticipate results; and as his heart never interfered with the deductions of his
rough intelligence, he had by a sort of logical sequence formulated an inflexible
plan of action. This man, wholly ignorant, not only of the ideas of history but also
of the great names of Europe, had succeeded in divining, and as a natural
consequence of his active and practical character, in also realising Macchiavelli,
as is amply shown in the expansion of his greatness and the exercise of his
power. Without faith in God, despising men, loving and thinking only of himself,
distrusting all around him, audacious in design, immovable in resolution,
inexorable in execution, merciless in vengeance, by turns insolent, humble,
violent, or supple according to circumstances, always and entirely logical in his
egotism, he is Cesar Borgia reborn as a Mussulman; he is the incarnate ideal of
Florentine policy, the Italian prince converted into a satrap.

Age had as yet in no way impaired Ali's strength and activity, and nothing
prevented his profiting by the advantages of his position. Already possessing
great riches, which every day saw increasing under his management, he
maintained a large body of warlike and devoted troops, he united the offices of
Pacha of two tails of Janina, of Toparch of Thessaly, and of Provost Marshal of
the Highway. As influential aids both to his reputation for general ability and the
terror of his' arms, and his authority as ruler, there stood by his side two sons,
Mouktar and Veli, offspring of his wife Emineh, both fully grown and carefully
educated in the principles of their father.

Ali's first care, once master of Janina, was to annihilate the beys forming the
aristocracy of the place, whose hatred he was well aware of, and whose plots he
dreaded. He ruined them all, banishing many and putting others to death.
Knowing that he must make friends to supply the vacancy caused by the
destruction of his foes, he enriched with the spoil the Albanian mountaineers in
his pay, known by the name of Skipetars, on whom he conferred most of the
vacant employments. But much too prudent to allow all the power to fall into the
hands of a single caste, although a foreign one to the capital, he, by a singular
innovation, added to and mixed with them an infusion of Orthodox Greeks, a
skilful but despised race, whose talents he could use without having to dread
their influence. While thus endeavouring on one side to destroy the power of his
enemies by depriving them of both authority and wealth, and on the other to
consolidate his own by establishing a firm administration, he neglected no means
of acquiring popularity. A fervent disciple of Mahomet when among fanatic
Mussulmans, a materialist with the Bektagis who professed a rude pantheism, a
Christian among the Greeks, with whom he drank to the health of the Holy Virgin,
he made everywhere partisans by flattering the idea most in vogue. But if he
constantly changed both opinions and language when dealing with subordinates
whom it was desirable to win over, Ali towards his superiors had one only line of
conduct which he never transgressed. Obsequious towards the Sublime Porte,
so long as it did not interfere with his private authority, he not only paid with
exactitude all dues to the sultan, to whom he even often advanced money, but he
also pensioned the most influential ministers. He was bent on having no enemies
who could really injure his power, and he knew that in an absolute government
no conviction can hold its own against the power of gold.

Having thus annihilated the nobles, deceived the multitude with plausible words
and lulled to sleep the watchfulness of the Divan, Ali resolved to turn his arms
against Kormovo. At the foot of its rocks he had, in youth, experienced the
disgrace of defeat, and during thirty nights Kamco and Chainitza had endured all
horrors of outrage at the hands of its warriors. Thus the implacable pacha had a
twofold wrong to punish, a double vengeance to exact.

This time, profiting by experience, he called in the aid of treachery. Arrived at the
citadel, he negotiated, promised an amnesty, forgiveness for all, actual rewards
for some. The inhabitants, only too happy to make peace with so formidable an
adversary, demanded and obtained a truce to settle the conditions. This was
exactly what Ali expected, and Kormovo, sleeping on the faith of the treaty, was
suddenly attacked and taken. All who did not escape by flight perished by the
sword in the darkness, or by the hand of the executioner the next morning. Those
who had offered violence aforetime to Ali's mother and sister were carefully
sought for, and whether convicted or merely accused, were impaled on spits, torn
with redhot pincers, and slowly roasted between two fires; the women were
shaved and publicly scourged, and then sold as slaves.

This vengeance, in which all the nobles of the province not yet entirely ruined
were compelled to assist, was worth a decisive victory to Ali. Towns, cantons,
whole districts, overwhelmed with terror, submitted without striking a blow, and
his name, joined to the recital of a massacre which ranked as a glorious exploit in
the eyes of this savage people, echoed like thunder from valley to valley and
mountain to mountain. In order that all surrounding him might participate in the
joy of his success Ali gave his army a splendid festival. Of unrivalled activity, and,
Mohammedan only in name, he himself led the chorus in the Pyrrhic and Klephtic
dances, the ceremonials of warriors and of robbers. There was no lack of wine,
of sheep, goats, and lambs roasted before enormous fires; made of the debris of
the ruined city; antique games of archery and wrestling were celebrated, and the
victors received their prizes from the hand of their chief. The plunder, slaves, and
cattle were then shared, and the Tapygae, considered as the lowest of the four
tribes composing the race of Skipetars, and ranking as the refuse of the army,
carried off into the mountains of Acroceraunia, doors, windows, nails, and even
the tiles of the houses, which were then all surrendered to the flames.

However, Ibrahim, the successor and son-in-law of Kurd Pacha, could not see
with indifference part of his province invaded by his ambitious neighbour. He
complained and negotiated, but obtaining no satisfaction, called out an army
composed of Skipetars of Toxid, all Islamites, and gave the command to his
brother Sepher, Bey of Avlone. Ali, who had adopted the policy of opposing
alternately the Cross to the Crescent and the Crescent to the Cross, summoned
to his aid the Christian chiefs of the mountains, who descended into the plains at
the head of their unconquered troops. As is generally the case in Albania, where
war is merely an excuse for brigandage, instead of deciding matters by a pitched
battle, both sides contented themselves with burning villages, hanging peasants,
and carrying off cattle.

Also, in accordance with the custom of the country, the women interposed
between the combatants, and the good and gentle Emineh laid proposals of
peace before Ibrahim Pacha, to whose apathetic disposition a state of war was
disagreeable, and who was only too happy to conclude a fairly satisfactory
negotiation. A family alliance was arranged, in virtue of which Ali retained his
conquests, which were considered as the marriage portion of Ibrahim's eldest
daughter, who became the wife of Ali's eldest son, Mouktar.

It was hoped that this peace might prove permanent, but the marriage which
sealed the treaty was barely concluded before a fresh quarrel broke out between
the pachas. Ali, having wrung such important concessions from the weakness of
his neighbour, desired to obtain yet more. But closely allied to Ibrahim were two
persons gifted with great firmness of character and unusual ability, whose
position gave them great influence. They were his wife Zaidee, and his brother
Sepher, who had been in command during the war just terminated. As both were
inimical to Ali, who could not hope to corrupt them, the latter resolved to get rid of
them.

Having in the days of his youth been intimate with Kurd Pacha, Ali had
endeavoured to seduce his daughter, already the wife of Ibrahim. Being
discovered by the latter in the act of scaling the wall of his harem, he had been
obliged to fly the country. Wishing now to ruin the woman whom he had formerly
tried to corrupt, Ali sought to turn his former crime to the success of a new one.
Anonymous letters, secretly sent to Ibrahim, warned him that his wife intended to
poison him, in order to be able later to marry Ali Pacha, whom she had always
loved. In a country like Turkey, where to suspect a woman is to accuse her, and
accusation is synonymous with condemnation, such a calumny might easily
cause the death of the innocent Zaidee. But if Ibrahim was weak and indolent, he
was also confiding and generous. He took the letters; to his wife, who had no
difficulty in clearing herself, and who warned him against the writer, whose object
and plots she easily divined, so that this odious conspiracy turned only to Ali's
discredit. But the latter was not likely either to concern himself as to what others
said or thought about him or to be disconcerted by a failure. He simply turned his
machinations against his other enemy, and arranged matters this time so as to
avoid a failure.

He sent to Zagori, a district noted for its doctors, for a quack who undertook to
poison Sepher Bey on condition of receiving forty purses. When all was settled,
the miscreant set out for Berat, and was immediately accused by Ali of evasion,
and his wife and children were arrested as accomplices and detained, apparently
as hostages for the good behaviour of their husband and father, but really as
pledges for his silence when the crime should have been accomplished. Sepher
Bey, informed of this by letters which Ali wrote to the Pacha of Berat demanding
the fugitive, thought that a man persecuted by his enemy would be faithful to
himself, and took the supposed runaway into his service. The traitor made skilful
use of the kindness of his too credulous protector, insinuated himself into his
confidence, became his trusted physician and apothecary, and gave him poison
instead of medicine on the very first appearance of indisposition. As soon as
symptoms of death appeared, the poisoner fled, aided by the emissaries of All,
with whom the court of Berat was packed, and presented himself at Janina to
receive the reward of his crime. Ali thanked him for his zeal, commended his skill,
and referred him to the treasurer. But the instant the wretch left the seraglio in
order to receive his recompense, he was seized by the executioners and hurried
to the gallows. In thus punishing the assassin, Ali at one blow discharged the
debt he owed him, disposed of the single witness to be dreaded, and displayed
his own friendship for the victim! Not content with this, he endeavoured to again
throw suspicion on the wife of Ibrahim Pacha, whom he accused of being jealous
of the influence which Sepher Pacha had exercised in the family. This he
mentioned regularly in conversation, writing in the same style to his agents at
Constantinople, and everywhere where there was any profit in slandering a
family whose ruin he desired for the sake of their possessions. Before long he
made a pretext out of the scandal started by himself, and prepared to take up
arms in order, he said, to avenge his friend Sepher Bey, when he was anticipated
by Ibrahim Pacha, who roused against him the allied Christians of Thesprotia,
foremost among whom ranked the Suliots famed through Albania for their
courage and their love of independence.

After several battles, in which his enemies had the a vantage, Ali began
negotiations with Ibrahim, and finally concluded a treaty offensive and defensive.
This fresh alliance was, like the first, to be cemented by a marriage. The virtuous
Emineh, seeing her son Veli united to the second daughter of Ibrahim, trusted
that the feud between the two families was now quenched, and thought herself at
the summit of happiness. But her joy was not of long duration; the death-groan
was again to be heard amidst the songs of the marriage-feast.
The daughter of Chainitza, by her first husband, Ali, had married a certain Murad,
the Bey of Clerisoura. This nobleman, attached to Ibrahim Pacha by both blood
and affection, since the death of Sepher Bey, had, become the special object of
Ali's hatred, caused by the devotion of Murad to his patron, over whom he had
great influence, and from whom nothing could detach him. Skilful in concealing
truth under special pretexts, Ali gave out that the cause of his known dislike to
this young man was that the latter, although his nephew by marriage, had several
times fought in hostile ranks against him. Therefore the amiable Ibrahim made
use of the marriage treaty to arrange an honourable reconciliation between
Murad Bey and his uncle, and appointed the former "Ruler a the Marriage Feast,"
in which capacity he was charged to conduct the bride to Janina and deliver her
to her husband, the young Veli Bey. He had accomplished his mission
satisfactorily, and was received by Ali with all apparent hospitality. The festival
began on his arrival towards the end of November 1791, and had already
continued several days, when suddenly it was announced that a shot had been
fired upon Ali, who had only escaped by a miracle, and that the assassin was still
at large. This news spread terror through the city and the palace, and everyone
dreaded being seized as the guilty person. Spies were everywhere employed,
but they declared search was useless, and that there must bean extensive
conspiracy against Ali's life. The latter complained of being surrounded by
enemies, and announced that henceforth he would receive only one person at a
time, who should lay down his arms before entering the hall now set apart for
public audience. It was a chamber built over a vault, and entered by a sort of
trap-door, only reached by a ladder.

After having for several days received his couriers in this sort of dovecot, Ali
summoned his nephew in order to entrust with him the wedding gifts. Murad took
this as a sign of favour, and joyfully acknowledged the congratulations of his
friends. He presented himself at the time arranged, the guards at the foot of the
ladder demanded his arms, which he gave up readily, and ascended the ladder
full of hope. Scarcely had the trap-door closed behind him when a pistol ball,
fired from a dark corner, broke his shoulder blade, and he fell, but sprang up and
attempted to fly. Ali issued from his hiding place and sprang upon him, but
notwithstanding his wound the young bey defended himself vigorously, uttering
terrible cries. The pacha, eager to finish, and finding his hands insufficient,
caught a burning log from the hearth, struck his nephew in the face with it, felled
him to the ground, and completed his bloody task. This accomplished, Ali called
for help with loud cries, and when his guards entered he showed the bruises he
had received and the blood with which he was covered, declaring that he had
killed in self-defence a villain who endeavoured to assassinate him. He ordered
the body to be searched, and a letter was found in a pocket which Ali had himself
just placed there, which purported to give the details of the pretended conspiracy.

As Murad's brother was seriously compromised by this letter, he also was

immediately seized, and strangled without any pretence of trial. The whole
palace rejoiced, thanks were rendered to Heaven by one of those sacrifices of
animals still occasionally made in the East to celebrate an escape from great
danger, and Ali released some prisoners in order to show his gratitude to
Providence for having protected him from so horrible a crime. He received
congratulatory visits, and composed an apology attested by a judicial declaration
by the cadi, in which the memory of Murad and his brother was declared
accursed. Finally, commissioners, escorted by a strong body of soldiers, were
sent to seize the property of the two brothers, because, said the decree, it was
just that the injured should inherit the possessions of his would-be assassins.

Thus was exterminated the only family capable of opposing the Pacha of Janina,
or which could counterbalance his influence over the weak Ibrahim of Berat. The
latter, abandoned by his brave defenders, and finding himself at the mercy of his
enemy, was compelled to submit to what he could not prevent, and protested
only by tears against these crimes, which seemed to herald a terrible future for
himself.

As for Emineh, it is said that from the date of this catastrophe she separated
herself almost entirely from her blood-stained husband, and spent her life in the
recesses of the harem, praying as a Christian both for the murderer and his
victims. It is a relief, in the midst of this atrocious saturnalia to encounter this
noble and gentle character, which like a desert oasis, affords a rest to eyes
wearied with the contemplation of so much wickedness and treachery.

Ali lost in her the guardian angel who alone could in any way restrain his violent
passions. Grieved at first by the withdrawal of the wife whom hitherto he had
loved exclusively, he endeavoured in vain to regain her affection; and then
sought in new vices compensation for the happiness he had lost, and gave
himself up to sensuality. Ardent in everything, he carried debauchery to a
monstrous extent, and as if his palaces were not large enough for his desires, he
assumed various disguises; sometimes in order to traverse the streets by night in
search of the lowest pleasures; sometimes penetrating by day into churches and
private houses seeking for young men and maidens remarkable for their beauty,
who were then carried off to his harem.

His sons, following in his footsteps, kept also scandalous households, and
seemed to dispute preeminence in evil with their father, each in his own manner.
Drunkenness was the speciality of the eldest, Mouktar, who was without rival
among the hard drinkers of Albania, and who was reputed to have emptied a
whole wine-skin in one evening after a plentiful meal. Gifted with the hereditary
violence of his family, he had, in his drunken fury, slain several persons, among
others his sword-bearer, the companion of his childhood and confidential friend
of his whole life. Veli chose a different course. Realising the Marquis de Sade as
his father had realised Macchiavelli, he delighted in mingling together
debauchery and cruelty, and his amusement consisted in biting the lips he had
kissed, and tearing with his nails the forms he had caressed. The people of
Janina saw with horror more than one woman in their midst whose nose and ears
he had caused to be cut off, and had then turned into the streets.

It was indeed a reign of terror; neither fortune, life, honour, nor family were safe.
Mothers cursed their fruitfulness, and women their beauty. Fear soon engenders
corruption, and subjects are speedily tainted by the depravity of their masters.
Ali, considering a demoralised race as easier to govern, looked on with
satisfaction.

While he strengthened by every means his authority from within, he missed no

opportunity of extending his rule without. In 1803 he declared war against the
Suliots, whose independence he had frequently endeavoured either to purchase
or to overthrow. The army sent against them, although ten thousand strong, was
at first beaten everywhere. Ali then, as usual, brought treason to his aid, and
regained the advantage. It became evident that, sooner or later, the unhappy
Suliots must succumb.

Foreseeing the horrors which their defeat would entail, Emineh, touched with
compassion, issued from her seclusion and cast herself at Ali's feet. He raised
her, seated her beside him, and inquired as to her wishes. She spoke of,
generosity, of mercy; he listened as if touched and wavering, until she named the
Suliots. Then, filled with fury, he seized a pistol and fired at her. She was not
hurt, but fell to the ground overcome with terror, and her women hastily
intervened and carried her away. For the first time in his life, perhaps, Ali
shuddered before the dread of a murder.

It was his wife, the mother of his children, whom he saw lying at his feet, and the
recollection afflicted and tormented him. He rose in the night and went to
Emineh's apartment; he knocked and called, but being refused admittance, in his
anger he broke open the door. Terrified by the noise; and at the sight of her
infuriated husband, Emineh fell into violent convulsions, and shortly expired.
Thus perished the daughter of Capelan Pacha, wife of Ali Tepeleni, and mother
of Mouktar and Veli, who, doomed to live surrounded by evil, yet remained
virtuous and good.

Her death caused universal mourning throughout Albania, and produced a not
less deep impression on the mind of her murderer. Emineh's spectre pursued
him in his pleasures, in the council chamber, in the hours of night. He saw her,
he heard her, and would awake, exclaiming, "my wife! my wife!--It is my wife!--
Her eyes are angry; she threatens me!--Save me! Mercy!" For more than ten
years Ali never dared to sleep alone.
 Chapter 4

In December, the Suliots, decimated by battle, worn by famine, discouraged by

treachery, were obliged to capitulate. The treaty gave them leave to go where
they would, their own mountains excepted. The unfortunate tribe divided into two
parts, the one going towards Parga, the other towards Prevesa. Ali gave orders
for the destruction of both, notwithstanding the treaty.

The Parga division was attacked in its march, and charged by a numerous body
of Skipetars. Its destruction seemed imminent, but instinct suddenly revealed to
the ignorant mountaineers the one manoeuvre which might save them. They
formed a square, placing old men, women, children, and cattle in the midst, and,
protected by this military formation, entered Parga in full view of the cut-throats
sent to pursue them.

Less fortunate was the Prevesa division, which, terrified by a sudden and
unexpected attack, fled in disorder to a Greek convent called Zalongos. But the
gate was soon broken down, and the unhappy Suliots massacred to the last
man.

The women, whose tents had been pitched on the summit of a lofty rock, beheld
the terrible carnage which destroyed their defenders. Henceforth their only
prospect was that of becoming the slaves of those who had just slaughtered their
husbands and brothers. An heroic resolution spared them this infamy; they joined
hands, and chanting their national songs, moved in a solemn dance round the
rocky platform. As the song ended, they uttered a prolonged and piercing cry,
and cast themselves and their children down into the profound abyss beneath.

There were still some Suliots left in their country when Ali Pacha took possession
of it. These were all taken and brought to Janina, and their sufferings were the
first adornments of the festival made for the army. Every soldier's imagination
was racked for the discovery of new tortures, and the most original among them
had the privilege of themselves carrying out their inventions.

There were some who, having had their noses and ears cut off, were compelled
to eat them raw, dressed as a salad. One young man was scalped until the skin
fell back upon his shoulders, then beaten round the court of the seraglio for the
pacha's entertainment, until at length a lance was run through his body and he
was cast on the funeral pile. Many were boiled alive and their flesh then thrown
to the dogs.

From this time the Cross has disappeared from the Selleid mountains, and the
gentle prayer of Christ no longer wakes the echoes of Suli.
During the course of this war, and shortly after the death of Emineh, another
dismal drama was enacted in the pacha's family, whose active wickedness
nothing seemed to weary. The scandalous libertinism of both father and sons
had corrupted all around as well as themselves. This demoralisation brought
bitter fruits for all alike: the subjects endured a terrible tyranny; the masters
sowed among themselves distrust, discord, and hatred. The father wounded his
two sons by turns in their tenderest affections, and the sons avenged themselves
by abandoning their father in the hour of danger.

There was in Janina a woman named Euphrosyne, a niece of the archbishop,

married to one of the richest Greek merchants, and noted for wit and beauty. She
was already the mother of two children, when Mouktar became enamoured of
her, and ordered her to come to his palace. The unhappy Euphrosyne, at once
guessing his object, summoned a family council to decide what should be done.
All agreed that there was no escape, and that her husband's life was in danger,
on account of the jealousy of his terrible rival. He fled the city that same night,
and his wife surrendered herself to Mouktar, who, softened by her charms, soon
sincerely loved her, and overwhelmed her with presents and favours. Things
were in this position when Mouktar was obliged to depart on an important
expedition.

Scarcely had he started before his wives complained to Ali that Euphrosyne
usurped their rights and caused their husband to neglect them. Ali, who
complained greatly of his sons' extravagance, and regretted the money they
squandered, at once struck a blow which was both to enrich himself and increase
the terror of his name.

One night he appeared by torchlight, accompanied by his guards, at

Euphrosyne's house. Knowing his cruelty and avarice, she sought to disarm one
by gratifying the other: she collected her money and jewels and laid them at Ali's
feet with a look of supplication.

"These things are only my own property, which you restore," said he, taking
possession of the rich offering. "Can you give back the heart of Mouktar, which
you have stolen?"

Euphrosyne besought him by his paternal feelings, for the sake of his son whose
love had been her misfortune and was now her only crime, to spare a mother
whose conduct had been otherwise irreproachable. But her tears and pleadings
produced no effect on Ali, who ordered her to be taken, loaded with fetters and
covered with a piece of sackcloth, to the prison of the seraglio.
If it were certain that there was no hope for the unhappy Euphrosyne, one trusted
that she might at least be the only victim. But Ali, professing to follow the advice
of some severe reformers who wished to restore decent morality, arrested at the
same time fifteen ladies belonging to the best Christian families in Janina. A
Wallachian, named Nicholas Janco, took the opportunity to denounce his own
wife, who was on the point of becoming a mother, as guilty of adultery, and
handed her also over to the pacha. These unfortunate women were brought
before Ali to undergo a trial of which a sentence of death was the foregone
conclusion. They were then confined in a dungeon, where they spent two days of
misery. The third night, the executioners appeared to conduct them to the lake
where they were to perish. Euphrosyne, too exhausted to endure to the end,
expired by the way, and when she was flung with the rest into the dark waters,
her soul had already escaped from its earthly tenement. Her body was found the
next day, and was buried in the cemetery of the monastery of Saints-Anargyres,
where her tomb, covered with white iris and sheltered by a wild olive tree, is yet
shown.

Mouktar was returning from his expedition when a courier from his brother Veli
brought him a letter informing him of these events. He opened it. "Euphrosyne!"
he cried, and, seizing one of his pistols, fired it at the messenger, who fell dead
at his feet,--"Euphrosyne, behold thy first victim!" Springing on his horse, he
galloped towards Janina. His guards followed at a distance, and the inhabitants
of all the villages he passed fled at his approach. He paid no attention to them,
but rode till his horse fell dead by the lake which had engulfed Euphrosyne, and
then, taking a boat, he went to hide his grief and rage in his own palace.

Ali, caring little for passion which evaporated in tears and cries, sent an order to
Mouktar to appear before him at once. "He will not kill you," he remarked to his
messenger, with a bitter smile. And, in fact, the man who a moment before was
furiously raging and storming against his father, as if overwhelmed by this
imperious message, calmed down, and obeyed.

"Come hither, Mouktar, "said the pacha, extending his murderous hand to be
kissed as soon as his son appeared. "I shall take no notice of your anger, but in
future never forget that a man who braves public opinion as I do fears nothing in
the world. You can go now; when your troops have rested from their march, you
can come and ask for orders. Go, remember what I have said."

Mouktar retired as submissively as if he had just received pardon for some

serious crime, and found no better consolation than to spend the night with Veli
in drinking and debauchery. But a day was to come when the brothers, alike
outraged by their father, would plot and carry out a terrible vengeance.

However, the Porte began to take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement of

the Pacha of Janina. Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal, the
sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under the pretext
that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices, the government
of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this was not done in
enmity, the province was entrusted to his nephew, Elmas Bey, son of Suleiman
and Chainitza.

Chainitza, fully as ambitious as her brother, could not contain her delight at the
idea of governing in the name of her son, who was weak and gentle in character
and accustomed to obey her implicitly. She asked her brother's permission to go
to Trikala to be present at the installation, and obtained it, to everybody's
astonishment; for no one could imagine that Ali would peacefully renounce so
important a government as that of Thessaly. However, he dissembled so skilfully
that everyone was deceived by his apparent resignation, and applauded his
magnanimity, when he provided his sister with a brilliant escort to conduct her to
the capital of the province of which he had just been deprived in favour of his
nephew. He sent letters of congratulation to the latter as well as magnificent
presents, among them a splendid pelisse of black fox, which had cost more than
a hundred thousand francs of Western money. He requested Elmas Bey to
honour him by wearing this robe on the day when the sultan's envoy should
present him with the firman of investiture, and Chainitza herself was charged to
deliver both gifts and messages.

Chainitza arrived safely at Trikala, and faithfully delivered the messages with
which she had been entrusted. When the ceremony she so ardently desired took
place, she herself took charge of all the arrangements. Elmas, wearing the black
fox pelisse, was proclaimed, and acknowledged as Governor of Thessaly in her
presence. "My son is pacha!" she cried in the delirium of joy. "My son is pacha!
and my nephews will die of envy! "But her triumph was not to be of long duration.
A few days after his installation, Elmas began to feel strangely languid. Continual
lethargy, convulsive sneezing, feverish eyes, soon betokened a serious illness.
Ali's gift had accomplished its purpose. The pelisse, carefully impregnated with
smallpox germs taken from a young girl suffering from this malady, had conveyed
the dreaded disease to the new pacha, who, not having been inoculated, died in
a few days.

The grief of Chainitza at her son's death displayed itself in sobs, threats, and
curses, but, not knowing whom to blame for her misfortune, she hastened to
leave the scene of it, and returned to Janina, to mingle her tears with those of her
brother. She found Ali apparently in such depths of grief, that instead of
suspecting, she was actually tempted to pity him, and this seeming sympathy
soothed her distress, aided by the caresses of her second son, Aden Bey. Ali,
thoughtful of his own interests, took care to send one of his own officers to
Trikala, to administer justice in the place of his deceased nephew, and the Porte,
seeing that all attempts against him only caused misfortune, consented to his
resuming the government of Thessaly.
This climax roused the suspicions of many persons. But the public voice, already
discussing the causes of the death of Elinas, was stifled by the thunder of the
cannon, which, from the ramparts of Janina, announced to Epirus the birth of
another son to Ali, Salik Bey, whose mother was a Georgian slave.

Fortune, seemingly always ready both to crown Ali's crimes with success and to
fulfil his wishes, had yet in reserve a more precious gift than any of the others,
that of a good and beautiful wife; who should replace, and even efface the
memory of the beloved Emineh.

The Porte, while sending to Ali the firman which restored to him the government
of Thessaly, ordered him to seek out and destroy a society of coiners who dwelt
within his jurisdiction. Ali, delighted to, prove his zeal by a service which cost
nothing but bloodshed; at once set his spies to work, and having discovered the
abode of the gang, set out for the place attended by a strong escort. It was a
village called Plikivitza.

Having arrived in the evening, he spent the night in taking measures to prevent
escape, and at break of day attacked the village suddenly with his whole force.
The coiners were seized in the act. Ali immediately ordered the chief to be hung
at his own door and the whole population to be massacred. Suddenly a young
girl of great beauty made her way through the tumult and sought refuge at his
feet. Ali, astonished, asked who she was. She answered with a look of mingled
innocence and terror, kissing his hands, which she bathed with tears, and said:

"O my lord! I implore thee to intercede with the terrible vizier Ali for my mother
and brothers. My father is dead, behold where he hangs at the door of our
cottage! But we have done nothing to rouse the anger of our dreadful master. My
mother is a poor woman who never offended anyone, and we are only weak
children. Save us from him!"

Touched in spite of himself, the pacha took the girl in his arms, and answered her
with a gentle smile.

"Thou hast come to the wrong man, child: I am this terrible vizier."

"Oh no, no! you are good, you will be our good lord."

"Well, be comforted, my child, and show me thy mother and thy brothers; they
shall be spared. Thou hast saved their lives."

And as she knelt at his feet, overcome with joy, he raised her and asked her
name.

"Basilessa," she replied.

"Basilessa, Queen! it is a name of good augury. Basilessa, thou shalt dwell with
me henceforth."

And he collected the members of her family, and gave orders for them to be sent
to Janina in company with the maiden, who repaid his mercy with boundless love
and devotion.

Let us mention one trait of gratitude shown by Ali at the end of this expedition,
and his record of good deeds is then closed. Compelled by a storm to take
refuge in a miserable hamlet, he inquired its name, and on hearing it appeared
surprised and thoughtful, as if trying to recall lost memories. Suddenly he asked if
a woman named Nouza dwelt in the village, and was told there was an old infirm
woman of that name in great poverty. He ordered her to be brought before him.
She came and prostrated herself in terror. Ali raised her kindly.

"Dost thou not know me?" he asked.

"Have mercy, great Vizier," answered the poor woman, who, having nothing to
lose but her life, imagined that even that would be taken from her.

"I see," said the pacha, "that if thou knowest me, thou dost not really recognise
me."

The woman looked at him wonderingly, not understanding his words in the least.

"Dost thou remember," continued Ali, "that forty years ago a young man asked
for shelter from the foes who pursued him? Without inquiring his name or
standing, thou didst hide him in thy humble house, and dressed his wounds, and
shared thy scanty food with him, and when he was able to go forward thou didst
stand on thy threshold to wish him good luck and success. Thy wishes were
heard, for the young man was Ali Tepeleni, and I who speak am he!"

The old woman stood overwhelmed with astonishment. She departed calling
down blessings on the pasha, who assured her a pension of fifteen hundred
francs for the rest of her days.

But these two good actions are only flashes of light illuminating the dark horizon
of Ali's life for a brief moment. Returned to Janina, he resumed his tyranny, his
intrigues, and cruelty. Not content with the vast territory which owned his sway,
he again invaded that of his neighbours on every pretext. Phocis, Mtolia,
Acarnania, were by turns occupied by his troops, the country ravaged, and the
inhabitants decimated. At the same time he compelled Ibrahim Pacha to
surrender his last remaining daughter, and give her in marriage to his nephew,
Aden Bey, the son of Chainitza. This new alliance with a family he had so often
attacked and despoiled gave him fresh arms against it, whether by being enabled
better to watch the pasha's sons, or to entice them into some snare with greater
ease.

Whilst he thus married his nephew, he did not neglect the advancement of his
sons. By the aid of the French Ambassador, whom he had convinced of his
devotion to the Emperor Napoleon, he succeeded in getting the pachalik of
Morea bestowed on Veli, and that of Lepanto on Mouktar. But as in placing his
sons in these exalted positions his only aim was to aggrandise and consolidate
his own power, he himself ordered their retinues, giving them officers of his own
choosing. When they departed to their governments, he kept their wives, their
children, and even their furniture as pledges, saying that they ought not to be
encumbered with domestic establishments in time of war, Turkey just then being
at open war with England. He also made use of this opportunity to get rid of
people who displeased him, among others, of a certain Ismail Pacho Bey, who
had been alternately both tool and enemy, whom he made secretary to his son
Veli, professedly as a pledge of reconciliation and favour, but really in order to
despoil him more easily of the considerable property which he possessed at
Janina. Pacho was not deceived, and showed his resentment openly. "The
wretch banishes me," he cried, pointing out Ali, who was sitting at a window in
the palace, "he sends me away in order to rob me; but I will avenge myself
whatever happens, and I shall die content if I can procure his destruction at the
price of my own."

Continually increasing his power, Ali endeavoured to consolidate it permanently.

He had entered by degrees into secret negotiations with all the great powers of
Europe, hoping in the end to make himself independent, and to obtain
recognition as Prince of Greece. A mysterious and unforeseen incident betrayed
this to the Porte, and furnished actual proofs of his treason in letters confirmed by
Ali's own seal. The Sultan Selim immediately, sent to Janina a "kapidgi- bachi,"
or plenipotentiary, to examine into the case and try the delinquent.

Arrived at Janina, this officer placed before Ali the proofs of his understanding
with the enemies of the State. Ali was not strong enough to throw off the mask,
and yet could not deny such overwhelming evidence. He determined to obtain
time.

"No wonder," said he, "that I appear guilty in the eyes of His Highness. This seal
is, certainly mine, I cannot deny it; but the writing is not that of my secretaries,
and the seal must have been obtained and used to sign these guilty letters in
order to ruin me. I pray you to grant me a few days in order to clear up this
iniquitous mystery, which compromises me in the eyes of my master the sultan
and of all good Mahommedans. May Allah grant me the means of proving my
innocence, which is as pure as the rays of the sun, although everything seems
against me!"
After this conference, Ali, pretending to be engaged in a secret inquiry,
considered how he could legally escape from this predicament. He spent some
days in making plans which were given up as soon as formed, until his fertile
genius at length suggested a means of getting clear of one of the greatest
difficulties in which he had ever found himself. Sending for a Greek whom he had
often employed, he addressed him thus:

"Thou knowest I have always shown thee favour, and the day is arrived when thy
fortune shall be made. Henceforth thou shalt be as my son, thy children shall be
as mine, my house shall be thy home, and in return for my benefits I require one
small service. This accursed kapidgi-bachi has come hither bringing certain
papers signed with my seal, intending to use them to my discredit, and thus to
extort money from me. Of money I have already given too much, and I intend this
time to escape without being plundered except for the sake of a good servant like
thee. Therefore, my son, thou shalt go before the tribunal when I tell thee, and
declare before this kapidgi-bachi and the cadi that thou hast written these letters
attributed to me, and that thou didst seal them with my seal, in order to give them
due weight and importance."

The unhappy Greek grew pale and strove to answer.

"What fearest thou, my son?" resumed Ali. "Speak, am I not thy good master?
Thou wilt be sure of my lasting favour, and who is there to dread when I protect
thee? Is it the kapidgi-bachi? he has no authority here. I have thrown twenty as
good as he into the lake! If more is required to reassure thee, I swear by the
Prophet, by my own and my sons' heads, that no harm shall come to thee from
him. Be ready, then, to do as I tell thee, and beware of mentioning this matter to
anyone, in order that all may be accomplished according to our mutual wishes."

More terrified by dread of the pacha, from whose wrath in case of refusal there
was no chance of escape, than tempted by his promises, the Greek undertook
the false swearing required. Ali, delighted, dismissed him with a thousand
assurances of protection, and then requested the presence of the sultan's envoy,
to whom he said, with much emotion:

"I have at length unravelled the infernal plot laid against me; it is the work of a
man in the pay of the implacable enemies of the Sublime Porte, and who is a
Russian agent. He is in my power, and I have given him hopes of pardon on
condition of full confession. Will you then summon the cadi, the judges and
ecclesiastics of the town, in order that they may hear the guilty man's deposition,
and that the light of truth may purify their minds?"

The tribunal was soon assembled, and the trembling Greek appeared in the
midst of a solemn silence. "Knowest thou this writing?" demanded the cadi.--"It is
mine."--"And this seal?"--"It is that of my master, Ali Pacha."--"How does it come
to be placed at the foot of these letters?"--"I did this by order of my chief, abusing
the confidence of my master, who occasionally allowed me to use it to sign his
orders."--"It is enough: thou canst withdraw."

Uneasy as to the success of his intrigue, Ali was approaching the Hall of Justice.
As he entered the court, the Greek, who had just finished his examination, threw
himself at his feet, assuring him that all had gone well. "It is good," said Ali; "thou
shalt have thy reward." Turning round, he made a sign to his guards, who had
their orders, and who instantly seized the unhappy Greek, and, drowning his
voice with their shouts, hung him in the courtyard. This execution finished, the
pacha presented himself before the judges and inquired the result of their
investigation. He was answered by a burst of congratulation. "Well," said he, "the
guilty author of this plot aimed at me is no more; I ordered him to be hung without
waiting to hear your decision. May all enemies of our glorious sultan perish even
as he!"

A report of what had occurred was immediately drawn up, and, to assist matters
still further, Ali sent the kapidgi-bachi a gift of fifty purses, which he accepted
without difficulty, and also secured the favour of the Divan by considerable
presents. The sultan, yielding to the advice of his councillors, appeared to have
again received him into favour.

But Ali knew well that this appearance of sunshine was entirely deceptive, and
that Selim only professed to believe in his innocence until the day should arrive
when the sultan could safely punish his treason. He sought therefore to compass
the latter's downfall, and made common cause with his enemies, both internal
and external. A conspiracy, hatched between the discontented pachas and the
English agents, shortly broke out, and one day, when Ali was presiding at the
artillery practice of some French gunners sent to Albania by the Governor of
Illyria, a Tartar brought him news of the deposition of Selim, who was succeeded
by his nephew Mustapha. Ali sprang up in delight, and publicly thanked Allah for
this great good fortune. He really did profit by this change of rulers, but he
profited yet more by a second revolution which caused the deaths both of Selim,
whom the promoters wished to reestablish on the throne, and of Mustapha
whose downfall they intended. Mahmoud II, who was next invested with the
scimitar of Othman, came to the throne in troublous times, after much bloodshed,
in the midst of great political upheavals, and had neither the will nor the power to
attack one of his most powerful vassals. He received with evident satisfaction the
million piastres which, at, his installation, Ali hastened to send as a proof of his
devotion, assured the pacha of his favour, and confirmed both him and his sons
in their offices and dignities. This fortunate change in his position brought Ali's
pride and audacity to a climax. Free from pressing anxiety, he determined to
carry out a project which had been the dream of his life.
 Chapter 5

After taking possession of Argyro-Castron, which he had long coveted, Ali led his
victorious army against the town of Kardiki, whose inhabitants had formerly
joined with those of Kormovo in the outrage inflicted on his mother and sister.
The besieged, knowing they had no mercy to hope for, defended themselves
bravely, but were obliged to yield to famine. After a month's blockade, the
common people, having no food for themselves or their cattle, began to cry for
mercy in the open streets, and their chiefs, intimidated by the general misery and
unable to stand alone, consented to capitulate. Ali, whose intentions as to the
fate of this unhappy town were irrevocably decided, agreed to all that they asked.
A treaty was signed by both parties, and solemnly sworn to on the Koran, in
virtue of which seventy-two beys, heads of the principal Albanian families, were
to go to Janina as free men, and fully armed. They were to be received with the
honours due to their rank as free tenants of the sultan, their lives and their
families were to be spared, and also their possessions. The other inhabitants of
Kardiki, being Mohammedans, and therefore brothers of Ali, were to be treated
as friends and retain their lives and property. On these conditions a quarter of the
town; was to be occupied by the victorious troops.

One of the principal chiefs, Saleh Bey, and his wife, foreseeing the fate which
awaited their friends, committed suicide at the moment when, in pursuance of the
treaty, Ali's soldiers took possession of the quarter assigned to them.

Ali received the seventy-two beys with all marks of friendship when they arrived
at Janina. He lodged them in a palace on the lake, and treated them
magnificently for some days. But soon, having contrived on some pretext to
disarm them, he had them conveyed, loaded with chains, to a Greek convent on
an island in the lake, which was converted into a prison. The day of vengeance
not having fully arrived, he explained this breach of faith by declaring that the
hostages had attempted to escape.

The popular credulity was satisfied by this explanation, and no one doubted the
good faith of the pacha when he announced that he was going to Kardiki to
establish a police and fulfil the promises he had made to the inhabitants. Even
the number of soldiers he took excited no surprise, as Ali was accustomed to
travel with a very numerous suite.

After three days' journey, he stopped at Libokhovo, where his sister had resided
since the death of Aden Bey, her second son, cut off recently by wickness. What
passed in the long interview they had no one knew, but it was observed that
Chainitza's tears, which till then had flowed incessantly, stopped as if by magic,
and her women, who were wearing mourning, received an order to attire
themselves as for a festival. Feasting and dancing, begun in Ali's honour, did not
cease after his departure.
He spent the night at Chenderia, a castle built on a rock, whence the town of
Kardiki was plainly visible. Next day at daybreak Ali despatched an usher to
summon all the male inhabitants of Kardiki to appear before Chenderia, in order
to receive assurances of the pacha's pardon and friendship.

The Kardikiotes at once divined that this injunction was the precursor of a terrible
vengeance: the whole town echoed with cries and groans, the mosques were
filled with people praying for deliverance. The appointed time arrived, they
embraced each other as if parting for ever, and then the men, unarmed, in
number six hundred and seventy, started for Chenderia. At the gate of the town
they encountered a troop of Albanians, who followed as if to escort them, and
which increased in number as they proceeded. Soon they arrived in the dread
presence of Ali Pacha. Grouped in formidable masses around him stood several
thousand of his fierce soldiery.

The unhappy Kardikiotes realised their utter helplessness, and saw that they,
their wives an children, were completely at the mercy of their implacable enemy.
They fell prostrate before the pacha, and with all the fervour which the utmost
terror could inspire, implored him to grant them a generous pardon.

Ali for some time silently enjoyed the pleasure of seeing his ancient enemies
lying before him prostrate in the dust. He then desired them to rise, reassured
them, called them brothers, sons, friends of his heart. Distinguishing some of his
old acquaintances, he called them to him, spoke familiarly of the days of their
youth, of their games, their early friendships, and pointing to the young men,
said, with tears in his eyes.

"The discord which has divided us for so many years has allowed children not
born at the time of our dissension to grow into men. I have lost the pleasure of
watching the development of the off-spring of my neighbours and the early
friends of my youth, and of bestowing benefits on them, but I hope shortly to
repair the natural results of our melancholy divisions."

He then made them splendid promises, and ordered them to assemble in a

neighbouring caravanserai, where he wished to give them a banquet in proof of
reconciliation. Passing from the depths of despair to transports of joy, the
Kardikiotes repaired gaily to the caravanserai, heaping blessings on the pacha,
and blaming each other for having ever doubted his good faith.

Ali was carried down from Chenderia in a litter, attended by his courtiers, who
celebrated his clemency in pompous speeches, to which he replied with gracious
smiles. At the foot of the steep descent he mounted his horse, and, followed by
his troops, rode towards the caravanserai. Alone, and in silence, he rode twice
round it, then, returning to the gate, which had just been closed by his order, he
pulled up his horse, and, signing to his own bodyguard to attack the building,
"Slay them!" he cried in a voice of thunder.
The guards remained motionless in surprise and horror, then as the pacha, with
a roar, repeated his order, they indignantly flung down their arms. In vain he
harangued, flattered, or threatened them; some preserved a sullen silence,
others ventured to demand mercy. Then he ordered them away, and, calling on
the Christian Mirdites who served under his banner.

"To you, brave Latins," he cried, "I will now entrust the duty of exterminating the
foes of my race. Avenge me, and I will reward you magnificently."

A confused murmur rose from the ranks. Ali imagined they were consulting as to
what recompense should be required as the price of such deed.

"Speak," said he; "I am ready to listen to your demands and to satisfy them."

Then the Mirdite leader came forward and threw back the hood of his black
cloak.

"O Pacha!" said he, looking Ali boldly in the face, "thy words are an insult; the
Mirdites do not slaughter unarmed prisoners in cold blood. Release the
Kardikiotes, give them arms, and we will fight them to the death; but we serve
thee as soldiers and not as executioners."

At these words; which the black-cloaked battalion received with applause, Ali
thought himself betrayed, and looked around with doubt and mistrust. Fear was
nearly taking the place of mercy, words of pardon were on his lips, when a
certain Athanasius Vaya, a Greek schismatic, and a favourite of the pacha's,
whose illegitimate son he was supposed to be, advanced at the head of the scum
of the army, and offered to carry out the death sentence. Ali applauded his zeal,
gave him full authority to act, and spurred his horse to the top of a neighbouring
hill, the better to enjoy the spectacle. The Christian Mirdites and the
Mohammedan guards knelt together to pray for the miserable Kardikiotes, whose
last hour had come.

The caravanserai where they were shut in was square enclosure, open to the
sky, and intended to shelter herds of buffaloes. The prisoners having heard
nothing of what passed outside, were astonished to behold Athanasius Vaya and
his troop appearing on the top of the wall. They did not long remain in doubt. Ali
gave the signal by a pistol-shot, and a general fusillade followed. Terrible cries
echoed from the court; the prisoners, terrified, wounded, crowded one upon
another for shelter. Some ran frantically hither and thither in this enclosure with
no shelter and no exit, until they fell, struck down by bullets. Some tried to climb
the walls, in hope of either escape or vengeance, only to be flung back by either
scimitars or muskets. It was a terrible scene of despair and death.

After an hour of firing, a gloomy silence descended on the place, now occupied
solely by a heap of corpses. Ali forbade any burial rites on pain of death, and
placed over the gate an inscription in letters of gold, informing posterity that six
hundred Kardikiotes had there been sacrificed to the memory of his mother
Kamco.

When the shrieks of death ceased in the enclosure, they began to be heard in
the town. The assassins spread themselves through it, and having violated the
women and children, gathered them into a crowd to be driven to Libokovo. At
every halt in this frightful journey fresh marauders fell on the wretched victims,
claiming their share in cruelty and debauchery. At length they arrived at their
destination, where the triumphant and implacable Chainitza awaited them. As
after the taking of Kormovo, she compelled the women to cut off their hair and to
stuff with it a mattress on which she lay. She then stripped them, and joyfully
narrated to them the massacre of their husbands, fathers, brothers and sons, and
when she had sufficiently enjoyed their misery they were again handed over to
the insults of the soldiery. Chainitza finally published an edict forbidding either
clothes, shelter, or food to be given to the women and children of Kardiki, who
were then driven forth into the woods either to die of hunger or to be devoured by
wild beasts. As to the seventy-two hostages, Ali put them all to death when he
returned to Janina. His vengeance was indeed complete.

But as, filled with a horrible satisfaction, the pacha was enjoying the repose of a
satiated tiger, an indignant and threatening voice reached him even in the
recesses of his palace. The Sheik Yussuf, governor of the castle of Janina,
venerated as a saint by the Mohammedans on account of his piety, and
universally beloved and respected for his many virtues, entered Ali's sumptuous
dwelling for the first time. The guards on beholding him remained stupefied and
motionless, then the most devout prostrated themselves, while others went to
inform the pacha; but no one dared hinder the venerable man, who walked
calmly and solemnly through the astonished attendants. For him there existed no
antechamber, no delay; disdaining the ordinary forms of etiquette, he paced
slowly through the various apartments, until, with no usher to announce him, he
reached that of Ali. The latter, whose impiety by no means saved him from
superstitious terrors, rose hastily from the divan and advanced to meet the holy
sheik, who was followed by a crowd of silent courtiers. Ali addressed him with the
utmost respect, and endeavoured even to kiss his right hand. Yussuf hastily
withdrew it, covered it with his mantle, and signed to the pacha to seat himself.
Ali mechanically obeyed, and waited in solemn silence to hear the reason of this
unexpected visit.

Yussuf desired him to listen with all attention, and then reproached him for his
injustice and rapine, his treachery and cruelty, with such vivid eloquence that his
hearers dissolved in tears. Ali, though much dejected, alone preserved his
equanimity, until at length the sheik accused him of having caused the death of
Emineh. He then grew pale, and rising, cried with terror:
"Alas! my father, whose name do you now pronounce? Pray for me, or at least do
not sink me to Gehenna with your curses!"

"There is no need to curse thee," answered Yussuf. "Thine own crimes bear
witness against thee. Allah has heard their cry. He will summon thee, judge thee,
and punish thee eternally. Tremble, for the time is at hand! Thine hour is coming-
-is coming--is coming!"

Casting a terrible glance at the pacha, the holy man turned his back on him, and
stalked out of the apartment without another word.

Ali, in terror, demanded a thousand pieces of gold, put them in a white satin
purse, and himself hastened with them to overtake the sheik, imploring him to
recall his threats. But Yussuf deigned no answer, and arrived at the threshold of
the palace, shook off the dust of his feet against it.

Ali returned to his apartment sad and downcast, and many days elapsed before
he could shake off the depression caused by this scene. But soon he felt more
ashamed of his inaction than of the reproaches which had caused it, and on the
first opportunity resumed his usual mode of life.

The occasion was the marriage of Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, with the eldest
daughter of Veli Pacha, called the Princess of Aulis, because she had for dowry
whole villages in that district. Immediately after the announcement of this
marriage Ali set on foot a sort of saturnalia, about the details of which there
seemed to be as much mystery as if he had been preparing an assassination.

All at once, as if by a sudden inundation, the very scum of the earth appeared to
spread over Janina. The populace, as if trying to drown their misery, plunged into
a drunkenness which simulated pleasure. Disorderly bands of mountebanks from
the depths of Roumelia traversed the streets, the bazaars and public places;
flocks and herds, with fleeces dyed scarlet, and gilded horns, were seen on all
the roads driven to the court by peasants under the guidance of their priests.
Bishops, abbots, ecclesiastics generally, were compelled to drink, and to take
part in ridiculous and indecent dances, Ali apparently thinking to raise himself by
degrading his more respectable subjects. Day and night these spectacles
succeeded each other with increasing rapidity, the air resounded with firing,
songs, cries, music, and the roaring of wild beasts in shows. Enormous spits,
loaded with meat, smoked before huge braziers, and wine ran in floods at tables
prepared in the palace courts. Troops of brutal soldiers drove workmen from their
labour with whips, and compelled them to join in the entertainments; dirty and
impudent jugglers invaded private houses, and pretending that they had orders
from the pacha to display their skill, carried boldly off whatever they could lay
their hands upon. Ali saw the general demoralization with pleasure, especially as
it tended to the gratification of his avarice, Every guest was expected to bring to
the palace gate a gift in proportion to his means, and foot officers watched to see
that no one forgot this obligation. At length, on the nineteenth day, Ali resolved to
crown the feast by an orgy worthy of himself. He caused the galleries and halls of
his castle by the lake to be decorated with unheard-of splendour, and fifteen
hundred guests assembled for a solemn banquet. The pacha appeared in all his
glory, surrounded by his noble attendants and courtiers, and seating himself on a
dais raised above this base crowd which trembled at his glance, gave the signal
to begin. At his voice, vice plunged into its most shameless diversions, and the
wine-steeped wings of debauchery outspread themselves over the feast. All
tongues were at their freest, all imaginations ran wild, all evil passions were at
their height, when suddenly the noise ceased, and the guests clung together in
terror. A man stood at the entrance of the hall, pale, disordered, and wild-eyed,
clothed in torn and blood-stained garments. As everyone made way at his
approach, he easily reached the pacha, and prostrating himself at his feet,
presented a letter. Ali opened and rapidly perused it; his lips trembled, his
eyebrows met in a terrible frown, the muscles of his forehead contracted
alarmingly. He vainly endeavoured to smile and to look as if nothing had
happened, his agitation betrayed him, and he was obliged to retire, after desiring
a herald to announce that he wished the banquet to continue.

Now for the subject of the message, and the cause of the dismay it produced.
 Chapter 6

Ali had long cherished a violent passion for Zobeide, the wife of his son Veli
Pacha: Having vainly attempted to gratify it after his son's departure, and being
indignantly repulsed, he had recourse to drugs, and the unhappy Zobeide
remained in ignorance of her misfortune until she found she was pregnant. Then,
half-avowals from her women, compelled to obey the pacha from fear of death,
mixed with confused memories of her own, revealed the whole terrible truth. Not
knowing in her despair which way to turn, she wrote to Ali, entreating him to visit
the harem. As head of the family, he had a right to enter, being supposed
responsible for the conduct of his sons' families, no- law-giver having hitherto
contemplated the possibility of so disgraceful a crime. When he appeared,
Zobeide flung herself at his feet, speechless with grief. Ali acknowledged his
guilt, pleaded the violence of his passion, wept with his victim, and entreating her
to control herself and keep silence, promised that all should be made right.
Neither the prayers nor tears of Zobeide could induce him to give up the intention
of effacing the traces of his first crime by a second even more horrible.

But the story was already whispered abroad, and Pacho Bey learnt all its details
from the spies he kept in Janina. Delighted at the prospect of avenging himself
on the father, he hastened with his news to the son. Veli Pacha, furious, vowed
vengeance, and demanded Pacho Bey's help, which was readily promised. But
Ali had been warned, and was not a man to be taken unawares. Pacho Bey,
whom Veli had just promoted to the office of sword-bearer, was attacked in broad
daylight by six emissaries sent from Janina. He obtained timely help, however,
and five of the assassins, taken red-handed, were at once hung without
ceremony in the market-place. The sixth was the messenger whose arrival with
the news had caused such dismay at Ali's banquet.

As Ali reflected how the storm he had raised could best be laid, he was informed
that the ruler of the marriage feast sent by Moustai, Pacha of Scodra, to receive
the young bride who should reign in his harem, had just arrived in the plain of
Janina. He was Yussuf Bey of the Delres, an old enemy of Ali's, and had
encamped with his escort of eight hundred warriors at the foot of Tomoros of
Dodona. Dreading some treachery, he absolutely refused all entreaties to enter
the town, and Ali seeing that it was useless to insist, and that his adversary for
the present was safe, at once sent his grand-daughter, the Princess of Aulis, out
to him.

This matter disposed of, Ali was able to attend to his hideous family tragedy. He
began by effecting the disappearance of the women whom he had been
compelled to make his accomplices; they were simply sewn up in sacks by
gipsies and thrown into the lake. This done, he himself led the executioners into
a subterranean part of the castle, where they were beheaded by black mutes as
a reward for their obedience. He then sent a doctor to Zobeide; who succeeded
in causing a miscarriage, and who, his work done, was seized and strangled by
the black mutes who had just beheaded the gipsies. Having thus got rid of all
who could bear witness to his crime, he wrote to Veli that he might now send for
his wife and two of his children, hitherto detained as hostages, and that the
innocence of Zobeide would confound a calumniator who had dared to assail him
with such injurious suspicions.

When this letter arrived, Pacho Bey, distrusting equally the treachery of the father
and the weakness of the son, and content with having sown the seeds of
dissension in his enemy's family, had sufficient wisdom to seek safety in flight.
Ali, furious, vowed, on hearing this, that his vengeance should overtake him even
at the ends of the earth. Meanwhile he fell back on Yussuf Bey of the Debres,
whose escape when lately at Janina still rankled in his mind. As Yussuf was
dangerous both from character and influence, Ali feared to attack him openly,
and sought to assassinate him. This was not precisely easy; for, exposed to a
thousand dangers of this kind, the nobles of that day were on their guard. Steel
and poison were used up, and another way had to be sought. Ali found it.

One of the many adventurers with whom Janina was filled penetrated to the
pacha's presence, and offered to sell the secret of a powder whereof three grains
would suffice to kill a man with a terrible explosion--explosive powder, in short.
Ali heard with delight, but replied that he must see it in action before purchasing.

In the dungeons of the castle by the lake, a poor monk of the order of St. Basil
was slowly dying, for having boldly refused a sacrilegious simony proposed to
him by Ali. He was a fit subject for the experiment, and was successfully blown to
pieces, to the great satisfaction of Ali, who concluded his bargain, and hastened
to make use of it. He prepared a false firman, which, according to custom, was
enclosed and sealed in a cylindrical case, and sent to Yussuf Bey by a Greek,
wholly ignorant of the real object of his mission. Opening it without suspicion,
Yussuf had his arm blown off, and died in consequence, but found time to
despatch a message to Moustai Pacha of Scodra, informing him of the
catastrophe, and warning him to keep good guard.

Yussuf's letter was received by Moustai just as a similar infernal machine was
placed in his hands under cover to his young wife. The packet was seized, and a
careful examination disclosed its nature. The mother of Moustai, a jealous and
cruel woman, accused her daughter-in-law of complicity, and the unfortunate
Ayesha, though shortly to become a mother, expired in agony from the effects of
poison, only guilty of being the innocent instrument of her grandfather's
treachery.

Fortune having frustrated Ali's schemes concerning Moustai Pacha, offered him
as consolation a chance of invading the territory of Parga, the only place in
Epirus which had hitherto escaped his rule, and which he greedily coveted. Agia,
a small Christian town on the coast, had rebelled against him and allied itself to
Parga. It provided an excuse for hostilities, and Ali's troops, under his son
Mouktar, first seized Agia, where they only found a few old men to massacre,
and then marched on Parga, where the rebels had taken refuge. After a few
skirmishes, Mouktar entered the town, and though the Parganiotes fought
bravely, they must inevitably have surrendered had they been left to themselves.
But they had sought protection from the French, who had garrisoned the citadel,
and the French grenadiers descending rapidly from the height, charged the Turks
with so much fury that they fled in all directions, leaving on the field four
"bimbashis," or captains of a thousand, and a considerable number of killed and
wounded.

The pacha's fleet succeeded no better than his army. Issuing from the Gulf of
Ambracia, it was intended to attack Parga from the sea, joining in the massacre,
and cutting off all hope of escape from that side, Ali meaning to spare neither the
garrison nor any male inhabitants over twelve years of age. But a few shots fired
from a small fort dispersed the ships, and a barque manned by sailors from
Paxos pursued them, a shot from which killed Ali's admiral on his quarter-deck.
He was a Greek of Galaxidi, Athanasius Macrys by name.

Filled with anxiety, Ali awaited news at Prevesa, where a courier, sent off at the
beginning of the action, had brought him oranges gathered in the orchards of
Parga. Ali gave him a purse of gold, and publicly proclaimed his success. His joy
was redoubled when a second messenger presented two heads of French
soldiers, and announced that his troops were in possession of the lower part of
Parga. Without further delay he ordered his attendants to mount, entered his
carriage, and started triumphantly on the Roman road to Nicopolis. He sent
messengers to his generals, ordering them to spare the women and children of
Parga, intended for his harem, and above all to take strict charge of the plunder.
He was approaching the arena of Nicopolis when a third Tartar messenger
informed him of the defeat of his army. Ali changed countenance, and could
scarcely articulate the order to return to Prevesa. Once in his palace, he gave
way to such fury that all around him trembled, demanding frequently if it could be
true that his troops were beaten. "May your misfortune be upon us!" his
attendants answered, prostrating themselves. All at once, looking out on the calm
blue sea which lay before his windows, he perceived his fleet doubling Cape
Pancrator and re-entering the Ambracian Gulf under full sail; it anchored close by
the palace, and on hailing the leading ship a speaking trumpet announced to Ali
the death of his admiral, Athanasius Macrys.

"But Parga, Parga!" cried Ali.

"May Allah grant the pacha long life! The Parganiotes have escaped the sword of
His Highness."
"It is the will of Allah!" murmured the pacha; whose head sank upon his breast in
dejection.

Arms having failed, Ali, as usual, took refuge in plots and treachery, but this time,
instead of corrupting his enemies with gold, he sought to weaken them by
division.
 Chapter 7

The French commander Nicole, surnamed the "Pilgrim," on account of a journey

he had once made to Mecca, had spent six months at Janina with a brigade of
artillery which General Marmont, then commanding in the Illyrian provinces, had
for a time placed at Ali's disposal. The old officer had acquired the esteem and
friendship of the pacha, whose leisure he had often amused by stories of his
campaigns and various adventures, and although it was now long since they had
met, he still had the reputation of being Ali's friend. Ali prepared his plans
accordingly. He wrote a letter to Colonel Nicole, apparently in continuation of a
regular correspondence between them, in which he thanked the colonel for his
continued affection, and besought him by various powerful motives to surrender
Parga, of which he promised him the governorship during the rest of his life. He
took good care to complete his treason by allowing the letter to fall into the hands
of the chief ecclesiastics of Parga, who fell head-foremost into the trap. Seeing
that the tone of the letter was in perfect accordance with the former friendly
relations between their French governor and the pacha, they were convinced of
the former's treachery. But the result was not as Ali had hoped: the Parganiotes
resumed their former negotiations with the English, preferring to place their
freedom in the hands of a Christian nation rather than to fall under the rule of a
Mohammedan satrap.... The English immediately sent a messenger to Colonel
Nicole, offering honourable conditions of capitulation. The colonel returned a
decided refusal, and threatened to blow up the place if the inhabitants, whose
intentions he guessed, made the slightest hostile movement. However, a few
days later, the citadel was taken at night, owing to the treachery of a woman who
admitted an English detachment; and the next day, to the general astonishment,
the British standard floated over the Acropolis of Parga.

All Greece was then profoundly stirred by a faint gleam of the dawn of liberty,
and shaken by a suppressed agitation. The Bourbons again reigned in France,
and the Greeks built a thousand hopes on an event which changed the basis of
the whole European policy. Above all, they reckoned on powerful assistance from
Russia. But England had already begun to dread anything which could increase
either the possessions or the influence of this formidable power. Above all, she
was determined that the Ottoman Empire should remain intact, and that the
Greek navy, beginning to be formidable, must be destroyed. With these objects
in view, negotiations with Ali Pacha were resumed. The latter was still smarting
under his recent disappointment, and to all overtures answered only, "Parga! I
must have Parga."--And the English were compelled to yield it!

Trusting to the word of General Campbell, who had formally promised, on its
surrender, that Parga should be classed along with the seven Ionian Isles; its
grateful inhabitants were enjoying a delicious rest after the storm, when a letter
from the Lord High Commissioner, addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel de Bosset,
undeceived them, and gave warning of the evils which were to burst on the
unhappy town.

On the 25th of March, 1817, notwithstanding the solemn promise made to the
Parganiotes, when they admitted the British troops, that they should always be
on the same footing as the Ionian Isles, a treaty was signed at Constantinople by
the British Plenipotentiary, which stipulated the complete and stipulated cession
of Parga and all its territory to, the Ottoman Empire. Soon there arrived at Janine
Sir John Cartwright, the English Consul at Patras, to arrange for the sale of the
lands of the Parganiotes and discuss the conditions of their emigration. Never
before had any such compact disgraced European diplomacy, accustomed
hitherto to regard Turkish encroachments as simple sacrilege. But Ali Pacha
fascinated the English agents, overwhelming them with favours, honours, and
feasts, carefully watching them all the while. Their correspondence was
intercepted, and he endeavoured by means of his agents to rouse the
Parganiotes against them. The latter lamented bitterly, and appealed to Christian
Europe, which remained deaf to their cries. In the name of their ancestors, they
demanded the rights which had been guaranteed them. "They will buy our lands,"
they said; "have we asked to sell them? And even if we received their value, can
gold give us a country and the tombs of our ancestors?"

Ali Pacha invited the Lord High Commissioner of Great Britain, Sir Thomas
Maitland, to a conference at Prevesa, and complained of the exorbitant price of
1,500,000, at which the commissioners had estimated Parga and its territory,
including private property and church furniture. It had been hoped that Ali's
avarice would hesitate at this high price, but he was not so easily discouraged.
He give a banquet for the Lord High Commissioner, which degenerated into a
shameless orgy. In the midst of this drunken hilarity the Turk and the Englishman
disposed of the territory of Parga; agreeing that a fresh estimate should be made
on the spot by experts chosen by both English and Turks. The result of this
valuation was that the indemnity granted to the Christians was reduced by the
English to the sum of 276,075 sterling, instead of the original 500,000. And as
Ali's agents only arrived at the sum of 56,750, a final conference was held at
Buthrotum between Ali and the Lord High Commissioner. The latter then
informed the Parganiotes that the indemnity allowed them was irrevocably fixed
at 150,000! The transaction is a disgrace to the egotistical and venal nation
which thus allowed the life and liberty of a people to be trifled with, a lasting blot
on the honour of England!

The Parganiotes at first could believe neither in the infamy of their protectors nor
in their own misfortune; but both were soon confirmed by a proclamation of the
Lord High Commissioner, informing them that the pacha's army was marching to
take possession of the territory which, by May 10th, must be abandoned for ever.
The fields were then in full bearing. In the midst of plains ripening for a rich
harvest were 80,000 square feet of olive trees, alone estimated at two hundred
thousand guineas. The sun shone in cloudless azure, the air was balmy with the
scent of orange trees, of pomegranates and citrons. But the lovely country might
have been inhabited by phantoms; only hands raised to heaven and brows bent
to the dust met one's eye. Even the very dust belonged no more to the wretched
inhabitants; they were forbidden to take a fruit or a flower, the priests might not
remove either relics or sacred images. Church, ornaments, torches, tapers,
pyxes, had by this treaty all become Mahommedan property. The English had
sold everything, even to the Host! Two days more, and all must be left. Each was
silently marking the door of the dwelling destined so soon to shelter an enemy,
with a red cross, when suddenly a terrible cry echoed from street to street, for the
Turks had been perceived on the heights overlooking the town. Terrified and
despairing, the whole population hastened to fall prostrate before the Virgin of
Parga, the ancient guardian of their citadel. A mysterious voice, proceeding from
the sanctuary, reminded them that the English had, in their iniquitous treaty,
forgotten to include the ashes of those whom a happier fate had spared the sight
of the ruin of Parga. Instantly they rushed to the graveyards, tore open the
tombs, and collected the bones and putrefying corpses. The beautiful olive trees
were felled, an enormous funeral pyre arose, and in the general excitement the
orders of the English chief were defied. With naked daggers in their hands,
standing in the crimson light of the flames which were consuming the bones of
their ancestors, the people of Parga vowed to slay their wives and children, and
to kill themselves to the last man, if the infidels dared to set foot in the town
before the appointed hour. Xenocles, the last of the Greek poets, inspired by this
sublime manifestation of despair, even as Jeremiah by the fall of Jerusalem,
improvised a hymn which expresses all the grief of the exiles, and which the
exiles interrupted by their tears and sobs.

A messenger, crossing the sea in all haste, informed the Lord High
Commissioner of the terrible threat of the Parganiotes. He started at once,
accompanied by General Sir Frederic Adams, and landed at Parga by the light of
the funeral pyre. He was received with ill-concealed indignation, and with
assurances that the sacrifice would be at once consummated unless Ali's troops
were held back. The general endeavoured to console and to reassure the
unhappy people, and then proceeded to the outposts, traversing silent streets in
which armed men stood at each door only waiting a signal before slaying their
families, and then turning their weapons against the English and themselves. He
implored them to have patience, and they answered by pointing to the
approaching Turkish army and bidding him hasten. He arrived at last and
commenced negotiations, and the Turkish officers, no less uneasy than the
English garrison, promised to wait till the appointed hour. The next day passed in
mournful silence, quiet as death, At sunset on the following day, May 9, 1819, the
English standard on the castle of Parga was hauled down, and after a night spent
in prayer and weeping, the Christians demanded the signal of departure.
They had left their dwellings at break of day, and scattering on the shore,
endeavoured to collect some relics of their country. Some filled little bags with
ashes withdrawn from the funeral pile; others took handfuls of earth, while the
women and children picked up pebbles which they hid in their clothing and
pressed to their bosoms, as if fearing to be deprived of them. Meanwhile, the
ships intended to transport them arrived, and armed English soldiers
superintended the embarkation, which the Turks hailed from afar with, ferocious
cries. The Parganiotes were landed in Corfu, where they suffered yet more
injustice. Under various pretexts the money promised them was reduced and
withheld, until destitution compelled them to accept the little that was offered.
Thus closed one of the most odious transactions which modern history has been
compelled to record.

The satrap of Janina had arrived at the fulfilment of his wishes. In the retirement
of his fairy-like palace by the lake he could enjoy voluptuous pleasures to the full.
But already seventy-eight years had passed over his head, and old age had laid
the burden of infirmity upon him. His dreams were dreams of blood, and vainly he
sought refuge in chambers glittering with gold, adorned with arabesques,
decorated with costly armour and covered with the richest of Oriental carpets,
remorse stood ever beside him. Through the magnificence which surrounded him
there constantly passed the gale spectre of Emineh, leading onwards a vast
procession of mournful phantoms, and the guilty pasha buried his face in his
hands and shrieked aloud for help. Sometimes, ashamed of his weakness, he
endeavoured to defy both the reproaches of his conscience and the opinion of
the multitude, and sought to encounter criticism with bravado. If, by chance, he
overheard some blind singer chanting in the streets the satirical verses which,
faithful to the poetical and mocking genius of them ancestors, the Greeks
frequently composed about him, he would order the singer to be brought, would
bid him repeat his verses, and, applauding him, would relate some fresh
anecdote of cruelty, saying, "Go, add that to thy tale; let thy hearers know what I
can do; let them understand that I stop at nothing in order to overcome my foes!
If I reproach myself with anything, it is only with the deeds I have sometimes
failed to carry out."

Sometimes it was the terrors of the life after death which assailed him. The
thought of eternity brought terrible visions in its train, and Ali shuddered at the
prospect of Al-Sirat, that awful bridge, narrow as a spider's thread and hanging
over the furnaces of Hell; which a Mussulman must cross in order to arrive at the
gate of Paradise. He ceased to joke about Eblis, the Prince of Evil, and sank by
degrees into profound superstition. He was surrounded by magicians and
soothsayers; he consulted omens, and demanded talismans and charms from
the dervishes, which he had either sewn into his garments, or suspended in the
most secret parts of his palace, in order to avert evil influences. A Koran was
hung about his neck as a defence against the evil eye, and frequently he
removed it and knelt before it, as did Louis XI before the leaden figures of saints
which adorned his hat. He ordered a complete chemical laboratory from Venice,
and engaged alchemists to distill the water of immortality, by the help of which he
hoped to ascend to the planets and discover the Philosopher's Stone. Not
perceiving any practical result of their labours, he ordered, the laboratory to be
burnt and the alchemists to be hung.

Ali hated his fellow-men. He would have liked to leave no survivors, and often
regretted his inability to destroy all those who would have cause to rejoice at his
death, Consequently he sought to accomplish as much harm as he could during
the time which remained to him, and for no possible reason but that of hatred, he
caused the arrest of both Ibrahim Pasha, who had already suffered so much at
his hands, and his son, and confined them both in a dungeon purposely
constructed under the grand staircase of the castle by the lake, in order that he
might have the pleasure of passing over their heads each time he left his
apartments or returned to them.

It was not enough for Ali merely to put to death those who displeased him, the
form of punishment must be constantly varied in order to produce a fresh mode
of suffering, therefore new tortures had to be constantly invented. Now it was a
servant, guilty of absence without leave, who was bound to a stake in the
presence of his sister, and destroyed by a cannon placed six paces off, but only
loaded with powder, in order to prolong the agony; now, a Christian accused of
having tried to blow up Janina by introducing mice with tinder fastened to their
tails into the powder magazine, who was shut up in the cage of Ali's favourite
tiger and devoured by it.

The pasha despised the human race as much as he hated it. A European having
reproached him with the cruelty shown to his subjects, Ali replied:--

"You do not understand the race with which I have to deal. Were I to hang a
criminal on yonder tree, the sight would not deter even his own brother from
stealing in the crowd at its foot. If I had an old man burnt alive, his son would
steal the ashes and sell them. The rabble can be governed by fear only, and I am
the one man who does it successfully."

His conduct perfectly corresponded to his ideas. One great feast-day, two gipsies
devoted their lives in order to avert the evil destiny of the pasha; and, solemnly
convoking on their own heads all misfortunes which might possibly befall him,
cast themselves down from the palace roof. One arose with difficulty, stunned
and suffering, the other remained on the ground with a broken leg. Ali gave them
each forty francs and an annuity of two pounds of maize daily, and considering
this sufficient, took no further trouble about them.
Every year, at Ramadan, a large sum was distributed in alms among poor
women without distinction of sect. But Ali contrived to change this act of
benevolence into a barbarous form of amusement.

As he possessed several palaces in Janina at a considerable distance from each

other, the one at which a distribution was to take place was each day publicly
announced, and when the women had waited there for an hour or two, exposed
to sun, rain or cold, as the case might be, they were suddenly informed that they
must go to some other palace, at the opposite end of the town. When they got
there, they usually had to wait for another hour, fortunate if they were not sent off
to a third place of meeting. When the time at length arrived, an eunuch appeared,
followed by Albanian soldiers armed with staves, carrying a bag of money, which
he threw by handfuls right into the midst of the assembly. Then began a terrible
uproar. The women rushed to catch it, upsetting each other, quarreling, fighting,
and uttering cries of terror and pain, while the Albanians, pretending to enforce
order, pushed into the crowd, striking right and left with their batons. The pacha
meanwhile sat at a window enjoying the spectacle, and impartially applauding all
well delivered blows, no matter whence they came. During these distributions,
which really benefitted no one, many women were always severely hurt, and
some died from the blows they had received.

Ali maintained several carriages for himself and his family, but allowed no one
else to share in this prerogative. To avoid being jolted, he simply took up the
pavement in Janina and the neighbouring towns, with the result that in summer
one was choked by dust, and in winter could hardly get through the mud. He
rejoiced in the public inconvenience, and one day having to go out in heavy rain,
he remarked to one of the officers of his escort, "How delightful to be driven
through this in a carriage, while you will have the pleasure of following on
horseback! You will be wet and dirty, whilst I smoke my pipe and laugh at your
condition."

He could not understand why Western sovereigns should permit their subjects to
enjoy the same conveniences and amusements as themselves. "If I had a
theatre," he said, "I would allow no one to be present at performances except my
own children; but these idiotic Christians do not know how to uphold their own
dignity."

There was no end to the mystifications which it amused the pacha to carry out
with those who approached him.

One day he chose to speak Turkish to a Maltese merchant who came to display
some jewels. He was informed that the merchant understood only Greek and
Italian. He none the less continued his discourse without allowing anyone to
translate what he said into Greek. The Maltese at length lost patience, shut up
his cases, and departed. Ali watched him with the utmost calm, and as he went
out told him, still in Turkish, to come again the next day.
An unexpected occurrence seemed, like the warning finger of Destiny, to indicate
an evil omen for the pacha's future. "Misfortunes arrive in troops," says the
forcible Turkish proverb, and a forerunner of disasters came to Ali Dacha.

One morning he was suddenly roused by the Sheik Yussuf, who had forced his
way in, in spite of the guards. "Behold!" said he, handing Ali a letter, "Allah, who
punishes the guilty, has permitted thy seraglio of Tepelen to be burnt. Thy
splendid palace, thy beautiful furniture, costly stuffs, cashmeers, furs, arms, all
are destroyed! And it is thy youngest and best beloved son, Salik Bey himself,
whose hand kindled the flames!" So saying; Yussuf turned and departed, crying
with a triumphant voice, "Fire! fire! fire!"

Ali instantly ordered his horse, and, followed by his guards, rode without drawing
rein to Tepelen. As soon as he arrived at the place where his palace had formerly
insulted the public misery, he hastened to examine the cellars where his
treasures were deposited. All was intact, silver plate, jewels, and fifty millions of
francs in gold, enclosed in a well over which he had caused a tower to be built.
After this examination he ordered all the ashes to be carefully sifted in hopes of
recovering the gold in the tassels and fringes of the sofas, and the silver from the
plate and the armour. He next proclaimed through the length and breadth of the
land, that, being by the hand of Allah deprived of his house, and no longer
possessing anything in his native town, he requested all who loved him to prove
their affection by bringing help in proportion. He fixed the day of reception for
each commune, and for almost each individual of any rank, however small,
according to their distance from Tepelen, whither these evidences of loyalty were
to be brought.

During five days Ali received these forced benevolences from all parts. He sat,
covered with rags, on a shabby palm-leaf mat placed. at the outer gate of his
ruined palace, holding in his left hand a villainous pipe of the kind used by the
lowest people, and in his right an old red cap, which he extended for the
donations of the passers-by. Behind stood a Jew from Janina, charged with the
office of testing each piece of gold and valuing jewels which were offered instead
of money; for, in terror, each endeavoured to appear generous. No means of
obtaining a rich harvest were neglected; for instance, Ali distributed secretly large
sums among poor and obscure people, such as servants, mechanics, and
soldiers, in order that by returning them in public they might appear to be making
great sacrifices, so that richer and more distinguished persons could not, without
appearing ill-disposed towards the pacha, offer only the same amount as did the
poor, but were obliged to present gifts of enormous value.

After this charity extorted from their fears, the pacha's subjects hoped to be at
peace. But a new decree proclaimed throughout Albania required them to rebuild
and refurnish the formidable palace of Tepelen entirely at the public expense. Ali
then returned to Janina, followed by his treasure and a few women who had
escaped from the flames, and whom he disposed of amongst his friends, saying
that he was no longer sufficiently wealthy to maintain so many slaves.

Fate soon provided him with a second opportunity for amassing wealth. Arta, a
wealthy town with a Christian population, was ravaged by the plague, and out of
eight thousand inhabitants, seven thousand were swept away. Hearing this, Ali
hastened to send commissioners to prepare an account of furniture and lands
which the pacha claimed as being heir to his subjects. A few livid and emaciated
spectres were yet to be found in the streets of Arta. In order that the inventory
might be more complete, these unhappy beings were compelled to wash in the
Inachus blankets, sheets, and clothes steeped in bubonic infection, while the
collectors were hunting everywhere for imaginary hidden treasure. Hollow trees
were sounded, walls pulled down, the most unlikely corners examined, and a
skeleton which was discovered still girt with a belt containing Venetian sequins
was gathered up with the utmost care. The archons of the town were arrested
and tortured in the hope of discovering buried treasure, the clue to which had
disappeared along with the owners. One of these magistrates, accused of having
hidden some valuable objects, was plunged up to his shoulders in a boiler full of
melted lead and boiling oil. Old men, women, children, rich and poor alike, were
interrogated, beaten, and compelled to abandon the last remains of their property
in order to save their lives.

Having thus decimated the few inhabitants remaining to the town, it became
necessary to repeople it. With this object in view, Ali's emissaries overran the
villages of Thessaly, driving before them all. the people they met in flocks, and
compelling them to settle in Arta. These unfortunate colonists were also obliged
to find money to pay the pacha for the houses they were forced to occupy.

This business being settled, Ali turned to another which had long been on his
mind. We have seen how Ismail Pacho Bey escaped the assassins sent to
murder him. A ship, despatched secretly from Prevesa, arrived at the place of his
retreat. The captain, posing as a merchant, invited Ismail to come on board and
inspect his goods. But the latter, guessing a trap, fled promptly, and for some
time all trace of him was lost. Ali, in revenge, turned his wife out of the palace at
Janina which she still occupied, and placed her in a cottage, where she was
obliged to earn a living by spinning. But he did not stop there, and learning after
some time that Pacho Bey had sought refuge with the Nazir of Drama, who had
taken him into favour, he resolved to strike a last blow, more sure and more
terrible than the others. Again Ismail's lucky star saved him from the plots of his
enemy. During a hunting party he encountered a kapidgi-bachi, or messenger
from the sultan, who asked him where he could find the Nazir, to whom he was
charged with an important communication. As kapidgi-bachis are frequently
bearers of evil tidings, which it is well to ascertain at once, and as the Nazir was
at some distance, Pacho Bey assumed the latter's part, and the sultan's
confidential messenger informed him that he was the bearer of a firman granted
at the request of Ali Pacha of Janina,

"Ali of Tepelenir. He is my friend. How can I serve him?"

"By executing the present order, sent you by the Divan, desiring you to behead a
traitor, named Pacho Bey, who crept into your service a short time ago.

"Willingly I but he is not an easy man to seize being brave, vigorous, clever, and
cunning. Craft will be necessary in this case. He may appear at any moment, and
it is advisable that he should not see you. Let no one suspect who you are, but
go to Drama, which is only two hours distant, and await me there. I shall return
this evening, and you can consider your errand as accomplished."

The kapidgi-bachi made a sign of comprehension, and directed his course

towards Drama; while Ismail, fearing that the Nazir, who had only known him a
short time, would sacrifice him with the usual Turkish indifference, fled in the
opposite direction. At the end of an hour he encountered a Bulgarian monk, with
whom he exchanged clothes--a disguise which enabled him to traverse Upper
Macedonia in safety. Arriving at the great Servian convent in the mountains
whence the Axius takes its rise, he obtained admission under an assumed name.
But feeling sure of the discretion of the monks, after a few days he explained his
situation to them.

Ali, learning the ill-success of his latest stratagem, accused the Nazir of
conniving at Paeho Bey's escape. But the latter easily justified himself with the
Divan by giving precise information of what had really occurred. This was what
Ali wanted, who profited thereby in having the fugitive's track followed up, and
soon got wind of his retreat. As Pacho Bey's innocence had been proved in the
explanations given to the Porte, the death firman obtained against him became
useless, and Ali affected to abandon him to his fate, in order the better to conceal
the new plot he was conceiving against him.

Athanasius Vaya, chief assassin of the Kardikiotes, to whom Ali imparted his
present plan for the destruction of Ismail, begged for the honour of putting it into
execution, swearing that this time Ismail should not escape. The master and the
instrument disguised their scheme under the appearance of a quarrel, which
astonished the whole town. At the end of a terrible scene which took place in
public, Ali drove the confidant of his crimes from the palace, overwhelming him
with insults, and declaring that were Athanasius not the son of his children's
foster-mother, he would have sent him to the gibbet. He enforced his words by
the application of a stick, and Vaya, apparently overwhelmed by terror and
affliction, went round to all the nobles of the town, vainly entreating them to
intercede for him. The only favour which Mouktar Pacha could obtain for him was
a sentence of exile allowing him to retreat to Macedonia.

Athanasius departed from Janina with all the demonstrations of utter despair, and
continued his route with the haste of one who fears pursuit. Arrived in
Macedonia, he assumed the habit of a monk, and undertook a pilgrimage to
Mount Athos, saying that both the disguise and the journey were necessary to his
safety. On the way he encountered one of the itinerant friars of the great Servian
convent, to whom he described his disgrace in energetic terms, begging him to
obtain his admission among the lay brethren of his monastery.

Delighted at the prospect of bringing back to the fold of the Church a man so
notorious for his crimes, the friar hastened to inform his superior, who in his turn
lost no time in announcing to Pacho Bey that his compatriot and companion in
misfortune was to be received among the lay brethren, and in relating the history
of Athanasius as he himself had heard it. Pacho Bey, however, was not easily
deceived, and at once guessing that Vaya's real object was his own
assassination, told his doubts to the superior, who had already received him as a
friend. The latter retarded the reception of Vaya so as to give Pacho time to
escape and take the road to Constantinople. Once arrived there, he determined
to brave the storm and encounter Ali openly.

Endowed by nature with a noble presence and with masculine firmness, Pacho
Bey possessed also the valuable gift of speaking all the various tongues of the
Ottoman Empire. He could not fail to distinguish himself in the capital and to find
an opening for his great talents. But his inclination drove him at first to seek his
fellow-exiles from Epirus, who were either his old companions in arms, friends, of
relations, for he was allied to all the principal families, and was even, through his
wife, nearly connected with his enemy, Ali Pacha himself.

He had learnt what this unfortunate lady had already endured on his account,
and feared that she would suffer yet more if he took active measures against the
pacha. While he yet hesitated between affection and revenge, he heard that she
had died of grief and misery. Now that despair had put an end to uncertainty, he
set his hand to the work.

At this precise moment Heaven sent him a friend to console and aid him in his
vengeance, a Christian from OEtolia, Paleopoulo by name. This man was on the
point of establishing himself in Russian Bessarabia, when he met Pacho Bey and
joined with him in the singular coalition which was to change the fate of the
Tepelenian dynasty.

Paleopoulo reminded his companion in misfortune of a memorial presented to

the Divan in 1812, which had brought upon Ali a disgrace from which he only
escaped in consequence of the overwhelming political events which just then
absorbed the attention of the Ottoman Government. The Grand Seigneur had
sworn by the tombs of his ancestors to attend to the matter as soon as he was
able, and it was only requisite to remind him of his vow. Pacho Hey and his friend
drew up a new memorial, and knowing the sultan's avarice, took care to dwell on
the immense wealth possessed by Ali, on his scandalous exactions, and on the
enormous sums diverted from the Imperial Treasury. By overhauling the
accounts of his administration, millions might be recovered. To these financial
considerations Pacho Bey added some practical ones. Speaking as a man sure
of his facts and well acquainted with the ground, he pledged his head that with
twenty thousand men he would, in spite of Ali's troops and strongholds, arrive
before Janina without firing a musket.

However good these plans appeared, they were by no means to the taste of the
sultan's ministers, who were each and all in receipt of large pensions from the
man at whom they struck. Besides, as in Turkey it is customary for the great
fortunes of Government officials to be absorbed on their death by the Imperial
Treasury, it of course appeared easier to await the natural inheritance of Ali's
treasures than to attempt to seize them by a war which would certainly absorb
part of them. Therefore, while Pacho Bey's zeal was commended, he obtained
only dilatory answers, followed at length by a formal refusal.

Meanwhile, the old OEtolian, Paleopoulo, died, having prophesied the

approaching Greek insurrection among his friends, and pledged Pacho Bey to
persevere in his plans of vengeance, assuring him that before long Ali would
certainly fall a victim to them. Thus left alone, Pacho, before taking any active
steps in his work of vengeance, affected to give himself up to the strictest
observances of the Mohammedan religion. Ali, who had established a most
minute surveillance over his actions, finding that his time was spent with ulemas
and dervishes, imagined that he had ceased to be dangerous, and took no
further trouble about him.
 Chapter 8

A career of successful crime had established Ali's rule over a population equal to
that of the two kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. But his ambition was not yet
satisfied. The occupation of Parga did not crown his desires, and the delight
which it caused him was much tempered by the escape of the Parganiotes, who
found in exile a safe refuge from his persecution. Scarcely had he finished the
conquest of Middle Albania before he was exciting a faction against the young
Moustai Pacha in Scodra, a new object of greed. He also kept an army of spies
in Wallachia, Moldavia, Thrace, and Macedonia, and, thanks to them, he
appeared to be everywhere present, and was mixed up in every intrigue, private
or political, throughout the empire. He had paid the English agents the price
agreed on for Parga, but he repaid himself five times over, by gifts extorted from
his vassals, and by the value of the Parga lands, now become his property. His
palace of Tepelen had been rebuilt at the public expense, and was larger and
more magnificent than before; Janina was embellished with new buildings;
elegant pavilions rose on the shores of the lake; in short, Ali's luxury was on a
level with his vast riches. His sons and grandsons were provided for by important
positions, and Ali himself was sovereign prince in everything but the name.

There was no lack of flattery, even from literary persons. At Vienna a poem was
pointed in his honour, and a French-Greek Grammar was dedicated to him, and
such titles as "Most Illustrious, "Most Powerful," and "Most Clement," were
showered upon him, as upon a man whose lofty virtues and great exploits
echoed through the world. A native of Bergamo, learned in heraldry, provided
him with a coat of arms, representing, on a field gules, a lion, embracing three
cubs, emblematic of the Tepelenian dynasty. Already he had a consul at
Leucadia accepted by the English, who, it is said, encouraged him to declare
himself hereditary Prince of Greece, under the nominal suzerainty of the sultan;
their real intention being to use him as a tool in return for their protection, and to
employ him as a political counter-balance to the hospodars of Moldavia and
Wallachia, who for the last twenty years had been simply Russian agents in
disguise, This was not all; many of the adventurers with whom the Levant
swarms, outlaws from every country, had found a refuge in Albania, and helped
not a little to excite Ali's ambition by their suggestions. Some of these men
frequently saluted him as King, a title which he affected to reject with indignation;
and he disdained to imitate other states by raising a private standard of his own,
preferring not to compromise his real power by puerile displays of dignity; and he
lamented the foolish ambition of his children, who would ruin him, he said, by
aiming, each, at becoming a vizier. Therefore he did not place his hope or
confidence in them, but in the adventurers of every sort and kind, pirates,
coiners, renegades, assassins, whom he kept in his pay and regarded as his
best support. These he sought to attach to his person as men who might some
day be found useful, for he did not allow the many favours of fortune to blind him
to the real danger of his position. A vizier," he was answered, "resembles a man
wrapped in costly furs, but he sits on a barrel of powder, which only requires a
spark to explode it." The Divan granted all the concessions which Ali demanded,
affecting ignorance of his projects of revolt and his intelligence with the enemies
of the State; but then apparent weakness was merely prudent temporising. It was
considered that Ali, already advanced in years, could not live much longer, and it
was hoped that, at his death, Continental Greece, now in some measure
detached from the Ottoman rule, would again fall under the sultan's sway.

Meanwhile, Pacho Bey, bent on silently undermining Ali's influence; had

established himself as an intermediary for all those who came to demand justice
on account of the pacha's exactions, and he contrived that both his own
complaints and those of his clients, should penetrate to the ears of the sultan;
who, pitying his misfortunes, made him a kapidgi-bachi, as a commencement of
better things. About this time the sultan also admitted to the Council a certain
Abdi Effendi of Larissa, one of the richest nobles of Thessaly, who had been
compelled by the tyranny of Veli Pacha to fly from his country. The two new
dignitaries, having secured Khalid Effendi as a partisan, resolved to profit by his
influence to carry out their plans of vengeance on the Tepelenian family. The
news of Pacho Bey's promotion roused Ali from the security in which he was
plunged, and he fell a prey to the most lively anxiety. Comprehending at once the
evil which this man,--trained in his own school, might cause him, he exclaimed,
"Ah! if Heaven would only restore me the strength of my youth, I would plunge
my sword into his heart even in the midst of the Divan."

It was not long before Ali's enemies found an extremely suitable opportunity for
opening their attack. Veli Pacha, who had for his own profit increased the
Thessalian taxation fivefold, had in doing so caused so much oppression that
many of the inhabitants preferred the griefs and dangers of emigration rather
than remain under so tyrannical a rule. A great number of Greeks sought refuge
at Odessa, and the great Turkish families assembled round Pacho Bey and Abdi
Effendi at Constantinople, who lost no opportunity of interceding in their favour.
The sultan, who as yet did not dare to act openly against the Tepelenian family,
was at least able to relegate Veli to the obscure post of Lepanto, and Veli, much
disgusted, was obliged to obey. He quitted the new palace he had just built at
Rapehani, and betook himself to the place of exile, accompanied by actors,
Bohemian dancers, bear leaders, and a crowd of prostitutes.

Thus attacked in the person of his most powerful son, Ali thought to terrify his
enemies by a daring blow. He sent three Albanians to Constantinople to
assassinate Pacho Bey. They fell upon him as he was proceeding to the Mosque
of Saint-Sophia, on the day on which the sultan also went in order to be present
at the Friday ceremonial prayer, and fired several shots at him. He was wounded,
but not mortally.
The assassins, caught red-handed, were hung at the gate of the Imperial
Seraglio, but not before confessing that they were sent by the Pacha of Janina.
The Divan, comprehending at last that so dangerous a man must be dealt with at
any cost, recapitulated all Ali's crimes, and pronounced a sentence against him
which was confirmed by a decree of the Grand Mufti. It set forth that Ali Tepelen,
having many times obtained pardon for his crimes, was now guilty of high
treason in the first degree, and that he would, as recalcitrant, be placed under the
ban of the Empire if he did not within forty days appear at the Gilded Threshold of
the Felicitous Gate of the Monarch who dispenses crowns to the princes who
reign in this world, in order to justify himself. As may be supposed, submission to
such an order was about the last thing Ali contemplated. As he failed to appear,
the Divan caused the Grand Mufti to launch the thunder of excommunication
against him.

Ali had just arrived at Parga, which he now saw for the third time since he had
obtained it, when his secretaries informed him that only the rod of Moses could
save him from the anger of Pharaoh--a figurative mode of warning him that he
had nothing to hope for. But Ali, counting on his usual luck, persisted in imagining
that he could, once again, escape from his difficulty by the help of gold and
intrigue. Without discontinuing the pleasures in which he was immersed, he
contented himself with sending presents and humble petitions to Constantinople.
But both were alike useless, for no one even ventured to transmit them to the
sultan, who had sworn to cut off the head of anyone who dared mention the
name of Ali Tepelen in his presence.

Receiving no answer to his overtures, Ali became a prey to terrible anxiety. As he

one day opened the Koran to consult it as to his future, his divining rod stopped
at verse 82, chap. xix., which says, "He doth flatter himself in vain. He shall
appear before our tribunal naked and bare." Ali closed the book and spat three
times into his bosom. He was yielding to the most dire presentiments, when a
courier, arriving from the capital, informed him that all hope of pardon was lost.

He ordered his galley to be immediately prepared, and left his seraglio, casting a
look of sadness on the beautiful gardens where only yesterday he had received
the homage of his prostrate slaves. He bade farewell to his wives, saying that he
hoped soon to return, and descended to the shore, where the rowers received
him with acclamations. The sail was set to a favourable breeze, and Ali, leaving
the shore he was never to see again, sailed towards Erevesa, where he hoped to
meet the Lord High Commissioner Maitland. But the time of prosperity had gone
by, and the regard which had once been shown him changed with his fortunes.
The interview he sought was not granted.

The sultan now ordered a fleet to be equipped, which, after Ramadan, was to
disembark troops on the coast of Epirus, while all the neighbouring pashas
received orders to hold themselves in readiness to march with all the troops of
their respective Governments against Ali, whose name was struck out of the list
of viziers. Pacho Bey was named Pasha of Janina and Delvino on condition of
subduing them, and was placed in command of the whole expedition.

However, notwithstanding these orders, there was not at the beginning of April,
two months after the attempted assassination of Pacho Bey, a single soldier
ready to march on Albania. Ramadan, that year, did not close until the new moon
of July. Had Ali put himself boldly at the head of the movement which was
beginning to stir throughout Greece, he might have baffled these vacillating
projects, and possibly dealt a fatal blow to the Ottoman Empire. As far back as
1808, the Hydriotes had offered to recognise his son Veli, then Vizier of the
Morea, as their Prince, and to support him in every way, if he would proclaim the
independence of the Archipelago. The Moreans bore him no enmity until he
refused to help them to freedom, and would have returned to him had he
consented.

On the other side, the sultan, though anxious for war, would not spend a penny in
order to wage it; and it was not easy to corrupt some of the great vassals ordered
to march at their own expense against a man in whose downfall they had no
special interest. Nor were the means of seduction wanting to Ali, whose wealth
was enormous; but he preferred to keep it in order to carry on the war which he
thought he could no longer escape. He made, therefore, a general appeal to all
Albanian warriors, whatever their religion. Mussulmans and Christians, alike
attracted by the prospect of booty and good pay, flocked to his standard in
crowds.

He organised all these adventurers on the plan of the Armatous, by companies,

placing a captain of his own choice at the head of each, and giving each
company a special post to defend. Of all possible plans this was the best
adapted to his country, where only a guerilla warfare can be carried on, and
where a large army could not subsist.

In repairing to the posts assigned to them, these troops committed such terrible
depredations that the provinces sent to Constantinople demanding their
suppression. The Divan answered the petitioners that it was their own business
to suppress these disorders, and to induce the Klephotes to turn their arms
against Ali, who had nothing to hope from the clemency of the Grand Seigneur.
At the same time circular letters were addressed to the Epirotes, warning them to
abandon the cause of a rebel, and to consider the best means of freeing
themselves from a traitor, who, having long oppressed them, now sought to draw
down on their country all the terrors of war. Ali, who every where maintained
numerous and active spies, now redoubled his watchfulness, and not a single
letter entered Epirus without being opened and read by his agents. As an extra
precaution, the guardians of the passes were enjoined to slay without mercy any
despatch-bearer not provided with an order signed by Ali himself; and to send to
Janina under escort any travellers wishing to enter Epirus. These measures were
specially aimed against Suleyman Pacha, who had succeeded Veli in the
government of Thessaly, and replaced Ali himself in the office of Grand Provost
of the Highways. Suleyman's secretary was a Greek called Anagnorto, a native
of Macedonia, whose estates Ali had seized, and who had fled with his family to
escape further persecution. He had become attached to the court party, less for
the sake of vengeance on Ali than to aid the cause of the Greeks, for whose
freedom he worked by underhand methods. He persuaded Suleyman Pacha that
the Greeks would help him to dethrone Ali, for whom they cherished the deepest
hatred, and he was determined that they should learn the sentence of deprivation
and excommunication fulminated against the rebel pacha. He introduced into the
Greek translation which he was commissioned to make, ambiguous phrases
which were read by the Christians as a call to take up arms in the cause of
liberty. In an instant, all Hellas was up in arms. The Mohammedans were
alarmed, but the Greeks gave out that it was in order to protect themselves and
their property against the bands of brigands which had appeared on all sides.
This was the beginning of the Greek insurrection, and occurred in May 1820,
extending from Mount Pindus to Thermopylae. However, the Greeks, satisfied
with having vindicated their right to bear arms in their own defence, continued to
pay their taxes, and abstained from all hostility.

At the news of this great movement, Ali's friends advised him to turn it to his own
advantage. "The Greeks in arms," said they, "want a chief: offer yourself as their
leader. They hate you, it is true, but this feeling may change. It is only necessary
to make them believe, which is easily done, that if they will support your cause
you will embrace Christianity and give them freedom."

There was no time to lose, for matters became daily more serious. Ali hastened
to summon what he called a Grand Divan, composed of the chiefs of both sects,
Mussulmans and Christians. There were assembled men of widely different
types, much astonished at finding themselves in company: the venerable Gabriel,
Archbishop of Janina, and uncle of the unfortunate Euphrosyne, who had been
dragged thither by force; Abbas, the old head of the police, who had presided at
the execution of the Christian martyr; the holy bishop of Velas, still bearing the
marks of the chains with which Ali had loaded him; and Porphyro, Archbishop of
Arta, to whom the turban would have been more becoming than the mitre.

Ashamed of the part he was obliged to play, Ali, after long hesitation, decided on
speaking, and, addressing the Christians, "O Greeks!" he said, "examine my
conduct with unprejudiced minds, and you will see manifest proofs of the
confidence and consideration which I have ever shown you. What pacha has
ever treated you as I have done? Who would have treated your priests and the
objects of your worship with as much respect? Who else would have conceded
the privileges which you enjoy? for you hold rank in my councils, and both the
police and the administration of my States are in your hands. I do not, however,
seek to deny the evils with which I have afflicted you; but, alas! these evils have
been the result of my enforced obedience to the cruel and perfidious orders of
the Sublime Porte. It is to the Porte that these wrongs must be attributed, for if
my actions be attentively regarded it will be seen that I only did harm when
compelled thereto by the course of events. Interrogate my actions, they will
speak more fully than a detailed apology.

"My position with regard to the Suliotes allowed no half-and-half measures.

Having once broken with them, I was obliged either to drive them from my
country or to exterminate them. I understood the political hatred of the Ottoman
Cabinet too well not to know that it would declare war against me sooner or later,
and I knew that resistance would be impossible, if on one side I had to repel the
Ottoman aggression, and on the other to fight against the formidable Suliotes.

"I might say the same of the Parganiotes. You know that their town was the haunt
of my enemies, and each time that I appealed to them to change their ways they
answered only with insults and threats. They constantly aided the Suliotes with
whom I was at war; and if at this moment they still were occupying Parga, you
would see them throw open the gates of Epirus to the forces of the sultan. But all
this does not prevent my being aware that my enemies blame me severely, and
indeed I also blame myself, and deplore the faults which the difficulty of my
position has entailed upon me. Strong in my repentance, I do not hesitate to
address myself to those whom I have most grievously wounded. Thus I have
long since recalled to my service a great number of Suliotes, and those who have
responded to my invitation are occupying important posts near my person. To
complete the reconciliation, I have written to those who are still in exile, desiring
them to return fearlessly to their country, and I have certain information that this
proposal has been everywhere accepted with enthusiasm. The Suliotes will soon
return to their ancestral houses, and, reunited under my standard, will join me in
combating the Osmanlis, our common enemies.

"As to the avarice of which I am accused, it seems easily justified by the constant
necessity I was under of satisfying the inordinate cupidity of the Ottoman
ministry, which incessantly made me pay dearly for tranquillity. This was a
personal affair, I acknowledge, and so also is the accumulation of treasure made
in order to support the war, which the Divan has at length declared."

Here Ali ceased, then having caused a barrel full of gold pieces to be emptied on
the floor, he continued:

"Behold a part of the treasure I have preserved with so much care, and which
has been specially obtained from the Turks, our common enemies: it is yours. I
am now more than ever delighted at being the friend of the Greeks. Their bravery
is a sure earnest of victory, and we will shortly re-establish the Greek Empire,
and drive the Osmanlis across the Bosphorus. O bishops and priests of Issa the
prophet! bless the arms of the Christians, your children. O primates! I call upon
you to defend your rights, and to rule justly the brave nation associated with my
interests."

This discourse produced very different impressions on the Christian priests and
archons. Some replied only by raising looks of despair to Heaven, others
murmured their adhesion. A great number remained uncertain, not knowing what
to decide. The Mirdite chief, he who had refused to slaughter the Kardikiotes,
declared that neither he nor any Skipetar of the Latin communion would bear
arms against their legitimate sovereign the sultan. But his words were drowned
by cries of "Long live Ali Pasha! Long live the restorer of liberty!" uttered by some
chiefs of adventurers and brigands.
 Chapter 9

Yet next day, May 24th, 1820, Ali addressed a circular letter to his brothers the
Christians, announcing that in future he would consider them as his most faithful
subjects, and that henceforth he remitted the taxes paid to his own family. He
wound up by asking for soldiers, but the Greeks having learnt the instability of his
promises, remained deaf to his invitations. At the same time he sent messengers
to the Montenegrins and the Servians, inciting them to revolt, and organised
insurrections in Wallachia and Moldavia to the very environs of Constantinople.

Whilst the Ottoman vassals assembled only in small numbers and very slowly
under their respective standards, every day there collected round the castle of
Janina whole companies of Toxidae, of Tapazetae, and of Chamidae; so that Ali,
knowing that Ismail Pacho Bey had boasted that he could arrive in sight of Janina
without firing a gun, said in his turn that he would not treat with the Porte until he
and his troops should be within eight leagues of Constantinople.

He had fortified and supplied with munitions of war Ochrida, Avlone, Cannia,
Berat, Cleisoura, Premiti, the port of Panormus, Santi-Quaranta, Buthrotum,
Delvino, Argyro-Castron, Tepelen, Parga, Prevesa, Sderli, Paramythia, Arta, the
post of the Five Wells, Janina and its castles. These places contained four
hundred and twenty cannons of all sizes, for the most part in bronze, mounted on
siege-carriages, and seventy mortars. Besides these, there were in the castle by
the lake, independently of the guns in position, forty field-pieces, sixty mountain
guns, a number of Congreve rockets, formerly given him by the English, and an
enormous quantity of munitions of war. Finally, he endeavoured to establish a
line of semaphores between Janina and Prevesa, in order to have prompt news
of the Turkish fleet, which was expected to appear on this coast.

Ali, whose strength seemed to increase with age, saw to everything and
appeared everywhere; sometimes in a litter borne by his Albanians, sometimes in
a carriage raised into a kind of platform, but it was more frequently on horseback
that he appeared among his labourers. Often he sat on the bastions in the midst
of the batteries, and conversed familiarly with those who surrounded him. He
narrated the successes formerly obtained against the sultan by Kara Bazaklia,
Vizier of Scodra, who, like himself, had been attained with the sentence of
deprivation and excommunication; recounting how the rebel pacha, shut up in his
citadel with seventy-two warriors, had seen collapse at his feet the united forces
of four great provinces of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by twenty-two
pachas, who were almost entirely annihilated in one day by the Guegues. He
reminded them also, of the brilliant victory gained by Passevend Oglon, Pacha of
Widdin, of quite recent memory, which is celebrated in the warlike songs of the
Klephts of Roumelia.
Almost simultaneously, Ali's sons, Mouktar and Veli, arrived at Janina. Veli had
been obliged, or thought himself obliged, to evacuate Lepanto by superior forces,
and brought only discouraging news, especially as to the wavering fidelity of the
Turks. Mouktar, on the contrary, who had just made a tour of inspection in the
Musache, had only noticed favourable dispositions, and deluded himself with the
idea that the Chaonians, who had taken up arms, had done so in order to aid his
father. He was curiously mistaken, for these tribes hated Ali with a hatred all the
deeper for being compelled to conceal it, and were only in arms in order to repel
aggression.

The advice given by the sons to their father as to the manner of treating the
Mohammedans differed widely in accordance with their respective opinions.
Consequently a violent quarrel arose between them, ostensibly on account of this
dispute, but in reality on the subject of their father's inheritance, which both
equally coveted. Ali had brought all his treasure to Janina, and thenceforth
neither son would leave the neighbourhood of so excellent a father. They
overwhelmed him with marks of affection, and vowed that the one had left
Lepanto, and the other Berat, only in order to share his danger. Ali was by no
means duped by these protestations, of which he divined the motive only too
well, and though he had never loved his sons, he suffered cruelly in discovering
that he was not beloved by them.

Soon he had other troubles to endure. One of his gunners assassinated a

servant of Vela's, and Ali ordered the murderer to be punished, but when the
sentence was to be carried out the whole corps of artillery mutinied. In order to
save appearances, the pacha was compelled to allow them to ask for the pardon
of the criminal whom he dared not punish. This incident showed him that his
authority was no longer paramount, and he began to doubt the fidelity of his
soldiers. The arrival of the Ottoman fleet further enlightened him to his true
position. Mussulman and Christian alike, all the inhabitants of Northern Albania,
who had hitherto concealed their disaffection under an exaggerated semblance
of devotion, now hastened to make their submission to the sultan. The Turks,
continuing their success, laid siege to Parga, which was held by Mehemet, Veli's
eldest son. He was prepared to make a good defence, but was betrayed by his
troops, who opened the gates of the town, and he was compelled to surrender at
discretion. He was handed over to the commander of the naval forces, by whom
he was well treated, being assigned the best cabin in the admiral's ship and
given a brilliant suite. He was assured that the sultan, whose only quarrel was
with his grandfather, would show him favour, and would even deal mercifully with
Ali, who, with his treasures, would merely be sent to an important province in
Asia Minor. He was induced to write in this strain to his family and friends in order
to induce them to lay down their arms.

The fall of Parga made a great impression on the Epirotes, who valued its
possession far above its real importance. Ali rent his garments and cursed the
days of his former good fortune, during which he had neither known how to
moderate his resentment nor to foresee the possibility of any change of fortune.

The fall of Parga was succeeded by that of Arta of Mongliana, where was
situated Ali's country house, and of the post of the Five Wells. Then came a yet
more overwhelming piece of news Omar Brionis, whom Ali, having formerly
despoiled of its wealth, had none the less, recently appointed general-in-chief,
had gone over to the enemy with all his troops!

Ali then decided on carrying out a project he had formed in case of necessity,
namely, on destroying the town of Janina, which would afford shelter to the
enemy and a point of attack against the fortresses in which he was entrenched.
When this resolution was known, the inhabitants thought only of saving
themselves and their property from the ruin from which nothing could save their
country. But most of them were only preparing to depart, when Ali gave leave to
the Albanian soldiers yet faithful to him to sack the town.

The place was immediately invaded by an unbridled soldiery. The Metropolitan

church, where Greeks and Turks alike deposited their gold, jewels, and
merchandise, even as did the Greeks of old in the temples of the gods, became
the first object of pillage. Nothing was respected. The cupboards containing
sacred vestments were broken open, so were the tombs of the archbishops, in
which were interred reliquaries adorned with precious stones; and the altar itself
was defiled with the blood of ruffians who fought for chalices and silver crosses.

The town presented an equally terrible spectacle; neither Christians nor

Mussulmans were spared, and the women's apartments, forcibly entered, were
given up to violence. Some of the more courageous citizens endeavoured to
defend their houses arid families against these bandits, and the clash of arms
mingled with cries and groans. All at on e the roar of a terrible explosion rose
above the other sounds, and a hail of bombs, shells, grenade's, and rockets
carried devastation and fire into the different quarters of the town, which soon
presented the spectacle of an immense conflagration. Ali, seated on the great
platform of the castle by the lake, which seemed to vomit fire like a volcano,
directed the bombardment, pointing out the places which must be burnt.
Churches, mosques, libraries, bazaars, houses, all were destroyed, and the only
thing spared by the flames was the gallows, which remained standing in the
midst of the ruins.

Of the thirty thousand persons who inhabited Janina a few hours previously,
perhaps one half had escaped. But these had not fled many leagues before they
encountered the outposts of the Otto man army, which, instead of helping or
protecting them, fell upon them, plundered them, and drove them towards the
camp, where slavery awaited them. The unhappy fugitives, taken thus between
fire and. sword, death behind and slavery before, uttered a terrible cry, and fled
in all directions. Those who escaped the Turks were stopped in the hill passes by
the mountaineers rushing down to the>> rey; only large numbers who held
together could force a passage.

In some cases terror bestows extraordinary strength, there were mothers who,
with infants at the breast, covered on foot in one day the fourteen leagues which
separate Janina from Arta. But others, seized with the pangs of travail in the
midst of their flight, expired in the woods, after giving birth to babes, who,
destitute of succour, did not survive their mothers. And young girls, having
disfigured themselves by gashes, hid themselves in caves, where they died of
terror and hunger.

The Albanians, intoxicated with plunder and debauchery, refused to return to the
castle, and only thought of regaining their country and enjoying the fruit of their
rapine. But they were assailed on the way by peasants covetous of their booty,
and by those of Janina who had sought refuge with them. The roads and passes
were strewn with corpses, and the trees by the roadside converted into gibbets.
The murderers did not long survive their victims.

The ruins of Janina were still smoking when, on the 19th August, Pacho Bey
made his entry. Having pitched his tent out of range of Ali's cannon, he
proclaimed aloud the firman which inaugurated him as Pacha of Janina and
Delvino, and then raised the tails, emblem of his dignity. Ali heard on the summit
of his keep the acclamations of the Turks who saluted Pacho Bey, his former
servant with the titles of Vali of Epirus, and Ghazi, of Victorius. After this
ceremony, the cadi read the sentence, confirmed by the Mufti, which declared
Tepelen Veli-Zade to have forfeited his dignities and to be excommunicated,
adding an injunction to all the faithful that henceforth his name was not to be
pronounced except with the addition of "Kara," or "black," which is bestowed on
those cut off from the congregation of Sunnites, or Orthodox Mohammedans. A
Marabout then cast a stone towards the castle, and the anathema upon "Kara
Ali" was repeated by the whole Turkish army, ending with the cry of "Long live
the sultan! So be it!"

But it was not by ecclesiastical thunders that three fortresses could be reduced,
which were defended by artillerymen drawn from different European armies, who
had established an excellent school for gunners and bombardiers. The besieged,
having replied with hootings of contempt to the acclamations of the besiegers,
proceeded to enforce their scorn with well-aimed cannon shots, while the rebel
flotilla, dressed as if for a fete-day, passed slowly before the Turks, saluting them
with cannon-shot if they ventured near the edge of the lake.

This noisy rhodomontade did not prevent Ali from being consumed with grief and
anxiety. The sight of his own troops, now in the camp of Pacho Bey, the fear of
being for ever separated from his sons, the thought of his grandson in the
enemy's hands, all threw him into the deepest melancholy, and his sleepless
eyes were constantly drowned in tears. He refused his food, and sat for seven
days with untrimmed beard, clad in mourning, on a mat at the door of his
antechamber, extending his hands to his soldiers, and imploring them to slay him
rather than abandon him. His wives, seeing him in this state, and concluding all
was lost, filled the air with their lamentations. All began to think that grief would
bring Ali to the grave; but his soldiers, to whose protestations he at first refused
any credit, represented to him that their fate was indissolubly linked with his.
Pacho Bey having proclaimed that all taken in arms for Ali would be shot as
sharers in rebellion, it was therefore their interest to support his resistance with
all their power. They also pointed out that the campaign was already advanced,
and that the Turkish army, which had forgotten its siege artillery at
Constantinople, could not possibly procure any before the end of October, by
which time the rains would begin, and the enemy would probably be short of
food. Moreover, in any case, it being impossible to winter in a ruined town, the
foe would be driven to seek shelter at a distance.

These representations, made with warmth conviction, and supported by

evidence, began to soothe the restless fever which was wasting Ali, and the
gentle caresses and persuasions of Basillisa, the beautiful Christian captive, who
had now been his wife for some time, completed the cure.

At the same time his sister Chainitza gave him an astonishing example of
courage. She had persisted, in spite of all that could be said, in residing in her
castle of Libokovo. The population, whom she had cruelly oppressed, demanded
her death, but no one dared attack her. Superstition declared that the spirit of her
mother, with whom she kept up a mysterious communication even beyond the
portals of the grave, watched over her safety. The menacing form of Kamco had,
it was said, appeared to several inhabitants of Tepelen, brandishing bones of the
wretched Kardikiotes, and demanding fresh victims with loud cries. The desire of
vengeance had urged some to brave these unknown dangers, and twice, a
warrior, clothed in black, had warned them back, forbidding them to lay hands on
a sacrilegious woman; whose punishment Heaven reserved to itself, and twice
they had returned upon their footsteps.

But soon, ashamed of their terror, they attempted another attack, and came
attired in the colour of the Prophet. This time no mysterious stranger speared to
forbid their passage and with a cry they climbed the mountain, listening for any
supernatural warning. Nothing disturbed the silence and solitude save the
bleating of flocks and the cries of birds of prey. Arrived on the platform of
Libokovo, they prepared in silence to surprise the guards, believing the castle full
of them. They approached crawling, like hunters who stalk a deer, already they
had reached the gate of the enclosure, and prepared to burst it open, when lo! it
opened of itself, and they beheld Chainitza standing before them, a carabine in
her hand, pistols in her belt, and, for all guard, two large dogs.

"Halt! ye daring ones," she cried; "neither my life nor my treasure will ever be at
your mercy. Let one of you move a step without my permission, and this place
and the ground beneath your feet' will engulf you. Ten thousand pounds of
powder are in these cellars. I will, however, grant your pardon, unworthy though
you are. I will even allow you to take these sacks filled with gold; they may
recompense you for the losses which my brother's enemies have recently
inflicted on you. But depart this instant without a word, and dare not to trouble me
again; I have other means of destruction at command besides gunpowder. Life is
nothing to me, remember that; but your mountains may yet at my command
become the tomb of your wives and children. Go!"

She ceased, and her would-be murderers fled terror.

Shortly after the plague broke out in these mountains, Chainitza had distributed
infected garments among gipsies, who scattered contagion wherever they went.

"We are indeed of the same blood!" cried Ali with pride, when he heard of his
sister's conduct; and from that hour he appeared to regain all the fire and
audacity of his youth. When, a few days later, he was informed that Mouktar and
Veli, seduced by the brilliant promises of Dacha Bey, had surrendered Prevesa
and Argyro-Castron, "It does not surprise me," he observed coldly. "I have long
known them to be unworthy of being my sons, and henceforth my only children
and heirs are those who defend my cause." And on hearing a report that both
had been beheaded by Dacha Bey's order, he contented himself with saying,
"They betrayed their father, and have only received their deserts; speak no more
of them." And to show how little it discouraged him, he redoubled his fire upon
the Turks.

But the latter, who had at length obtained some artillery, answered his fire with
vigour, and began to rally to discrown the old pacha's fortress. Feeling that the
danger was pressing, Ali redoubled both his prudence and activity. His immense
treasures were the real reason of the war waged against him, and these might
induce his own soldiers to rebel, in order to become masters of them. He
resolved to protect them from either surprise or conquest. The sum necessary for
present use was deposited in the powder magazine, so that, if driven to
extremity, it might be destroyed in a moment; the remainder was enclosed in
strong-boxes, and sunk in different parts of the lake. This labour lasted a
fortnight, when, finally, Ali put to death the gipsies who had been employed about
it, in order that the secret might remain with himself.

While he thus set his own affairs in order, he applied himself to the troubling
those of his adversary. A great number of Suliots had joined the Ottoman army in
order to assist in the destruction of him who formerly had ruined their country.
Their camp, which for a long time had enjoyed immunity from the guns of Janina,
was one day overwhelmed with bombs. The Suliots were terrified, until they
remarked that the bombs did not burst. They then, much astonished, proceeded
to pick up and examine these projectiles. Instead of a match, they found rolls of
paper enclosed in a wooden cylinder, on which was engraved these words,
"Open carefully." The paper contained a truly Macchiavellian letter from Ali,
which began by saying that they were quite justified in having taken up arms
against him, and added that he now sent them a part of the pay of which the
traitorous Ismail was defrauding them, and that the bombs thrown into their
cantonment contained six thousand sequins in gold. He begged them to amuse
Ismail by complaints and recriminations, while his gondola should by night fetch
one of them, to whom he would communicate what more he had to say. If they
accepted his proposition, they were to light three fires as a signal.

The signal was not long in appearing. Ali despatched his barge, which took on
board a monk, the spiritual chief of the Suliots. He was clothed in sackcloth, and
repeated the prayers for the dying, as one going to execution. Ali, however,
received him with the utmost cordiality: He assured the priest of his repentance,
his good intentions, his esteem for the Greek captains, and then gave him a
paper which startled him considerably. It was a despatch, intercepted by Ali, from
Khalid Effendi to the Seraskier Ismail, ordering the latter to exterminate all
Christians capable of bearing arms. All male children were to be circumcised,
and brought up to form a legion drilled in European fashion; and the letter went
on to explain how the Suliots, the Armatolis, the Greek races of the mainland and
those of the Archipelago should be disposed of. Seeing the effect produced on
the monk by the perusal of this paper, Ali hastened to make him the most
advantageous offers, declaring that his own wish was to give Greece a political
existence, and only requiring that the Suliot captains should send him a certain
number of their children as hostages. He then had cloaks and arms brought
which he presented to the monk, dismissing him in haste, in order that darkness
might favour his return.

The next day Ali was resting, with his head on Basilissa's lap, when he was
informed that the enemy was advancing upon the intrenchments which had been
raised in the midst of the ruins of Janina. Already the outposts had been forced,
and the fury of the assailants threatened to triumph over all obstacles. Ali
immediately ordered a sortie of all his troops, announcing that he himself would
conduct it. His master of the horse brought him the famous Arab charger called
the Dervish, his chief huntsman presented him with his guns, weapons still
famous in Epirus, where they figure in the ballads of the Skipetars. The first was
an enormous gun, of Versailles manufacture, formerly presented by the
conqueror of the Pyramids to Djezzar, the Pacha of St. Jean-d'Arc, who amused
himself by enclosing living victims in the walls of his palace, in order that he
might hear their groans in the midst of his festivities. Next came a carabine given
to the Pacha of Janina in the name of Napoleon in 1806; then the battle musket
of Charles XII of Sweden, and finally-- the much revered sabre of Krim-Guerai.
The signal was given; the draw bridge crossed; the Guegues and other
adventurers uttered a terrific shout; to which the cries of the assailants replied. Ali
placed himself on a height, whence his eagle eye sought to discern the hostile
chiefs; but he called and defied Pacho Bey in vain. Perceiving Hassan-Stamboul,
colonel of the Imperial bombardiers outside his battery, Ali demanded the gun of
Djezzar, and laid him dead on the spot. He then took the carabine of Napoleon,
and shot with it Kekriman, Bey of Sponga, whom he had formerly appointed
Pacha of Lepanto. The enemy now became aware of his presence, and sent a
lively fusillade in his direction; but the balls seemed to diverge from his person.
As soon as the smoke cleared, he perceived Capelan, Pacha of Croie, who had
been his guest, and wounded him mortally in the chest. Capelan uttered a sharp
cry, and his terrified horse caused disorder in the ranks. Ali picked off a large
number of officers, one after another; every shot was mortal, and his enemies
began to regard him in, the light of a destroying angel. Disorder spread through
the forces of the Seraskier, who retreated hastily to his intrenchments.

The Suliots meanwhile sent a deputation to Ismail offering their submission, and
seeking to regain their country in a peaceful manner; but, being received by him
with the most humiliating contempt, they resolved to make common cause with
Ali. They hesitated over the demand for hostages, and at length required Ali's
grandson, Hussien Pacha, in exchange. After many difficulties, Ali at length
consented, and the agreement was concluded. The Suliots received five hundred
thousand piastres and a hundred and fifty charges of ammunition, Hussien
Pacha was given up to them, and they left the Ottoman camp at dead of night.
Morco Botzaris remained with three hundred and twenty men, threw down the
palisades, and then ascending Mount Paktoras with his troops, waited for dawn
in order to announce his defection to the Turkish army. As soon as the sun
appeared he ordered a general salvo of artillery and shouted his war-cry. A few
Turks in charge of an outpost were slain, the rest fled. A cry of "To arms" was
raised, and the standard of the Cross floated before the camp of the infidels.

Signs and omens of a coming general insurrection appeared on all sides; there
was no lack of prodigies, visions, or popular rumours, and the Mohammedans
became possessed with the idea that the last hour of their rule in Greece had
struck. Ali Pacha favoured the general demoralisation; and his agents, scattered
throughout the land, fanned the flame of revolt. Ismail Pacha was deprived of his
title of Seraskier, and superseded by Kursheed Pacha. As soon as Ali heard this,
he sent a messenger to Kursheed, hoping to influence him in his favour. Ismail,
distrusting the Skipetars, who formed part of his troops, demanded hostages
from them. The Skipetars were indignant, and Ali hearing of their discontent,
wrote inviting them to return to him, and endeavouring to dazzle them by the
most brilliant promises. These overtures were received by the offended troops
with enthusiasm, and Alexis Noutza, Ali's former general, who had forsaken him
for Ismail, but who had secretly returned to his allegiance and acted as a spy on
the Imperial army, was deputed to treat with him. As soon as he arrived, Ali
began to enact a comedy in the intention of rebutting the accusation of incest
with his daughter-in-law Zobeide; for this charge, which, since Veli himself had
revealed the secret of their common shame, could only be met by vague denials,
had never ceased to produce a mast unfavourable impression on Noutza's mind.
Scarcely had he entered the castle by the lake, when Ali rushed to meet him, and
flung himself into his arms. In presence of his officers and the garrison, he loaded
him with the most tender names, calling him his son, his beloved Alexis, his own
legitimate child, even as Salik Pacha. He burst into tears, and, with terrible oaths,
called Heaven to witness that Mouktar and Veli, whom he disavowed on account
of their cowardice, were the adulterous offspring of Emineh's amours. Then,
raising his hand against the tomb of her whom he had loved so much, he drew
the stupefied Noutza into the recess of a casemate, and sending for Basilissa,
presented him to her as a beloved son, whom only political considerations had
compelled him to keep at a distance, because, being born of a Christian mother,
he had been brought up in the faith of Jesus.

Having thus softened the suspicions of his soldiers, Ali resumed his underground
intrigues. The Suliots had informed him that the sultan had made them extremely
advantageous offers if they would return to his service, and they demanded
pressingly that Ali should give up to them the citadel of Kiapha, which was still in
his possession, and which commanded Suli. He replied with the information that
he intended, January 26, to attack the camp of Pacho Bey early in the morning,
and requested their assistance. In order to cause a diversion, they were to
descend into the valley of Janina at night, and occupy a position which he
pointed out to them, and he gave their the word "flouri" as password for the night.
If successful, he undertook to grant their request.

Ali's letter was intercepted, and fell into Ismail's hands, who immediately
conceived a plan for snaring his enemy in his own toils. When the night fixed by
Ali arrived, the Seraskier marched out a strong division under the command of
Omar Brionis, who had been recently appointed Pacha, and who was instructed
to proceed along the western slope of Mount Paktoras as far as the village of
Besdoune, where he was to place an outpost, and then to retire along the other
side of the mountain, so that, being visible in the starlight, the sentinels placed to
watch on the hostile towers might take his men for the Suliots and report to Ali
that the position of Saint-Nicolas, assigned to them, had been occupied as
arranged. All preparations for battle were made, and the two mortal enemies,
Ismail and Ali, retired to rest, each cherishing the darling hope of shortly
annihilating his rival.

At break of day a lively cannonade, proceeding from the castle of the lake and
from Lithoritza, announced that the besieged intended a sortie. Soon Ali's
Skipetars, preceded by a detachment of French, Italians, and Swiss, rushed
through the Ottoman fire and carried the first redoubt, held by Ibrahim-Aga-
Stamboul. They found six pieces of cannon, which the Turks, notwithstanding
their terror, had had time to spike. This misadventure, for they had hoped to turn
the artillery against the intrenched camp, decided Ali's men on attacking the
second redoubt, commanded by the chief bombardier. The Asiatic troops of
Baltadgi Pacha rushed to its defence. At their head appeared the chief Imaun of
the army, mounted on a richly caparisoned mule and repeating the curse
fulminated by the mufti against Ali, his adherents, his castles, and even his
cannons, which it was supposed might be rendered harmless by these
adjurations. Ali's Mohammedan Skipetars averted their eyes, and spat into their
bosoms, hoping thus to escape the evil influence. A superstitious terror was
beginning to spread among them, when a French adventurer took aim at the
Imaun and brought him down, amid the acclamations of the soldiers; whereupon
the Asiatics, imagining that Eblis himself fought against them, retired within the
intrenchments, whither the Skipetars, no longer fearing the curse, pursued them
vigorously.

At the same time, however, a very different action was proceeding at the
northern end of the besiegers' intrenchments. Ali left his castle of the lake,
preceded by twelve torch-bearers carrying braziers filled with lighted pitch-wood,
and advanced towards the shore of Saint-Nicolas, expecting to unite with the
Suliots. He stopped in the middle of the ruins to wait for sunrise, and while there
heard that his troops had carried the battery of Ibrahim-Aga-Stamboul.
Overjoyed, he ordered them to press on to the second intrenchment, promising
that in an hour, when he should have been joined by the Suliots, he would
support them, and he then pushed forward, preceded by two field-pieces with
their waggons, and followed by fifteen hundred men, as far as a large plateau on
which he perceived at a little distance an encampment which he supposed to be
that of the Suliots. He then ordered the Mirdite prince, Kyr Lekos, to advance with
an escort of twenty-five men, and when within hearing distance to wave a blue
flag and call out the password. An Imperial officer replied with the countersign
"flouri," and Lekos immediately sent back word to Ali to advance. His orderly
hastened back, and the prince entered the camp, where he and his escort were
immediately surrounded and slain.

On receiving the message, Ali began to advance, but cautiously, being uneasy at
seeing no signs of the Mirdite troop. Suddenly, furious cries, and a lively
fusillade, proceeding from the vineyards and thickets, announced that he had
fallen into a trap, and at the same moment Omar Pacha fell upon his advance
guard, which broke, crying "Treason!".

Ali sabred the fugitives mercilessly, but fear carried them away, and, forced to
follow the crowd, he perceived the Kersales and Baltadgi Pacha descending the
side of Mount Paktoras, intending to cut off his retreat. He attempted another
route, hastening towards the road to Dgeleva, but found it held by the Tapagetae
under the Bimbashi Aslon of Argyro-Castron. He was surrounded, all seemed
lost, and feeling that his last hour had come, he thought only of selling his life as
dearly as possible. Collecting his bravest soldiers round him, he prepared for a
last rush on Omar Pacha; when, suddenly, with an inspiration born of despair, he
ordered his ammunition waggons to be blown up. The Kersales, who were about
to seize them, vanished in the explosion, which scattered a hail of stones and
debris far and wide. Under cover of the smoke and general confusion, Ali
succeeded in withdrawing his men to the shelter of the guns of his castle of
Litharitza, where he continued the fight in order to give time to the fugitives to
rally, and to give the support he had promised to those fighting on the other
slope; who, in the meantime, had carried the second battery and were attacking
the fortified camp. Here the Seraskier Ismail met them with a resistance so well
managed, that he was able to conceal the attack he was preparing to make on
their rear. Ali, guessing that the object of Ismail's manoeuvres was to crush those
whom he had promised to help, and unable, on account of the distance, either to
support or to warn them, endeavoured to impede Omar Pasha, hoping still that
his Skipetars might either see or hear him. He encouraged the fugitives, who
recognised him from afar by his scarlet dolman, by the dazzling whiteness of his
horse, and by the terrible cries which he uttered; for, in the heat of battle, this
extraordinary man appeared to have regained the vigour and audacity, of his
youth. Twenty times he led his soldiers to the charge, and as often was forced to
recoil towards his castles. He brought up his reserves, but in vain. Fate had
declared against him. His troops which were attacking the intrenched camp found
themselves taken between two fires, and he could not help them. Foaming with
passion, he threatened to rush singly into the midst of his enemies. His officers
besought him to calm himself, and, receiving only refusals, at last threatened to
lay hands upon him if he persisted in exposing himself like a private soldier.
Subdued by this unaccustomed opposition, Ali allowed himself to be forced back
into the castle by the lake, while his soldiers dispersed in various directions.

But even this defeat did not discourage the fierce pasha. Reduced to extremity,
he yet entertained the hope of shaking the Ottoman Empire, and from the
recesses of his fortress he agitated the whole of Greece. The insurrection which
he had stirred up, without foreseeing what the results might be, was spreading
with the rapidity of a lighted train of powder, and the Mohammedans were
beginning to tremble, when at length Kursheed Pasha, having crossed the
Pindus at the head of an army of eighty thousand men, arrived before Janina.

His tent had hardly been pitched, when Ali caused a salute of twenty-one guns to
be fired in his honour, and sent a messenger, bearing a letter of congratulation
on his safe arrival. This letter, artful and insinuating, was calculated to make a
deep impression on Kursheed. Ali wrote that, being driven by the infamous lies of
a former servant, called Pacho Bey, into resisting, not indeed the authority of the
sultan, before whom he humbly bent his head weighed down with years and
grief, but the perfidious plots of His Highness's advisers, he considered himself
happy in his misfortunes to have dealings with a vizier noted for his lofty qualities.
He then added that these rare merits had doubtless been very far from being
estimated at their proper value by a Divan in which men were only classed in
accordance with the sums they laid out in gratifying the rapacity of the ministers.
Otherwise, how came it about that Kursheed Pasha, Viceroy of Egypt--after the
departure of the French, the conqueror of the Mamelukes, was only rewarded for
these services by being recalled without a reason? Having been twice Romili-
Valicy, why, when he should have enjoyed the reward of his labours, was he
relegated to the obscure post of Salonica? And, when appointed Grand Vizier
and sent to pacify Servia, instead of being entrusted with the government of this
kingdom which he had reconquered for the sultan, why was he hastily
despatched to Aleppo to repress a trifling sedition of emirs and janissaries? Now,
scarcely arrived in the Morea, his powerful arm was to be employed against an
aged man.

Ali then plunged into details, related the pillaging, avarice, and imperious dealing
of Pacho Bey, as well as of the pachas subordinate to him; how they had
alienated the public mind, how they had succeeded in offending the Armatolis,
and especially the Suliots, who might be brought back to their duty with less
trouble than these imprudent chiefs had taken to estrange them. He gave a mass
of special information on this subject, and explained that in advising the Suliots to
retire to their mountains he had really only put them in a false position as long as
he retained possession of the fort of Kiapha, which is the key of the Selleide.

The Seraskier replied in a friendly manner, ordered the military salute to be

returned in Ali's honour, shot for shot, and forbade that henceforth a person of
the valour and intrepidity of the Lion of Tepelen should be described by the
epithet of "excommunicated." He also spoke of him by his title of "vizier," which
he declared he had never forfeited the right to use; and he also stated that he
had only entered Epirus as a peace-maker. Kursheed's emissaries had just
seized some letters sent by Prince Alexander Ypsilanti to the Greek captains at
Epirus. Without going into details of the events which led to the Greek
insurrection, the prince advised the Polemarchs, chiefs of the Selleid, to aid Ali
Pacha in his revolt against the Porte, but to so arrange matters that they could
easily detach themselves again, their only aim being to seize his treasures, which
might be used to procure the freedom of Greece.

These letters a messenger from Kursheed delivered to Ali. They produced such
an impression upon his mind that he secretly resolved only to make use of the
Greeks, and to sacrifice them to his own designs, if he could not inflict a terrible
vengeance on their perfidy. He heard from the messenger at the same time of
the agitation in European Turkey, the hopes of the Christians, and the
apprehension of a rupture between the Porte and Russia. It was necessary to lay
aside vain resentment and to unite against these threatening dangers. Kursheed
Pacha was, said his messenger, ready to consider favourably any propositions
likely to lead to a prompt pacification, and would value such a result far more
highly than the glory of subduing by means of the imposing force at his
command, a valiant prince whom he had always regarded as one of the
strongest bulwarks of the Ottoman Empire. This information produced a different
effect upon Ali to that intended by the Seraskier. Passing suddenly from the
depth of despondency to the height of pride, he imagined that these overtures of
reconciliation were only a proof of the inability of his foes to subdue him, and he
sent the following propositions to Kursheed Pacha:

"If the first duty of a prince is to do justice, that of his subjects is to remain faithful,
and obey him in all things. From this principle we derive that of rewards and
punishments, and although my services might sufficiently justify my conduct to all
time, I nevertheless acknowledge that I have deserved the wrath of the sultan,
since he has raised the arm of his anger against the head of his slave. Having
humbly implored his pardon, I fear not to invoke his severity towards those who
have abused his confidence. With this object I offer--First, to pay the expenses of
the war and the tribute in arrears due from my Government without delay.
Secondly, as it is important for the sake of example that the treason of an inferior
towards his superior should receive fitting chastisement, I demand that Pacho
Bey, formerly in my service, should be beheaded, he being the real rebel, and
the cause of the public calamities which are afflicting the faithful of Islam. Thirdly,
I require that for the rest of my life I shall retain, without annual re-investiture, my
pachalik of Janina, the coast of Epirus, Acarnania and its dependencies, subject
to the rights, charges and tribute due now and hereafter to the sultan. Fourthly, I
demand amnesty and oblivion of the past for all those who have served me until
now. And if these conditions are not accepted without modifications, I am
prepared to defend myself to the last.

"Given at the castle of Janina, March 7, 1821."

 Chapter 10

This mixture of arrogance and submission only merited indignation, but it suited
Kursheed to dissemble. He replied that, assenting to such propositions being
beyond his powers, he would transmit them to Constantinople, and that hostilities
might be suspended, if Ali wished, until the courier, could return.

Being quite as cunning as Ali himself, Kursheed profited by the truce to carry on
intrigues against him. He corrupted one of the chiefs of the garrison, Metzo-
Abbas by name, who obtained pardon for himself and fifty followers, with
permission to return to their homes. But this clemency appeared to have seduced
also four hundred Skipetars who made use of the amnesty and the money with
which Ali provided them, to raise Toxis and the Tapygetae in the latter's favour.
Thus the Seraskier's scheme turned against himself, and he perceived he had
been deceived by Ali's seeming apathy, which certainly did not mean dread of
defection. In fact, no man worth anything could have abandoned him, supported
as he seemed to be by almost supernatural courage. Suffering from a violent
attack of gout, a malady he had never before experienced, the pacha, at the age
of eighty-one, was daily carried to the most exposed place on the ramparts of his
castle. There, facing the hostile batteries, he gave audience to whoever wished
to see him. On this exposed platform he held his councils, despatched orders,
and indicated to what points his guns should be directed. Illumined by the flashes
of fire, his figure assumed fantastic and weird shapes. The balls sung in the air,
the bullets hailed around him, the noise drew blood from the ears of those with
him. Calm and immovable, he gave signals to the soldiers who were still
occupying part of the ruins of Janina, and encouraged them by voice and
gesture. Observing the enemy's movements by the help of a telescope, he
improvised means of counteracting them. Sometimes he amused himself by,
greeting curious persons and new-comers after a fashion of his own. Thus the
chancellor of the French Consul at Prevesa, sent as an envoy to Kursheed
Pacha, had scarcely entered the lodging assigned to him, when he was visited by
a bomb which caused him to leave it again with all haste. This greeting was due
to Ali's chief engineer, Caretto, who next day sent a whole shower of balls and
shells into the midst of a group of Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them
to Tika, where Kursheed was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these
contemptible gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become
uncomfortable. I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan
(Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which will
leave it considerable trouble to pacify." Then, after a moment's silence, he
ordered the public criers to inform his soldiers of the insurrections in Wallachia
and the Morea, which news, proclaimed from the ramparts, and spreading
immediately in the Imperial camp, caused there much dejection.
The Greeks were now everywhere proclaiming their independence, and
Kursheed found himself unexpectedly surrounded by enemies. His position
threatened to become worse if the siege of Janina dragged on much longer. He
seized the island in the middle of the lake, and threw up redoubts upon it,
whence he kept up an incessant fire on the southern front of the castle of
Litharitza, and a practicable trench of nearly forty feet having been made, an
assault was decided on. The troops marched out boldly, and performed prodigies
of valour; but at the end of an hour, Ali, carried on a litter because of his gout,
having led a sortie, the besiegers were compelled to give way and retire to their
intrenchments, leaving three hundred dead at the foot of the rampart. "The
Pindian bear is yet alive," said Ali in a message to Kursheed; "thou mayest take
thy dead and bury them; I give them up without ransom, and as I shall always do
when thou attackest me as a brave man ought." Then, having entered his
fortress amid the acclamations of his soldiers, he remarked on hearing of the
general rising of Greece and the Archipelago, "It is enough! two men have ruined
Turkey! "He then remained silent, and vouchsafed no explanation of this
prophetic sentence.

Ali did not on this occasion manifest his usual delight on having gained a
success. As soon as he was alone with Basilissa, he informed her with tears of
the death of Chainitza. A sudden apoplexy had stricken this beloved sister, the
life of his councils, in her palace of Libokovo, where she remained undisturbed
until her death. She owed this special favour to her riches and to the intercession
of her nephew, Djiladin Pacha of Ochcrida, who was reserved by fate to perform
the funeral obsequies of the guilty race of Tepelen.

A few months afterwards, Ibrahim Pacha of Berat died of poison, being the last
victim whom Chainitza had demanded from her brother.

Ali's position was becoming daily more difficult, when the time of Ramadan
arrived, during which the Turks relax hostilities, and a species of truce ensued.
Ali himself appeared to respect the old popular customs, and allowed his
Mohammedan soldiers to visit the enemy's outposts and confer on the subject of
various religious ceremonies. Discipline was relaxed in Kursheed's camp, and Ali
profited thereby to ascertain the smallest details of all that passed.

He learned from his spies that the general's staff, counting on the "Truce of God,"
a tacit suspension of all hostilities during the feast of Bairam, the Mohammedan
Easter, intended to repair to the chief mosque, in the quarter of Loutcha. This
building, spared by the bombs, had until now been respected by both sides. Ali,
according to reports spread by himself, was supposed to be ill, weakened by
fasting, and terrified into a renewal of devotion, and not likely to give trouble on
so sacred a day. Nevertheless he ordered Caretto to turn thirty guns against the
mosque, cannon, mortars and howitzers, intending, he said, to solemnise Bairam
by discharges of artillery. As soon as he was sure that the whole of the staff had
entered the mosque, he gave the signal.
Instantly, from the assembled thirty pieces, there issued a storm of shells,
grenades and cannon-balls. With a terrific noise, the mosque crumbled together,
amid the cries of pain and rage of the crowd inside crushed in the ruins. At the
end of a quarter of an hour the wind dispersed the smoke, and disclosed a
burning crater, with the large cypresses which surrounded the building blazing as
if they had been torches lighted for the funeral ceremonies of sixty captains and
two hundred soldiers.

"Ali Pacha is yet alive! "cried the old Homeric hero of Janina, leaping with joy;
and his words, passing from mouth to mouth, spread yet more terror amid
Kursheed's soldiers, already overwhelmed by the horrible spectacle passing
before their eyes.

Almost on the same day, Ali from the height of his keep beheld the standard of
the Cross waving in the distance. The rebellious Greeks were bent on attacking
Kursheed. The insurrection promoted by the Vizier of Janina had passed far
beyond the point he intended, and the rising had become a revolution. The
delight which Ali first evinced cooled rapidly before this consideration, and was
extinguished in grief when he found that a conflagration, caused by the
besiegers' fire, had consumed part of his store in the castle by the lake.
Kursheed, thinking that this event must have shaken the old lion's resolution,
recommenced negotiations, choosing the Kiaia of Moustai Pacha: as an envoy,
who gave Ali a remarkable warning. "Reflect," said he, "that these rebels bear the
sign of the Cross on their standards. You are now only an instrument in their
hands. Beware lest you become the victim of their policy." Ali understood the
danger, and had the sultan been better advised, he would have pardoned Ali on
condition of again bringing Hellos under his iron yoke. It is possible that the
Greeks might not have prevailed against an enemy so formidable and a brain so
fertile in intrigue. But so simple an idea was far beyond the united intellect of the
Divan, which never rose above idle display. As soon as these negotiations, had
commenced, Kursheed filled the roads with his couriers, sending often two in a
day to Constantinople, from whence as many were sent to him. This state of
things lasted mare than three weeks, when it became known that Ali, who had
made good use of his time in replacing the stores lost in the conflagration, buying
actually from the Kiaia himself a part of the provisions brought by him for the
Imperial camp, refused to accept the Ottoman ultimatum. Troubles which broke,
out at the moment of the rupture of the negotiations proved that he foresaw the
probable result.

Kursheed was recompensed for the deception by which he had been duped by
the reduction of the fortress of Litharitza. The Guegue Skipetars, who composed
the garrison, badly paid, wearied out by the long siege, and won by the
Seraskier's bribes, took advantage of the fact that the time of their engagement
with Ali had elapsed same months previously, and delivering up the fortress they
defended, passed over to the enemy. Henceforth Ali's force consisted of only six
hundred men.

It was to be feared that this handful of men might also become a prey to
discouragement, and might surrender their chief to an enemy who had received
all fugitives with kindness. The Greek insurgents dreaded such an event, which
would have turned all Kursheed's army, hitherto detained before the castle, of
Janina, loose upon themselves. Therefore they hastened to send to their former
enemy, now their ally, assistance which he declined to accept. Ali saw himself
surrounded by enemies thirsting for his wealth, and his avarice increasing with
the danger, he had for some months past refused to pay his defenders. He
contented himself with informing his captains of the insurgents' offer, and telling
them that he was confident that bravery such as theirs required no reinforcement.
And when some of them besought him to at least receive two or three hundred
Palikars into the castle, "No," said he; "old serpents always remain old serpents: I
distrust the Suliots and their friendship."

Ignorant of Ali's decision, the Greeks of the Selleid were advancing, as well as
the Toxidae, towards Janina, when they received the following letter from Ali
Pacha:

"My well-beloved children, I have just learned that you are preparing to despatch
a party of your Palikars against our common enemy, Kursheed. I desire to inform
you that this my fortress is impregnable, and that I can hold out against him for
several years. The only, service I require of your courage is, that you should
reduce Arta, and take alive Ismail Pacho Bey, my former servant, the mortal
enemy of my family, and the author of the evils and frightful calamities which
have so long oppressed our unhappy country, which he has laid waste before our
eyes. Use your best efforts to accomplish this, it will strike at the root of the evil,
and my treasures shall reward your Palikars, whose courage every day gains a
higher value in my eyes."

Furious at this mystification, the Suliots retired to their mountains, and Kursheed
profited by the discontent Ali's conduct had caused, to win over the Toxide
Skipetars, with their commanders Tahir Abbas and Hagi Bessiaris, who only
made two conditions: one, that Ismail Pacho Bey, their personal enemy, should
be deposed; the other, that the life of their old vizier should be respected.

The first condition was faithfully adhered to by Kursheed, actuated by private

motives different from those which he gave publicly, and Ismail Pacho Bey was
solemnly deposed. The tails, emblems of his authority, were removed; he
resigned the plumes of office; his soldiers forsook him, his servants followed suit.
Fallen to the lowest rank, he was soon thrown into prison, where he only blamed
Fate for his misfortunes. All the Skipetar Agas hastened to place themselves
under Kursheeds' standard, and enormous forces now threatened Janina. All
Epirus awaited the denoument with anxiety.
Had he been less avaricious, Ali might have enlisted all the adventurers with
whom the East was swarming, and made the sultan tremble in his capital. But the
aged pacha clung passionately to his treasures. He feared also, perhaps not
unreasonably, that those by whose aid he might triumph would some day
become his master. He long deceived himself with the idea that the English, who
had sold Parga to him, would never allow a Turkish fleet to enter the Ionian Sea.
Mistaken on this point, his foresight was equally at fault with regard to the
cowardice of his sons. The defection of his troops was not less fatal, and he only
understood the bearing of the Greek insurrection which he himself had provoked,
so far as to see that in this struggle he was merely an instrument in procuring the
freedom of a country which he had too cruelly oppressed to be able to hold even
an inferior rank in it. His last letter to the Suliots opened the eyes of his followers,
but under the influence of a sort of polite modesty these were at least anxious to
stipulate for the life of their vizier. Kursheed was obliged to produce firmans from
the Porte, declaring that if Ali Tepelen submitted, the royal promise given to his
sons should be kept, and that he should, with them, be transferred to Asia Minor,
as also his harem, his servants; and his treasures, and allowed to finish his days
in peace. Letters from Ali's sons were shown to the Agas, testifying to the good
treatment they had experienced in their exile; and whether the latter believed all
this, or whether they merely sought to satisfy their own consciences, they
henceforth thought only of inducing their rebellious chief to submit. Finally, eight
months' pay, given them in advance, proved decisive, and they frankly embraced
the cause of the sultan.

The garrison of the castle on the lake, whom Ali seemed anxious to offend as
much as possible, by refusing their pay, he thinking them so compromised that
they would not venture even to accept an amnesty guaranteed by the mufti,
began to desert as soon as they knew the Toxidae had arrived at the Imperial
camp. Every night these Skipetars who could cross the moat betook themselves
to Kursheed's quarters. One single man yet baffled all the efforts of the
besiegers. The chief engineer, Caretto, like another Archimedes, still carried
terror into the midst of their camp.

Although reduced to the direst misery, Caretto could not forget that he owed his
life to the master who now only repaid his services with the most sordid
ingratitude. When he had first come to Epirus, Ali, recognising his ability, became
anxious to retain him, but without incurring any expense. He ascertained that the
Neapolitan was passionately in love with a Mohammedan girl named Nekibi, who
returned his affection. Acting under Ali's orders, Tahir Abbas accused the woman
before the cadi of sacrilegious intercourse with an infidel. She could only escape
death by the apostasy of her lover; if he refused to deny his God, he shared her
fate, and both would perish at the stake. Caretto refused to renounce his religion,
but only Nekibi suffered death. Caretto was withdrawn from execution, and Ali
kept him concealed in a place of safety, whence he produced him in the time of
need. No one had served him with greater zeal; it is even possible that a man of
this type would have died at his post, had his cup not been filled with mortification
and insult.

Eluding the vigilance of Athanasius Vaya, whose charge it was to keep guard
over him, Caretto let himself down by a cord fastened to the end of a cannon: He
fell at the foot of the rampart, and thence dragged himself, with a broken arm, to
the opposite camp. He had become nearly blind through the explosion of a
cartridge which had burnt his face. He was received as well as a Christian from
whom there was now nothing to fear, could expect. He received the bread of
charity, and as a refugee is only valued in proportion to the use which can be
made of him, he was despised and forgotten.

The desertion of Caretto was soon followed by a defection which annihilated Ali's
last hopes. The garrison which had given him so many proofs of devotion,
discouraged by his avarice, suffering from a disastrous epidemic, and no longer
equal to the necessary labour in defence of the place, opened all, the gates
simultaneously to the enemy. But the besiegers, fearing a trap, advanced very
slowly; so that Ali, who had long prepared against very sort of surprise, had time
to gain a place which he called his "refuge."

It was a sort of fortified enclosure, of solid masonry, bristling with cannon, which
surrounded the private apartments of his seraglio, called the "Women's Tower."
He had taken care to demolish everything which could be set on fire, reserving
only a mosque and the tomb of his wife Emineh, whose phantom, after
announcing an eternal repose, had ceased to haunt him. Beneath was an
immense natural cave, in which he had stored ammunition, precious articles,
provisions, and the treasures which had not been sunk in the lake. In this cave
an apartment had been made for Basilissa and his harem, also a shelter in which
he retired to sleep when exhausted with fatigue. This place was his last resort, a
kind of mausoleum; and he did not seem distressed at beholding the castle in the
hands of his enemies. He calmly allowed them to occupy the entrance, deliver
their hostages, overrun the ramparts, count the cannon which were on the
platforms, crumbling from the hostile shells; but when they came within hearing,
he demanded by one of his servants that Kursheed should send him an envoy of
distinction; meanwhile he forbade anyone to pass beyond a certain place which
he pointed out.

Kursheed, imagining that, being in the last extremity, he would capitulate, sent
out Tahir Abbas and Hagi Bessiaris. Ali listened without reproaching them for
their treachery, but simply observed that be wished to meet some of the chief
officers.

The Seraskier then deputed his keeper of the wardrobe, accompanied by his
keeper of the seals and other persons of quality. Ali received them with all
ceremony, and, after the usual compliments had been exchanged, invited them
to descend with him into the cavern. There he showed them more than two
thousand barrels of powder carefully arranged beneath his treasures, his
remaining provisions, and a number of valuable objects which adorned this
slumbering volcano. He showed them also his bedroom, a sort of cell richly
furnished, and close to the powder. It could be reached only by means of three
doors, the secret of which was known to no one but himself. Alongside of this
was the harem, and in the neighbouring mosque was quartered his garrison,
consisting of fifty men, all ready to bury themselves under the ruins of this
fortification, the only spot remaining to him of all Greece, which had formerly bent
beneath his authority.

After this exhibition, Ali presented one of his most devoted followers to the
envoys. Selim, who watched over the fire, was a youth in appearance as gentle
as his heart was intrepid, and his special duty was to be in readiness to blow up
the whole place at any moment. The pacha gave him his hand to kiss, inquiring if
he were ready to die, to which he only responded by pressing his master's hand
fervently to his lips. He never took his eyes off Ali, and the lantern, near which a
match was constantly smoking, was entrusted only to him and to Ali, who took
turns with him in watching it. Ali drew a pistol from his belt, making as if to turn it
towards the powder magazine, and the envoys fell at his feet, uttering involuntary
cries of terror. He smiled at their fears, and assured them that, being wearied of
the weight of his weapons, he had only intended to relieve himself of some of
them. He then begged them to seat themselves, and added that he should like
even a more terrible funeral than that which they had just ascribed to him. "I do
not wish to drag down with me," he exclaimed, "those who have come to visit me
as friends; it is Kursheed, whom I have long regarded as my brother, his chiefs,
those who have betrayed me, his whole army in short, whom I desire to follow
me to the tomb--a sacrifice which will be worthy of my renown, and of the brilliant
end to which I aspire."

The envoys gazed at him with stupefaction, which did not diminish when Ali
further informed them that they were not only sitting over the arch of a casemate
filled with two hundred thousand pounds of powder, but that the whole castle,
which they had so rashly occupied, was undermined. "The rest you have seen,"
he said, "but of this you could not be aware. My riches are the sole cause of the
war which has been made against me, and in one moment I can destroy them.
Life is nothing to me, I might have ended it among the Greeks, but could I, a
powerless old man, resolve to live on terms of equality among those whose
absolute master I have been? Thus, whichever way I look, my career is ended.
However, I am attached to those who still surround me, so hear my last resolve.
Let a pardon, sealed by the sultan's hands, be given me, and I will submit. I will
go to Constantinople, to Asia Minor, or wherever I am sent. The things I should
see here would no longer be fitting for me to behold."
To this Kursheed's envoys made answer that without doubt these terms would be
conceded. Ali then touched his breast and forehead, and, drawing forth his
watch, presented it to the keeper of the wardrobe. "I mean what I say, my friend,"
he observed; "my word will be kept. If within an hour thy soldiers are not
withdrawn from this castle which has been treacherously yielded to them, I will
blow it up. Return to the Seraskier, warn him that if he allows one minute more to
elapse than the time specified, his army, his garrison, I myself and my family, will
all perish together: two hundred thousand pounds of powder can destroy all that
surrounds us. Take this watch, I give it thee, and forget not that I am a man of my
word." Then, dismissing the messengers, he saluted them graciously, observing
that he did not expect an answer until the soldiers should have evacuated the
castle.

The envoys had barely returned to the camp when Kursheed sent orders to
abandon the fortress. As the reason far this step could not be concealed,
everyone, exaggerating the danger, imagined deadly mines ready to be fired
everywhere, and the whole army clamoured to break up the camp. Thus Ali and
his fifty followers cast terror into the hearts of nearly thirty thousand men,
crowded together on the slopes of Janina. Every sound, every whiff of smoke,
ascending from near the castle, became a subject of alarm for the besiegers.
And as the besieged had provisions for a long time, Kursheed saw little chance
of successfully ending his enterprise; when Ali's demand for pardon occurred to
him. Without stating his real plans, he proposed to his Council to unite in signing
a petition to the Divan for Ali's pardon.

This deed, formally executed, and bearing more than sixty signatures, was then
shown to Ali, who was greatly delighted. He was described in it as Vizier, as Aulic
Councillor, and also as the most distinguished veteran among His Highness the
Sultan's slaves. He sent rich presents to Kursheed and the principal officers,
whom he hoped to corrupt, and breathed as though the storm had passed away.
The following night, however, he heard the voice of Emineh, calling him several
times, and concluded that his end drew nigh.

During the two next nights he again thought he heard Emineh's voice, and sleep
forsook his pillow, his countenance altered, and his endurance appeared to be
giving way. Leaning on a long Malacca cane, he repaired at early dawn to
Emineh's tomb, on which he offered a sacrifice of two spotted lambs, sent him by
Tahir Abbas, whom in return he consented to pardon, and the letters he received
appeared to mitigate his trouble. Some days later, he saw the keeper of the
wardrobe, who encouraged him, saying that before long there would be good
news from Constantinople. Ali learned from him the disgrace of Pacho Bey, and
of Ismail Pliaga, whom he detested equally, and this exercise of authority, which
was made to appear as a beginning of satisfaction offered him, completely
reassured him, and he made fresh presents to this officer, who had succeeded in
inspiring him with confidence.
Whilst awaiting the arrival of the firman of pardon which Ali was reassured must
arrive from Constantinople without fail, the keeper of the wardrobe advised him to
seek an interview with Kursheed. It was clear that such a meeting could not take
place in the undermined castle, and Ali was therefore invited to repair to the
island in the lake. The magnificent pavilion, which he had constructed there in
happier days, had been entirely refurnished, and it was proposed that the
conference should take place in this kiosk.

Ali appeared to hesitate at this proposal, and the keeper of the wardrobe, wishing
to anticipate his objections, added that the object of this arrangement was, to
prove to the army, already aware of it, that there was no longer any quarrel
between himself and the commander-in-chief. He added that Kursheed would go
to the conference attended only by members of his Divan, but that as it was
natural an outlawed man should be on his guard, Ali might, if he liked, send to
examine the place, might take with him such guards as he thought necessary,
and might even arrange things on the same footing as in his citadel, even to his
guardian with the lighted match, as the surest guarantee which could be given
him.

The proposition was accepted, and when Ali, having crossed over with a score of
soldiers, found himself more at large than he did in his casemate, he
congratulated himself on having come. He had Basilissa brought over, also his
diamonds; and several chests of money. Two days passed without his thinking of
anything but procuring various necessaries, and he then began to inquire what
caused the Seraskier to delay his visit. The latter excused himself on the plea of
illness, and offered meanwhile to send anyone Ali might wish to see, to visit him:
The pacha immediately mentioned several of his former followers, now employed
in the Imperial army, and as no difficulty was made in allowing them to go, he
profited by the permission to interview a large number of his old acquaintances,
who united in reassuring him and in giving him great hopes of success.

Nevertheless, time passed on, and neither the Seraskier nor the firman
appeared. Ali, at first uneasy, ended by rarely mentioning either the one or the
other, and never was deceiver more completely deceived. His security was so
great that he loudly congratulated himself on having come to the island. He had
begun to form a net of intrigue to cause himself to be intercepted on the road
when he should be sent to Constantinople, and he did not despair of soon finding
numerous partisans in the Imperial army.
 Chapter 11

For a whole week all seemed going well, when, on the morning of February 5th,
Kursheed sent Hassan Pacha to convey his compliments to Ali, and announce
that the sultan's firman, so long desired, had at length arrived. Their mutual
wishes had been heard, but it was desirable, for the dignity of their sovereign,
that Ali, in order to show his gratitude and submission, should order Selim to
extinguish the fatal match and to leave the cave, and that the rest of the garrison
should first display the Imperial standard and then evacuate the enclosure. Only
on this condition could Kursheed deliver into Ali's hands the sultan's decree of
clemency.

Ali was alarmed, and his eyes were at length opened. He replied hesitatingly,
that on leaving the citadel he had charged Selim to obey only his own verbal
order, that no written command, even though signed and sealed by himself,
would produce any effect, and therefore he desired to repair himself to the castle,
in order to fulfil what was required.

Thereupon a long argument ensued, in which Ali's sagacity, skill, and artifice
struggled vainly against a decided line of action. New protestations were made to
deceive him, oaths were even taken on the Koran that no evil designs, no mental
reservations, were entertained. At length, yielding to the prayers of those who
surrounded him, perhaps concluding that all his skill could no longer fight against
Destiny, he finally gave way.

Drawing a secret token from his bozom, he handed it to Kursheed's envoy,

saying, "Go, show this to Selim, and you will convert a dragon into a lamb." And
in fact, at sight of the talisman, Selim prostrated himself, extinguished the match,
and fell, stabbed to the heart. At the same time the garrison withdrew, the
Imperial standard displayed its blazonry, and the lake castle was occupied by the
troops of the Seraskier, who rent the air with their acclamations.

It was then noon. Ali, in the island, had lost all illusions. His pulse beat violently,
but his countenance did not betray his mental trouble. It was noticed that he
appeared at intervals to be lost in profound thought, that he yawned frequently,
and continually drew his fingers through his beard. He drank coffee and iced
water several times, incessantly looked at his watch, and taking his field-glass,
surveyed by turns the camp, the castles of Janina, the Pindus range, and the
peaceful waters of the lake. Occasionally he glanced at his weapons, and then
his eyes sparkled with the fire of youth and of courage. Stationed beside him, his
guards prepared their cartridges, their eyes fixed on the landing-place.

The kiosk which he occupied was connected with a wooden structure raised
upon pillars, like the open-air theatres constructed for a public festival, and the
women occupied the most remote apartments. Everything seemed sad and
silent. The vizier, according to custom, sat facing the doorway, so as to be the
first to perceive any who might wish to enter. At five o'clock boats were seen
approaching the island, and soon Hassan Pacha, Omar Brionis, Kursheed's
sword-bearer, Mehemet, the keeper of the wardrobe, and several officers of the
army, attended by a numerous suite, drew near with gloomy countenances.

Seeing them approach, Ali sprang up impetuously, his hand upon the pistols in
his belt. "Stand! . . . what is it you bring me?" he cried to Hassan in a voice of
thunder. "I bring the commands of His Highness the Sultan,--knowest thou not
these august characters?" And Hassan exhibited the brilliantly gilded frontispiece
which decorated the firman. "I know them and revere them." "Then bow before
thy destiny; make thy ablutions; address thy prayer to Allah and to His Prophet;
for thy, head is demanded. . . . " Ali did not allow him to finish. "My head," he
cried with fury, "will not be surrendered like the head of a slave."

These rapidly pronounced words were instantly followed by a pistol-shot which

wounded Hassan in the thigh. Swift as lightning, a second killed the keeper of the
wardrobe, and the guards, firing at the same time, brought down several officers.
Terrified, the Osmanlis forsook the pavilion. Ali, perceiving blood flowing from a
wound in his chest, roared like a bull with rage. No one dared to face his wrath,
but shots were fired at the kiosk from all sides, and four of his guards fell dead
beside him. He no longer knew which way to turn, hearing the noise made by the
assailants under the platform, who were firing through the boards on which he
stood. A ball wounded him in the side, another from below lodged in his spine; he
staggered, clung to a window, then fell on the sofa. "Hasten," he cried to one of
his officers, "run, my friend, and strangle my poor Basilissa; let her not fall a prey
to these infamous wretches."

The door opened, all resistance ceased, the guards hastened to escape by the
windows. Kursheed's sword-bearer entered, followed by the executioners. "Let
the justice of Allah be accomplished!" said a cadi. At these words the
executioners seized Ali, who was still alive, by the beard, and dragged him out
into the porch, where, placing his head on one of the steps, they separated it
from the body with many blows of a jagged cutlass. Thus ended the career of the
dreaded Ali Pacha.

His head still preserved so terrible and imposing an aspect that those present
beheld it with a sort of stupor. Kursheed, to whom it was presented on a large
dish of silver plate, rose to receive it, bowed three times before it, and
respectfully kissed the beard, expressing aloud his wish that he himself might
deserve a similar end. To such an extent did the admiration with which Ali's
bravery inspired these barbarians efface the memory of his crimes. Kursheed
ordered the head to be perfumed with the most costly essences, and despatched
to Constantinople, and he allowed the Skipetars to render the last honours to
their former master.
Never was seen greater mourning than that of the warlike Epirotes. During the
whole night, the various Albanian tribes watched by turns around the corpse,
improvising the most eloquent funeral songs in its honour. At daybreak, the body,
washed and prepared according to the Mohammedan ritual, was deposited in a
coffin draped with a splendid Indian Cashmere shawl, on which was placed a
magnificent turban, adorned with the plumes Ali had worn in battle. The mane of
his charger was cut off, and the animal covered with purple housings, while Ali's
shield, his sword, his numerous weapons, and various insignia, were borne on
the saddles of several led horses. The cortege proceeded towards the castle,
accompanied by hearty imprecations uttered by the soldiers against the "Son of a
Slave," the epithet bestowed on their sultan by the Turks in seasons of popular
excitement.

The Selaon-Aga, an officer appointed to render the proper salutes, acted as chief
mourner, surrounded by weeping mourners, who made the ruins of Janina echo
with their lamentations. The guns were fired at long intervals. The portcullis was
raised to admit the procession, and the whole garrison, drawn up to receive it,
rendered a military salute. The body, covered with matting, was laid in a grave
beside that of Amina. When the grave had been filled in, a priest approached to
listen to the supposed conflict between the good and bad angels, who dispute
the possession of the soul of the deceased. When he at length announced that
Ali Tepelen Zadi would repose in peace amid celestial houris, the Skipetars,
murmuring like the waves of the sea after a tempest, dispersed to their quarters:

Kursheed, profiting by the night spent by the Epirotes in mourning, caused Ali's
head to be en closed in a silver casket, and despatched it secretly to
Constantinople. His sword-bearer Mehemet, who, having presided at the
execution, was entrusted with the further duty of presenting it to the sultan, was
escorted by three hundred Turkish soldiers. He was warned to be expeditious,
and before dawn was well out of reach of the Arnaouts, from whom a surprise
might have been feared.

The Seraskier then ordered the unfortunate Basilissa, whose life had been
spared, to be brought before him. She threw herself at his feet, imploring him to
spare, not her life, but her honour; and he consoled her, and assured her of the
sultan's protection. She burst into tears when she beheld Ali's secretaries,
treasurers, and steward loaded with irons. Only sixty thousand purses (about
twenty-five million piastres) of Ali's treasure could be found, and already his
officers had been tortured, in order to compel them to disclose where the rest
might be concealed. Fearing a similar fate, Basilissa fell insensible into the arms
of her attendants, and she was removed to the farm of Bouila, until the Supreme
Porte should decide on her fate.
The couriers sent in all directions to announce the death of Ali, having preceded
the sword-bearer Mehemet's triumphal procession, the latter, on arriving at
Greveno, found the whole population of that town and the neighbouring hamlets
assembled to meet him, eager to behold the head of the terrible Ali Pacha.
Unable to comprehend how he could possibly have succumbed, they could
hardly believe their eyes when the head was withdrawn from its casket and
displayed before them. It remained exposed to view in the house of the
Mussulman Veli Aga whilst the escort partook of refreshment and changed
horses, and as the public curiosity continued to increase throughout the journey,
a fixed charge was at length made for its gratification, and the head of the
renowned vizier was degraded into becoming an article of traffic exhibited at
every post-house, until it arrived at Constantinople.

The sight of this dreaded relic, exposed on the 23rd of February at the gate of the
seraglio, and the birth of an heir-presumptive to the sword of Othman--which
news was announced simultaneously with that of the death of Ali, by the firing of
the guns of the seraglio--roused the enthusiasm of the military inhabitants of
Constantinople to a state of frenzy, and triumphant shouts greeted the
appearance of a document affixed to the head which narrated Ali's crimes and
the circumstances of his death, ending with these words: "This is the Head of the
above-named Ali Pacha, a Traitor to the Faith of Islam."

Having sent magnificent presents to Kursheed, and a hyperbolical despatch to

his army, Mahmoud II turned his attention to Asia Minor; where Ali's sons would
probably have been forgotten in their banishment, had it not been supposed that
their riches were great. A sultan does not condescend to mince matters with his
slaves, when he can despoil them with impunity; His Supreme Highness simply
sent them his commands to die. Veli Pacha, a greater coward than a woman-
slave born in the harem, heard his sentence kneeling. The wretch who had, in his
palace at Arta, danced to the strains of a lively orchestra, while innocent victims
were being tortured around him, received the due reward of his crimes. He vainly
embraced the knees of his executioners, imploring at least the favour of dying in
privacy; and he must have endured the full bitterness of death in seeing his sons
strangled before his eyes, Mehemet the elder, remarkable, for his beauty, and
the gentle Selim, whose merits might have procured the pardon of his family had
not Fate ordained otherwise. After next beholding the execution of his brother,
Salik Pacha, Ali's best loved son, whom a Georgian slave had borne to him in his
old age, Veli, weeping, yielded his guilty head to the executioners.

His women were then seized, and the unhappy Zobeide, whose scandalous story
had even reached Constantinople, sewn up in a leather sack, was flung into the
Pursak--a river whose waters mingle with those of the Sagaris. Katherin, Veli's
other wife, and his daughters by various mothers, were dragged to the bazaar
and sold ignominiously to Turcoman shepherds, after which the executioners at
once proceeded to make an inventory of the spoils of their victims.
But the inheritance of Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey. The
kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly laid
dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried Mouktar, roaring like a bull
escaped from the butcher, "dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch? I also
am a Tepelenian! To arms, comrades! they would slay us!" As he spoke, he
rushed, sword in hand, upon the Turks, and driving them back, succeeded in
barricading himself in his apartments.

Presently a troop of janissaries from Koutaieh, ordered to be in readiness,

advanced, hauling up cannon, and a stubborn combat began. Mouktar's frail
defences were soon in splinters. The venerable Metche-Bono, father of Elmas
Bey, faithful to the end, was killed by a bullet; and Mouktar, having slain a host of
enemies with his own hand and seen all his friends perish, himself riddled with
wounds, set fire to the powder magazine, and died, leaving as inheritance for the
sultan only a heap of smoking ruins. An enviable fate, if compared with that of his
father and brothers, who died by the hand of the executioner.

The heads of Ali's children, sent to Constantinople and exposed at the gate of the
seraglio, astonished the gaping multitude. The sultan himself, struck with the
beauty of Mehemet and Selim, whose long eyelashes and closed eyelids gave
them the appearance of beautiful youths sunk in peaceful slumber, experienced
a feeling of emotion. "I had imagined them," he said stupidly, "to be quite as old
as their father;" and he expressed sorrow for the fate to which he had
condemned them.