Gaskho Bey, the incapable giant, was captured by the Suliotes in a night attack, his army was scattered beneath the walls of Janina, and Ali Pasha became once more the absolute master of Epirus.
Then, like lightning fallen from heaven, unexpectedly, unforeseen, a man came from Thessalonica whose name was shortly to ring through half the world. The name of this man was Kurshid Pasha.
He was a man of a puny, meagre frame, his features were widely divergent from the characteristic Ottoman type, for he had a delicate profile, a bright blond beard and mustache, and blue eyes with flexible eyebrows, all of which gave a peculiar character to his face, which showed unmistakable traces of a penetrating mind and cool courage.
Ten thousand warriors accompanied the new commander to Janina, which grew into thirty thousand at the very first battle. Kleon's and Ypsilanti's armies were routed, and Gaskho Bey's scattered squadrons rallied around the banners of the victor.
While Ali Pasha was defending Janina, the leaders of the Greek insurgents besieged the fortress of Arta, which Salikh Bey defended with a small garrison.
Kurshid's predecessor, Gaskho Bey, had committed the error of besieging Janina and endeavoring to relieve Arta at the same time, and thus he came to grief at both places. The new commander acted on a different plan. He knew well that not a head amongst all the Greek rebels was half so dangerous as Ali Tepelenti's; so, leaving Salikh Pasha to his fate, he directed all his energies against Janina.
A man indeed hath come against thee, O Ali Pasha! A man as valiant, as crafty as thou; if thou be a fox, he is an eagle of the rocks, that pounces down on the fox; and if thou be a tiger, he is the boa-constrictor which infolds and crushes the tiger.
Ali urged Kleon and Artemis to hasten to his assistance. His messengers did not return to the fortress. The Greek leaders gave no reply to his summons. Anybody else would have found some consolatory explanation of their remissness, but Ali divined things better. The Greeks said amongst themselves, "Let the old monster tremble in his ditch; let them close him in and hold him tight. He will be constrained to make a life-and-death struggle to save his old beard. When we have captured Arta, and when our detested ally" (for they did detest him in spite of his being their good friend) "is at the very last gasp, then we will go to the rescue, relieve him, and let him live a little longer."
Tepelenti was well aware that they spoke of him in this way. He knew well that they hated him, and would gladly leave him to perish. The only reason the Greeks had for allying themselves with Ali was that his fortress was filled with an enormousstore of treasure, arms, and muniments of war; his gray head was the pivot of the whole rebellion.
If the fortress were taken, they would be deprived of this strong pivot, those treasures, that gray head!
One day the Suliotes encamped before Arta heard the terrible tidings that Kurshid Pasha had captured Lithanizza and La Gulia, the two outlying forts of the stronghold of Janina, and had driven Ali back into the fortress. The tidings filled them with consternation. If Janina were lost, the whole Greek insurrection would lose the source of its supplies. The treasures which Ali had scattered amongst the Greeks with a prodigal hand would at once fall into the hands of the Sultan, and then he would be able to secure Epirus at a single blow.
A Greek army under Marco Bozzari immediately set out from Arta to relieve Janina. Ali knew of it beforehand. Bozzari's spies had crept through Kurshid's camp into Janina, and signified to Ali that their leaders were on their way to "The Five Wells," and that he should send forth an army to meet them.
"There is no necessity for it," replied Ali, with a cold smile. "I am quite capable of defending myself in Janina for three months against any force that may be brought against me. It is much more necessary to capture Arta. Go back, therefore, and say to Marco Bozzari, 'Come not to Janina, but go against Salikh Pasha. Tepelenti is sufficient for himself in Janina.'"
Bozzari understood the old lion's hint. He did not wish the Greek forces to get into Janina, he preferred to defend himself to the very last bastion. All the forces he had consisted of four hundred andthirty Albanians, but this number was quite sufficient to serve the guns. Even if but a tenth of this force remained to him, that would be amply sufficient to defend the red tower, and if the worst came to the worst, Ali alone would be sufficient to blow the place into the air.
Here Ali had accumulated all his treasures, all his arms, his garments, his correspondence with the princes of half the universe, his young damsels. In the cellar below the tower were piled up a thousand barrels of gunpowder, a long match reached from one of these barrels to Ali's chamber, and there a couple of torches were always burning by his side.
Whoever wanted Ali's head had better come for it!
So Bozzari returned to Arta, and not very long afterward the Greek army took the place by storm. In the whole fortress they did not find powder enough to fill a hole in the barrel; the Turkish army had, in fact, fired away its very last cartridge.
Ali had once more the satisfaction of seeing one of his enemies, Salikh Pasha, prostrate. Hitherto all who had fought against him had been his furious haters, personal enemies, enviers of his fortune; and, bitter hater as he was, it was with a strong feeling of satisfaction that Tepelenti saw them all bite the dust; but this Kurshid was quite indifferent to him, and knew nothing either of his fury or his intrigues. He had never been Ali's enemy, and had no reason for hating him. This thought made Ali uneasy.
It had often been Ali's experience that when any one who greatly hated him came during a siege or a battle within shooting distance of him, and hethen pointed a gun at him, the ball so fired seemed to fly on the wings of his own savage fury, and would hit its man even at a thousand paces; but Kurshid often took a walk near the trenches, and though they fired at him one gun after another, not a bullet went near him.
"Let him alone," said Ali; "we shall never be able to kill this man." And his old energy left him as if he had suddenly become crippled.
He invited Kurshid Pasha to intercede for him with the Sultan, that he might be restored to favor, offering in such case to place his treasures at the disposal of the Grand Signior, and turn his arms against the Greeks. Kurshid demanded an assurance to this effect in writing, and when Ali complied, Kurshid sent the document, not to the Sultan at Stambul but to the Suliotes at Arta, that they might see how ready Ali was to betray them. The Greeks, in disgust, abandoned Ali. This last treachery dismayed them at the very zenith of their triumph; they perceived that a mighty antagonist had risen against them in Kurshid Pasha, who was magnanimous enough not to make use of traitors, but spurn them with contempt. This intellectual superiority guaranteed the success of Kurshid's arms. The Turkish commander had been acute enough to extend the hand of reconciliation, not to Ali, but to the Suliotes.
Tepelenti waited in vain in the tower of Janina for the arrival of the army of deliverance. The Suliotes returned to their villages, and Artemis reflected with secret joy that in the very red tower in which Ali had decapitated her plighted lover, he himself now sat in his despair, environed by foes,waiting with the foolish hope that the embittered Suliotes would hasten to deliver him.
The Epirote rebellion was already subdued by Kurshid Pasha, and only one point in the whole empire now glowed with a dangerous fire—the haughty Janina.
Ali had now only about room enough to cover his head. His enemies had twenty times as much, and they besieged him night and day. The fortress on the hill of Lithanizza and the Isle of La Gulia were in Kurshid's power already.
Still the old warrior did not surrender. The bombs thrown into the fortress levelled his palaces with the ground. His marble halls were reduced to rubbish heaps, his kiosks were smoking ruins, and his splendid gardens lay buried, obliterated. Yet, for all that, Ali Pasha vomited back his wrath upon the besiegers out of eighty guns, and it happened more than once that hidden mines exploded beneath the more forward advanced of the enemy's batteries, blowing guns and gunners into the air.
The defence was conducted by an Italian engineer whom Ali had enticed into his service in his luckier days with the promise of enormous treasures and detained ever since. This Italian's name was Caretto. It was his science that had made Janina so strong. The clumsy valor of the Turkish gunners fell to dust before the strategy of the Italian engineer. Of late Caretto was much exercised by the thought that he might be discharged without a farthing, but discharge was now out of the question. If Caretto were outside the gates of Janina, then the fate of Janina would be in his hands, for every bastion, every subterranean mine, every corner of the fortress was known to him.
Now at home in Palermo was Caretto's betrothed, who, as the daughter of a wealthy family, could only be his if he also had the command of riches; and that was the chief reason why the youth had accepted the offer of the tyrant of Epirus. And now tidings reached him from Sicily that the parents of his bride were dead, and that she was awaiting him with open arms; let him only come to her, poor fellow, even if he brought nothing with him but the beggar's staff. And go he could not, for Ali Pasha held him fast. He had to point the guns, and send forth hissing bullets amongst the besiegers, and defend the fortress to the last, while his beloved bride awaited him at home.
One day, as Caretto was directing the guns, a grenade fired from the heights of Lithanizza burst over his head and struck out his left eye. Caretto asked himself bitterly whether his bride would be able to love him with a face so disfigured. Henceforth he went about constantly with a black bandage about his wounded face, and the besiegers called him "the one-eyed Giaour."
One fine morning in February Kurshid Pasha again directed a fierce fire against the fortress. The siege guns had now arrived which the army had used against Cassandra, and after a three hours' cannonade, the destructive effect of the new battery was patent, for the tower of the northern bastion lay in ruins. Ali Pasha galloped furiously up and down the bastions, stimulating and threatening thegunners with a drawn sword in his hand. Whoever quitted his place instantly fell a victim beneath Ali's own hand. Caretto was standing nonchalantly beside a gabion, whence he directed the fire of the most powerful of all the batteries, each gun of which was a thirty-six pounder. The guns of this battery discharged thirty balls each every hour.
All at once the battery stopped firing.
Transported with rage, Ali Pasha at once came galloping up to Caretto.
"Why don't you go on firing?" he cried.
"Because it is impossible," replied the engineer, coolly folding his arms.
"Why is it impossible," thundered the pasha, his whole body convulsed with rage, which the coolness of the Italian raised to fever heat.
"Because the guns are red-hot from incessant firing."
"Then throw water upon them!" cried Ali, and with that he dismounted from his horse.
Caretto, for the life of him, could not help laughing at this senseless command. Whereupon Tepelenti suddenly leaped upon him and struck him in the face, so that his cap flew far away, right off the bastion. He had struck Caretto on the very spot where Kurshid Pasha's grenade had lacerated his face a few weeks before.
The Italian readjusted over his eye the bandage, which had been knocked all awry by the blow, and observed, with a cold affectation of mirth:
"You did well, sir, to strike my face on the spot where one eye had been knocked out already, for if you had struck me on the other side you mighthave knocked out the other eye also, and then how could I have pointed your guns?"
Ali, however, pretended to take no notice, but directed that the guns should be douched with cold water and then reloaded; he himself fired the first. The cannon the same instant burst in two and smashed the leg of a cannonier standing close to it.
"It does not matter," cried Ali; "load the others, too."
When the second cannon also burst he dashed the match to the ground, threw himself on his horse, and galloped off, quivering in every nerve as if shaken by an ague.
The Italian, however, with the utmostsang-froid, ordered that the exploded cannons should be removed and fresh ones fetched from the arsenal and put in their places, and set them in position amidst a shower of bullets from the besiegers. When the battery was ready the enemy withdrew their siege guns, and till the next day not another shot was fired against Janina.
Tepelenti was well aware that he had mortally offended Caretto, and he had learned to know men (especially Italians) only too well to imagine for an instant that Caretto, for all his jocoseness on the occasion, would ever forget that cowardly and ungrateful blow. For, indeed, it was an act of the vilest ingratitude. What! to strike the wound which the man had received on his account! To strike a European officer in the face! Ali was well aware that such a thing could never be pardoned.
The same night he sent for two gunners and ordered them not to lose sight of Caretto for aninstant, and if he attempted to escape to shoot him down there and then.
Next day Caretto was unusually good-humored. Early in the morning he went out upon the ramparts, which were then covered with freshly fallen snow. The winter seemed to be pouring forth its last venom, and the large flakes fell so thickly that one could not see twenty paces in advance.
"This is just the weather for an assault," said Caretto in a loud voice to the Turks standing around him; "in such wild weather one cannot see the enemy till he stands beneath the very ramparts. I will be so bold as to maintain that Kurshid's bands are likely to steal upon us under cover of this thick snow-storm. I should like to fire a random shot from the ramparts to let them know we are awake."
Many thought his anxiety just. Ali Pasha was also there, and he said nothing either for or against the proposal.
Caretto hoisted a cannon to the level of the ramparts of Lithanizza and fastened a long chain to the gun whereby his group of Albanians could raise and lower it.
"Leave the chain upon it," said Caretto, "for we may have to turn it in another direction."
Nevertheless it was in a good position already. Caretto calculated his distances with his astrolabe, then pointed the gun and ordered it to be loaded.
The two gunners whom Ali had set to watch him never took their eyes off the Italian; both of them had loaded pistols in their hands. Caretto did not seem to observe that they were watching him; he might have thought that they were there to help him.
The gun had to be turned now to the right andnow to the left. Caretto himself took aim, but the clumsy Albanians kept on pushing the heavy laffette either a little too much on this side or a little too much on that, till at last he cried to the two watchers behind him:
"Just lend a hand and help these blockheads!" They stooped mechanically to raise the laffette. "Enough!" cried the Italian, and with that he put his hand on the touch-hole. "Now fire!" he cried to the artilleryman, at the same time removing his hand.
The match descended, there was a thunderous report, and the same instant Caretto seized the chain wound round the wheel of the cannon, and, lowering himself from the ramparts, glided down the chain.
The watchers, with the double velocity of rage and fear, rushed to the breastwork of the ramparts. Caretto had got to the end of the chain and was grasping it with both hands; below him yawned a depth of thirty feet. The chain was not long enough, and there he was suspended between two deaths.
"Come back," cried the watchers, aiming their pistols at his head, "or we will shoot you through and through!"
Caretto cast a wild glance upward, the bandage fell from his bloody eye, and he looked at them with the dying fury of a desperately wounded wild beast. Then suddenly he kicked himself clear of the wall by a sharp movement of his foot, and describing the arc of a circle, he plunged into the depth beneath him like a rebounding bullet. The Albanians fired after him, but neither of them hithim. Below, at the foot of the bastion, the daring Italian lay motionless for a moment, but then he quickly rose to his feet and began to clamber up the other side of the ditch. He could only make use of one arm, for the other had been dislocated in his fall. Straining all his might, he struggled up; a whole shower of bullets pursued him and whistled about his head, but not one of them hit him, for the heavy snowfall made it difficult to take aim. At last he reached the top of the opposite side of the trench, and then he turned round and shook his fist at the devastating fortress, and disappeared in a heavy snow-drift. The gunners kept on firing after him at random for some time.
Ali Pasha turned pale and almost fell from his horse when the tidings reached him that Caretto had escaped.
"It is all over now!" cried he in despair, broke his sword in two, and shut himself up in the red tower. In the outer court-yard they saw him no more.
Ali knew for certain that with the departure of Caretto the last remains of his power had vanished; his stronghold and its resources were hopelessly ruined if any one revealed their secrets to his enemies outside. Caretto knew everything, and "the one-eyed Giaour" was received with great triumph in the camp of Kurshid Pasha. The next day Ali Pasha had bitter experience of the fact that the hand which had hitherto defended him was now turned against him. Within nine hours a battery, constructed by Caretto, had made a breach thirty fathoms wide in the outworks of Janina; the other cannons of the besiegers were set up in placeswhither Ali's mines did not extend, and when he made new ones they were immediately rendered inoperative by countermining, and at last Caretto discovered the net-work of hidden tunnels at the head of the bridge, although they had been carefully buried, and after a savage struggle forced his way through them into the fortress. The Albanians fought desperately, but Ali's enemies, who could afford to shed their blood freely, forced their way through and planted their scaling-ladders against the side of the fortress opposite the island, and where thedébrisof the battered-down wall filled up the ditch they crossed over and occupied the breach. In the evening, after a fierce combat in the court-yard, Tepelenti's forces were cut to pieces one by one, and he himself, with seventy survivors, took refuge in the red tower.
So only the red tower now remained to him.
The vanquished lion was shut up within a space six yards square; a narrow tower into all four windows of which his enemies were peeping was now his sole possession! There he sits in that octagonal chamber, in which he had passed so many memorable moments. Perhaps now, as he leaned his heavy head upon his hand, the remembrance of those moments passed before his mind's eye like a procession of melancholy shadows. Around him lay his treasures in shining piles; heaps of gold and silver, massive gold plate, the spoils of sanctuaries, sparkling gems, lay scattered about the floor higgledy-piggledy, like so much sand or gravel.
Of all his kinsfolk, of all his warriors, not one was present with him; all had fallen on the battle-field, fighting either with him or against him. Of the seventy warriors who had taken refuge with him in the tower, sixty-four had deserted him. Kurshid had promised a pardon to the renegades, and only six remained with Ali. Why did these six remain? Ali had not told them not to leave him.
These faithful ones were keeping guard in his antechamber, and for some little time they had been whispering together.
At last they went in to Ali.
Tepelenti looked them every one through and through. He could read what they wanted in their confused looks and their unsteady eyes. He did not wait for them to speak, but said, with a wave of his hand:
"Go! leave me; you are the last. Go where the others have gone; save yourselves. Life is sweet; live long and happily. I will remain here. Tepelenti can die alone."
Sighing deeply, the soldiers turned away. They durst not raise their eyes to the face of the gray-haired veteran. Noiselessly, without a word, on the tips of their toes, five of them withdrew. But the sixth remained there still, and, after casting about for a word for some time, said, at last, to Ali:
"Oh, sir, cast the fulness of pride from thy heart, suffer not thy name to perish! The Sultan is merciful; bow thy head before him and he will still be gracious to thee!"
The soldier had scarce uttered the last word of this recommendation when Ali softly drew a pistol from his girdle and shot him through the head, so that he spun round and fell backward across the threshold. This was all the reward he got for advising Ali to ask for mercy.
And now Ali is alone. His doors, his gates stand wide open; anybody who so pleases can go in and out. Why, then, does nobody come to seize the solitary veteran? why do they fear to cross the threshold of the vanquished foe?
But hearken! fresh footsteps are resounding on the staircase, and through the open door, guarded by the corpse of the last soldier whom Ali slew, astrange man entered, dressed in an unusual, new-fangled uniform; he was Kurshid Pasha's silihdar.
Tepelenti allowed him to approach within five paces of where he sat, and then beckoned him to stop.
"Speak; what dost thou want?"
"Ali Tepelenti," said the silihdar, "surrender. Thou hast nothing left in the world and nobody to aid thee. My master, the seraskier, Kurshid Pasha, hath sent me to thee that I might receive thy sword and escort thee to his camp."
Tepelenti, with the utmostsang-froid, drew forth from the folds of his caftan a magnificent gold watch in an enamelled case set with diamonds.
"Hearken!" said he, in a low, soft voice. "It is now twenty minutes past ten; take this watch and keep it as a souvenir of me. Greet Kurshid Pasha from me, and point out to him that it was twenty minutes past ten when you spoke with me, and let him take notice that if after twenty minutes past eleven I can see from the windows of this tower a single hostile soldier in the court-yard of the fortress, then—I swear it by the mercies of Allah!—I will blow the fortress into the air, with every living soul within it. Inform Kurshid Pasha of this when you give him my salutation."
The silihdar hastened off, and at a quarter to eleven not a soul was to be seen in the court-yard of the fortress of Janina. Alive in his citadel sits Ali Tepelenti, the tyrant of Epirus, mighty even in his fall, who has nothing and nobody left, save only his indomitable heart.
Night descended upon the fortress of Janina, but sleep did not descend upon the eyes of Ali.
He sat in that red tower where he had perpetrated his crimes, in that chamber where his victims had breathed forth the last sighs of their tortured lives, and all round about glittering treasures looked upon Ali as if with eyes of fire—all of it the price of robbery, fraud, treason. What if these things could speak?
Everything was silent, night lay black before the eyes of men, only Ali saw shadows moving about therein, phantoms with pale, phantoms with bloody faces, who rose from the tomb to visit their persecutor and announce to him the hour of his death.
Ali trembled not before them; he had seen them at other times also. He had slept face to face with the severed head that spoke to him, he had listened to the enigmatical words of thedzhinof Seleucia, and he called them to mind again now. Calmly he looked back upon the current of his past life, from which so many horrible shapes arose and glared at him with cold, stony eyes. He recked them not, Allah had so ordered it. The hare nibbles the root, the vulture devours the hare, the hunter shoots the vulture, the lion fells the hunter, and the worm eats the lion. What, after all, is Ali? Naught but a greater worm than the rest. He has devoured much, and now a stronger than he devours him, and a still greater worm will devour this stronger one also.
Everything was fulfilled which had been prophesied concerning him. His own sons, his own wife, his own arms had fought against him. If only his wife had not done this he could have borne the rest.
"One, two," the decapitated head had said, andthe last moments of the two years were just passing away. "The hand which wipes out the deeds of the mighty shall at last blot out thy deeds also, and thou shalt be not a hero whom the world admires, but a slave whom it curses. Those whom thou didst love will bless the hour of thy death, and thy enemies will weep, and God will order it so to avert the ruin of thy nation."
So it is, so it has chanced; the hazard of the die has gone against him, and he has nothing left.
If only his wife had not betrayed him!
At other times also Ali had seen these phantoms of the night arise. He had seen them rise from the tomb pale and bloody; but in his heart there had always been a sweet refuge, the charming young damsel whose childlike face and angelic eyes had robbed the evil sorcery of all its power. When Tepelenti covered his gray head with her long, thick, flowing locks, he reposed behind them as in the shade of Paradise, whither those heart-tormenting memories could not pursue him. Why should he have lost her? She was the first of all, and the dearest; but Fate at the last would not even leave him her.
Even now his thoughts went back to her. The pale light of that face, that memory, lightened his solitary, darkened soul, which was as desolate as the night outside.
But lo! it is as if the night grew brighter; a sort of errant light glides along the walls and a gleam of sunshine breaks unexpectedly through the open door of the room.
The pasha looked in that direction with amazement. Who could his visitor be at that hour? Whois coming to drive the phantoms of darkness from his room and from his heart?
A pale female form, with a smile upon her face and tears in her eyes, appears before him. She comes right up to the spot where Tepelenti is sitting on the ground. She places her torch in an iron sconce in the wall and stands there before the pasha.
Ali looked at her sadly. He fancied that this also was only a dream shape, only one of those apparitions created by a fevered mind, like those which walked beside him headless and bloody. It was Eminah, at whose word the devastating tempest had been unchained against the mightiest of despots.
Tepelenti believed neither his eyes nor his heart when he saw her thus before him. The damsel took the old man by the hand and called him by his name, and even now the pasha believed that the warmth of that hand and the sweetness of that voice were only part of a dream.
"Wherefore hast thou come?" he inquired in a whisper, or perchance he did not ask but only dreamed that he asked.
Yet the gracious, childlike damsel was sitting there at his feet as at other times, and she had pillowed his gray head upon her breast and covered his face with the tent of her long tresses, as she had done long, long ago in the happy times that were gone.
Oh, how sweet it would be to still live!
"Oh, Ali Tepelenti, let go the hand of Death from thy hand and grasp my hand instead! See how warm it is! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, rise up from amongthese barrels of gunpowder, and rather lay thy head upon my breast; hearken how it beats! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, ask mercy from the Sultan! See, now how lovely life is!"
Only at these words did Ali recover himself. His enemies had sought out this woman, the only being that he loved, and sent her to him to soothe away the rage of his soul and soften his heart with her caresses. Oh, how well they understood his heart!
"Kurshid Pasha swore to me that he would obtain the Sultan's favor for thee," said Eminah, in a tone of conviction. "He wrote a letter under his seal that thou shouldst never die beneath the hands of the executioner; that thy death should not be a violent one, unless it were in an honorable duel or on the field of battle. Behold, here is the letter!"
If at that moment Ali had listened to his heart, he must have extended the hand of submission without any letter of amnesty, but, like an escutcheon above a crown, pride was perched higher than his heart and spurned the offer.
"Allah may humble Ali, but Ali will never humble himself."
"Then thou wilt not live with me?" asked Eminah, fixing her piteously entreating eyes upon her husband.
Ali shook his head in silence.
"Then I will die with thee!" cried the damsel, with a determined voice.
The pasha regarded her in amazement.
"I swear," cried Eminah, "that I will either go back with thee or die with thee here! Dost thouhear that noise? They are slamming to the iron gates from the outside. At this moment every exit is closed, so that even if I wished to escape from hence I could not. These doors can only open at a word from Ali, and they will only open once more. Either thou wilt go with me from hence or I will remain here with thee."
Ali pressed the damsel to his bosom. She lay clinging there like a tender blossom. He pressed his lips to that pale brow, and covering her gently and gradually with his silken caftan, he whispered in a scarcely audible voice:
"Be it so! be it so! Here we will die together!"
Early next morning a flourish of trumpets awoke the Lord of Janina, the Lord of the last tower of Janina. The herald of Kurshid Pasha was standing beneath the round windows, and delivered in a loud voice the general's message to Ali Pasha, whereby he summoned Tepelenti to surrender voluntarily on the strength of the solemn assurance confirmed by oath to his wife.
Tepelenti appeared at the window with Eminah reclining on his bosom.
"Go back to your master," he cried to the messenger, "and tell him that Ali and his wife have resolved to die here together. The moment an armed host enters the court-yard of this fortress I will immediately blow up the tower."
In half an hour the messenger returned and again summoned Ali to the window.
"Kurshid Pasha sends thee this message," cried he. "If thou dost surrender, it is well, and if thou dost not surrender, it is well also. Thou hast still half an hour wherein thou mayest choose betwixtlife and death. After that thou mayest, if thou wilt, throw thy torch into thy powder barrels and blow the fortress into the air. As to thyself, Kurshid Pasha troubles himself but little. As to thy treasures they will not remain in the air, and when they come to the ground it will be easy to pick them up. If, however, thou dost delay thy resolution beyond the half-hour, then Kurshid Pasha himself will help thee in the matter, and will blow up thy tower for thee, to save thee the trouble of blowing it up thyself. Do as thou wilt, then, and hoist either the white or the red flag as seemeth best to thee, for in half an hour the fortress of Janina shall see thee no more."
Ali listened solemnly to this ultimatum, and let the messenger depart without an answer.
Eminah lay down on a sofa in a corner, all trembling. Ali paced the vast chamber to and fro with long strides; but his strides became more and more uncertain. If only this woman were not here! If only he might be spared seeing her before him; might be spared half an hour's deliberation as to what he was to do! Nevertheless minute after minute sped away, and still Tepelenti could not make up his mind. Twice his hand seized the burning torch; he had but to bend over the nearest barrel of powder and all would be over; but on each occasion his eye fell upon the trembling woman who lay there looking at him without a word, and the death-bearing match fell from his hand. No, no; he was incapable of doing the terrible deed. And now the hour struck; the time had passed. Ali felt a pressure about his heart. Would Kurshid accomplish his dreadful threat?
At that instant a report sounded outside the fortress, and half a moment later a red-hot steel bullet burst through the metal roof and the massive vault of the tower with a violent crash. Falling heavily on the marble floor, it rebounded thence, and, passing between the powder-barrels, describing a wide semicircle as it went, ricocheted once more and struck the wall opposite, in which it bored a deep hole, whence it flashed and gleamed with a strong red glare, forcing blue sparks from the nitrous humidity of the walls.
Ali was now convinced that the enemy was quite capable of keeping his promise.
The scared woman, mad with terror, flung herself at his feet, and snatching the white veil from her head, forced it into the pasha's hand.
Tepelenti hastily seized the veil, and, hanging it on the point of a lance, hoisted it out of the round window.
Outside the besiegers set up a shout of triumph. Eminah, kissing Ali's hands, sank down at his feet. Tepelenti had given her more than manhood can bear to give: for her sake he had humbled his pride to the dust. If only he could have died as he had lived!
"Go, now," he said to the woman, with a sigh; "go and tell my enemies that they may come for me. I am theirs!"
The emissaries of Kurshid Pasha received the veteran warrior with great respect in the gates of the fortress, whither he went to meet them; they showed him all the honor due to his rank; they allowed him to retain his sword and all his other weapons. At the same time they confirmed by word of mouth the promise which Kurshid Pasha had given to Eminah in writing—that the executioner should never lay his hand on Ali's head, and that he should not die a violent death, except it were in an honorable duel or on the battle-field, which is a delight to a true Mussulman.
A former pleasure-house, a kiosk on the island of La Gulia, was assigned to him as a residence for the future. There they conveyed his favorite horses, his favorite slaves and birds, and took abundant care of his personal comfort.
Ali allowed them to do with him as they would. Neither threatening nor pleasant faces made any impression upon him; he merely looked from time to time at his wife, who had seized his hand, and never left him for an instant. At such times softer, gentler feelings were legible in his face; but at other times he would gaze steadily before him into the distance, into infinity. Perhaps hewas now thinking within himself, "When shall I stand in front of the Seraglio on a silver pedestal?"
Thedzhinof Seleucia had prophesied this termination to his career. All the other prophecies had been strictly fulfilled; this only remained to be accomplished.
A Mussulman's promise is stronger than his oath. Who does not remember the story of the Moorish chieftain in whose house a Christian soldier had taken refuge, and who begged for his protection? The Moor promised the man his protection. Subsequently the pursuers informed the Moor that this Christian soldier had killed his son, and still the father would not give up the fugitive, but assisted him to escape, because of his promise.
"A great lord is the sea," says the Kuran; "a great lord is the storm and the pestilence; but a greater lord still is a man's given word, from which there is no escape."
The Mussulman keeps his word, but beware of a play upon words, for therein lies death. If he has sworn by the sun, avoid the moon, and if he has promised to love thee as a brother, discover first whether he hath not slain his brother.
When Sulaiman adopted Ibrahim as a son, he swore that so long as he lived no harm should befall Ibrahim. Later on, when Ibrahim fell into disgrace, the wise Ulemas discovered a text in the Kuran according to which he who sleeps is not alive, and they slew Ibrahim while Sulaiman slept.
Kurshid had given his word and a written assurance that Ali should not die at the hand of the executioner; the document he had given to Ali'swife, his word he had given in the presence of his whole army; and he had escorted Ali Pasha with all due honor to the island kiosk, permitting him to retain his weapons and the jewelled sword with which he had won so many victories, with which he had so many times turned the tide of the battle; nay, more, they had selected fifty of Ali's own warriors, the bravest and the most faithful, to serve him as a guard of honor.
Nevertheless, a courier despatched in hot haste to Stambul announced there, from Kurshid Pasha, that the treasures of Ali Tepelenti of Janina were in his hands, and that a Tartar horseman would follow in three days with the head of the old pasha. And yet at this very moment Tepelenti's head stood firmly on his shoulders, and who would dare to say that that head was promised away while his good sword was by his side, and good comrades in arms were around him, and the sworn assurance of the seraskier rested upon him?
Eminah never quitted him for a moment. She was always with him. She sat beside him, with her head on his breast, or at his feet, and in her hand she carried the amnesty of the seraskier, so that if any one should approach Ali with dangerous designs she might hold it before his eyes like a magic buckler, and ward off the axe of the executioner from his head.
But there was nothing to guard against; the executioner did not approach Ali. He received, indeed, a great many visitors, but these were all worthy, honorable men, musirs, effendis, officers of the army, who treated him with all respect, and sipped their sherbet-cups most politely, and smoked theirfragrant chibooks, exchanging a word or two now and then, perhaps, and on taking their leave saluted him in a manner befitting grave Mussulmans.
He was allowed free access to every part of the island, and never encountered anybody there but his own warriors.
At such times great ideas would occur to him. Perchance with these fifty men he might win back everything once more? And then he would hug himself with the thought of the silver pedestal in front of the Seraglio, where he was one day to stand, amidst the joyful plaudits of the people; and then the night before him was not altogether dark, for here and there he saw a gleam of hope.
It was only Eminah who trembled. God has created woman for this very purpose; she has the faculty of fearing instead of man, and can foresee the danger that threatens him.
Whence will this danger come, and in what shape? Perchance in the dagger of the assassin? The woman's bosom stood between it and the heart of Ali; the assassin will not be able to pierce it. In a poisoned cup, perhaps? Eminah herself tastes of every dish, of every glass, before they reach the hands of Ali; the power of the poison would reach her first.
And yet danger is near.
One day they told Ali that an illustrious visitor was coming to see him; Mehemet Pasha, the sub-seraskier and governor of the Morea, wished to pay his respects to him.
This was a great honor for the fallen general. Ali began to be sensible that even his enemies respected him. Who knows? he might find good friends amongst his very enemies, who would not think himtoo old for use and employment even in his last remaining years.
On the day of the visit, the kiosk was swept and garnished. Tepelenti put on his most costly caftan, his warriors were marshalled in front of his dwelling, and he himself went out on horseback to meet the seraskier when he arrived, with an escort of one hundred mounted spahis.
Mehemet Pasha was a tall, powerful man, the hero of many a fight and many a duel. He had often given proof of his dexterity, when the hostile armies stood face to face, by galloping betwixt them and challenging the bravest warriors on the other side to single combat, and the fact that he was alive at the present moment was the best possible proof that he had been always victorious.
The two heroes exchanged greetings when they met, and returned together to the pleasure-house. Ali conducted the sub-seraskier into the inner apartments; the attendants remained outside.
A richly spread table awaited them, and they were waited upon by a group of young odalisks, the hand-maidens of Eminah, who sat at Ali's feet on the left-hand side, and, as usual, tasted of every dish and cup before she gave it to Ali.
Pleasant conversation filled the intervals of the repast, and at the end of it a mess of preserved pistachios was brought in and presented to Mehemet Pasha.
"I thank thee," said he, "and, indeed, I am very fond of them, but piquant, hot-spiced meats always awaken within me sinful desires and a longing for wine which is forbidden by the Prophet, and, as a good Mussulman, I would rather avoid the occasionof sinning than suffer the affliction of a late repentance."
Ali laughed aloud.
"Eat and be of good cheer, valiant seraskier," said he, "and set thy mind at rest. What I give thee shall be wine and yet not wine—the juice of the grape, yet still unfermented; 'tis an invention of the Franks. This the Prophet does not forbid.12I have still got a case of bottles thereof, which Bunaberdi13formerly sent me, and we will now break it open in thy honor. Truly fizz is not wine, but only the juice of the grape which they bottle before it becomes wine. It is as harmless as milk."