The Lion of Janina; Or, The Last Days of the Janissaries: A Turkish Novel

The damsel's bosom heaved violently; she hid her head on Eminah's shoulder and kissed her.

"Freedom!" she whispered, full of rapture; "freedom above all things! It is now my only joy."

"Nobody will observe us," said Eminah, spurning aside the jewels, which she loathed now that she knew whence they came. "It is the last night of the Feast of Bairam. Every one is hastening to compensate himself for the privations of the Fast of Ramadan, every one is sleeping or enjoying himself; the greater part of the garrison is making merry in the apartments of the beys; even the sons of Ali Pasha, all three of them, are feasting with Mukhtar Bey. We shall be able to escape them, and then the whole world lies before us."

The Greek girl pressed the lady's hand. "We will go together!" she cried. "My brother dwells among the mountains of Corinth; he is a valiant warrior, and will give us an asylum."

"Then go thither! I shall seek refuge with my kinsmen at Stambul. Now go into the apartments of the odalisks and ask for apparel. I have already hatched a good plan. If they are all asleep come softly back with thy clothes. The kadun-keit-khuda only sleeps with half an eye; beware of him! If he ask thee whither thou art going, show him the pasha's handkerchief, and he will fancy Ali awaits thee."

The face of the Greek girl blushed purple at these words; even to lie on such a subject was a horrible thought to her. But Eminah beckoned to her to be gone, and when she found herself alone she drew forth the head she had concealed beneath the pillow and placed it on a round table in front of her. For a long time she gazed at the sunken eyes, the gaping mouth, and the long black tresses which rolled over the table on both sides. The lady smoothed the raven-black tresses with her soft hand, and passed her fingers right across the noble features without a shudder at their icy coldness.

There she sat an hour long opposite the dead head; and beside her Ali Tepelenti, the terror of the whole region, lay prone in a deep, motionless slumber. It was a strange sight, this young girl alone there between these two horrors. She had resolved to quit Ali and set the Greek damsel free; but what she meant to do after that she herself could not have said.

In an hour's time the Greek damsel returned. She came so softly that nobody could have heard her; even Eminah did not perceive her till the damsel stood before the severed head and uttered a cry of terror. Only for an instant, only for the duration of a lightning-flash did this cry last; the damsel stifled it at once, and if it awoke any one in the palace he must have fancied he was dreaming or had dreamed it, and would go on sleeping again. Then the damsel, in an agony of speechless grief, bent over the head of her betrothed, and her tears flowed in streams, though not a word escaped her lips.

At last Eminah grasped the girl's hand and bade her make haste. So she dried her tears, and after placing the severed head in front of that of the sleeping pasha so that they confronted each other, and cutting off one of the locks from its temples, she covered the cold eyes with bitter, burning kisses, and then, taking up her things, rapidly followed Eminah through the long suite of rooms.

A few minutes later they were in the torture-chamber. It was quite empty; the blood stains had been washed away, there was nothing to recall the horrors of the night before.

They opened the trap-door through which the dead bodies were wont to be cast. At the bottom of the deep black void there was a roaring sound as if the lake were in a commotion. No doubt a tempest was raging outside. How were these girls to escape by way of the subterranean stream? Perhaps some of the headless corpses were also swimming down yonder amidst the foaming waves. Would those who ventured down into those depths ever see the light of day again? But to them it was all one. Better to perish in the deep void than be condemned to the embraces of Ali Pasha. How the two girls abominated him!—the one because he had murdered her love, the other because he had loved her.

"Don't be afraid," they said to each other; and fastening their bundles to a long rope which was used in torturing, they let it down into the deep well, with a lamp at the end of it, and when the water put out the light they fastened the other end of the rope to the hinge of the door, and each in turn let herself down by it.

And whether they lived or whether they died, Ali Pasha lost on that day two talismans which he should have guarded more jealously than the light of his eyes: one was the spirit of blessing, the other the spirit of cursing, both of which he had held fast bound, and both of which had now been let loose.

At the moment when the two damsels plunged into the lake of Acheruz the slumber of tranquillity disappeared from the eyes of Ali Pasha, and he began to see spectres.

A peculiar feeling came over him. He whom phantoms avoided even when he slept, he who had never even dreamed of fear, he whom the angel of sleep had never known to be a coward, now began to experience a peculiar sensation which was worse than any sickness and more painful than any suffering. He was afraid!

He dreamed that the head of the young Suliot, which had been cut off by his order, and which had rolled away and disappeared so that nobody could find it, was now standing face to face with him on a table, staring at him fixedly with stony eyes, and repeatedly addressing the sleeper by name: "Ali Pasha! Ali Pasha!"

The limbs of the sleeper shook all over in a strange tremor.

"Ali Pasha!" he heard the head call for the third time.

Groaning, writhing, and turning himself about, he contrived to knock the head off the cushion, smearing all the bed with blood. And now he saw and heard more terrible things than ever.

"One, two," said the severed head. And Ali understood that this was the number of the years he had still to live. "Thy head hath no longer either hand or foot," continued the head; and Ali was obliged to listen to what it said. "Two severed heads now stand face to face, mine and thine. Why dost thou not reply to me? Why dost thou not look into my eyes? Two headless trunks stand before the throne of God, mine and thine. How shall the Lord recognize thee? He inquires which is Ali. For every soul there is a white garment laid up. And thou deniest thy name, with thy right hand on thy heart. Thou art Ali, for on thy white garment are five bloody finger-prints."

Ali writhed in his sleep, and covered with his hand that part of his caftan which lay over his heart. And all the time the head never disappeared from before his eyes and its lips never closed. Presently it went on again.

"Listen, Ali! Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin! The hand which guided thee in the performance of thy mighty deeds is also bringing thine actions to an end, and thou shalt no longer be a hero whom the world admires, but a robber whom it curses. Those whom thou lovedest will bless the day of thy death, but thine enemies will weep over thee. Moreover, God hath ordained that thou shalt be the ruin of thine own nation."

Ali tossed, sighing and groaning, upon his couch, and could not awake; a world of crime lay upon his breast. He felt the earth shake beneath him, and the sky above his head was dark with masses of black cloud, and the thought of death was a terror to him.

The head went on speaking. "Two birds quitted thy rocky citadel at the same hour, a white dove and a black crow. The white dove is Peace, which has departed from thy towers; the black crow is Vengeance, which will return in search of carcasses at the scent of thy ruin. The white dove is thy damsel, the black crow is mine; and woe to thee from them both!"

Ali, in the desperation of his rage, roared aloud in his sleep, and his violent cry tore asunder the light fetters of sleep. He sprang from his couch and opened wide his eyes—and lo! the severed head was standing before him on the table.

The pasha looked about him in consternation; he was not sufficiently master of himself at first to tell how much of all this was a dream and how much reality. He still seemed to hear the terrible words which had proceeded from those open lips, and his hand involuntarily clutched at his breast as if he would have covered there the five bloody finger-marks. Then the cut cord from which the key was missing fell across his hand, and immediately his presence of mind returned. Drawing his sword, he rushed towards the brazen door, and discovered that the fugitives had had sufficient forethought to close the door and leave the key in the lock outside, so that it could only be opened by force. He turned back and rushed to the end of the dormitories. Some of the odalisks were awakened by the sound of his heavy footsteps, and perceiving his troubled face, plunged underneath their bedclothes in terror; in front of the doors stood the dumb eunuch sentries, leaning on their spears like so many bronze statues.

He rushed down into the garden to the end of the familiar walks, and when he came to the gate was amazed to perceive that the drawbridge which separated his palace from the dwellings of his sons had been let down and nobody was guarding it. The topidshis, the negroes, knowing that Ali always turned into his harem on the Feast of Bairam, had gone across to the palace of Mukhtar Bey, who was giving a great banquet in honor of Vely Bey and Sulaiman Bey, his brothers. All three had brought together their harems to celebrate the occasion, and while the masters were diverting themselves upstairs, their servants were making merry below. Music and the loud mirth of those who feast resounded from the house; every gate of the citadel was open; slaves and guards lying dead drunk in heaps, victims of the forbidden fluid, cumbered the streets. A whole hostile army, with drums beating and colors flying, might easily have marched into the citadel over their prostrate bodies.

Wrath and the cold night air gradually gave back to Ali his soul of steel. Wary and alert, he entered the palace of Mukhtar Bey.

CHAPTER III
A TURKISH PARADISE

One could go right round the palace of the three Beys, both above and below, by means of a secret corridor, and not one of the inhabitants of the building had the least idea of the existence of this corridor. It was in the midst of the fathom-thick wall between two rows of windows, and within this space invisible doors opened into every apartment, either between windows, or behind mirrors, or beneath the ceiling between two stories, and these doors could not be opened by keys, but turned upon invisible hinges set in motion by hidden screws, and they closed so hermetically as to leave not the slightest orifice behind them.

Ali Pasha stood there in the banqueting-chamber unobserved by any one. He stood beside a huge Corinthian column, and here hung a black board indicating the direction in which Mecca lay. He had no fear that any one would look thither. That place, towards which every truly believing Mussulman must turn when he prays, was carefully avoided by every eye, for fear it should encounter the golden letters which sparkle on the walls of the Kaaba.6

For now is the time for enjoyment. There is no need of a heavenly Paradise, for Paradise is already here below. There is no need to inquire of either Muhammad or the angel Izrafil concerning the wine which flows from the roots of the Tuba-tree; far more fiery, far more stimulating, is the wine which flashes in glass and goblet. The houris may hide their white bosoms and their rosy faces, for what are they compared with the earthly angels whose mundane charms intoxicate the hearts of mortals? Truly Muhammad was but an indifferent prophet, he did not understand how to arrange paradise; let him but regard the arrangements of Mukhtar Bey—they will show him how that sort of thing ought to be managed.

Muhammad imagined that the embraces of seven and seventy houris would make an enraptured Moslem eternally happy. Why, the bungler forgot the best part of it. Would it not be more satisfactory if now and then, say once in a thousand years or so, the Moslems were to exchange their own houris for those of their neighbors? In this way the aroma of brand-new kisses would prevent their raptures from growing stale, and the Paradise of Muhammad would be worth something after all. With all eternity before him, a man would scarcely mind waiting for his own wives for a paltry millennium or two while he enjoyed the wives of his neighbors, and when he returned to his seven and seventy original damsels again, what a pleasant reunion it would be!

Now the Prophet had forgotten to introduce this novelty into his own Paradise, and Mukhtar Bey was the happy man to whom the fairy Malach Taraif whispered the idea during the fast preceding the Feast of Bairam while he slept, and he immediately proceeded to discuss the matter with his kinsmen.

All three brothers lived under one roof, each of the three had his own special harem, and each of them possessed in their harems beauties far surpassing what the angels Monkar and Nakir could promise them in the next world. After the Feast of Bairam, when Mukhtar Bey had well plied his brethren with good wine, he said to them, "Let us exchange harems!"

Sulaiman Bey immediately gave his hand upon it; Vely Bey laughed at it as a good idea at first, but afterwards drew back. The other two worthies laughed uproariously at his simplicity, made fun of him, and proceeded at once to transfer to each other their respective damsels, and on the morrow and the following days aggravated Vely by extolling before him the exchanged odalisks, each of them confiding to him what novel attractions he had discovered in this or that bayadere. Thus Sulaiman could not sufficiently extol the extraordinary brilliance of the eyes of Mukhtar Bey's favorite damsel, while Mukhtar protested that the languishing Jewish maiden he had got in exchange from Sulaiman quivered in his arms like a dancing flame.

Vely laughed a good deal over the business, but still continued to shake his head, confessing at last that the reason why he did not exchange his harem was because it contained an Albanian damsel whom he had neither purchased nor captured, but who had come to him of her own accord, and whom he had promised long ago never to abandon, and her he would not give for both their harems put together; nay, he said he would not give her up for a whole world full of damsels. The two brethren thereupon assured Vely that if he loved this particular damsel so very much, he might exclude her from the others and keep her for himself, and it need make no difference. Then Vely Bey also acceded to this fraternal division of delights, and transferred his harem also, with the exception of Xelianthé.

Mukhtar Bey had fixed the last night of the great Bairam feast for the entertainment that was to rival Paradise, inviting his brethren and the Prophet Muhammad himself, in order that he might learn from them how to be happy, and might regulate heaven accordingly. To this end they had a fourth divan added to their three, with its own well-appointed table in front of it, and bade the attendant odalisks be diligent in keeping the fourth goblet well filled, and do their best to entertain the invited guest. Mockery of religious subjects was no unusual thing with Turkish magnates in those days. Blasphemy had gone so far as to become an open scandal; popular fanaticism and official orthodoxy made it all the more glaring.

So the sons of Ali Pasha invited the Prophet to be their guest, and had made up their minds that if he did appear among them he would not be bored.

All the odalisks danced and sung before them in turn, and the brethren diverted themselves by judging which of the damsels was the sweetest and loveliest.

In every song, in every dance, Rebecca, Mukhtar Bey's beautiful Jewish damsel, and the blue-eyed bayadere Lizza, who was Sulaiman Bey's favorite, equally excelled. It was impossible to decide which of the twain deserved the palm. At last they were made to dance together.

"Look!" cried Mukhtar, his eyes sparkling with delight, "look! didst ever behold a more beautiful figure? Like the flowering branch of the Ban-tree she sways to and fro. How proudly she throws her head back, and looks at thee so languishingly that thou meltest away for very rapture! Would that her light feet might dance all over me; would that she might encompass every part of me like the atmosphere!"

"She really is charming," admitted Sulaiman, "and if the other were not dancing by her side, she would be the first star in the firmament of beauty. But ah! one movement of the other one is worth all the life in her body. She is but a woman, the other is a sylph. She kills you with rapture, the other raises you from the dead."

"Thou are unjust, Sulaiman," said Mukhtar; "thou dost judge only with thine eyes. If thou wouldst take counsel of thy lips, they would speak more truly. Taste her kisses, and then say which of them is the sweeter."

With that he beckoned to the two odalisks. Rebecca, the lovely Jewish damsel, sank full of amorous languor on Sulaiman's breast, while Lizza, with sylph-like agility, sat her down upon his knee, and the intoxicated Bey, in an access of rapture, kissed first one and then the other.

"Rebecca's lips are more ardent," he cried, "but the kisses of Lizza are sweeter. The kiss of Rebecca is like the poppy which lulls you into sweet unconsciousness, but Lizza's kiss is like sweet wine which makes you merry."

"Lizza's kiss may perchance be like sweet wine," interrupted Mukhtar, "but Rebecca's kiss is like heavenly musk which only the Blessed may partake of, and those who partake thereof are blessed."

And with that Mukhtar caught up both the odalisks in his arms, that he might pronounce judgment as to the sweetness of their lips. It was an enviable process. The contending parties themselves were in doubt as to which of themselves should obtain a verdict. At length they called upon Vely Bey to decide—Vely, who was now lying blissfully asleep beside them on the divan, overcome with wine, his head in Xelianthé's bosom. His two brethren awoke him that he might judge between them as to the sweetness of rival kisses.

It took a good deal of trouble to make the stupidly fuddled Bey understand what was required of him, and when he did understand, the only answer he made was, "Xelianthé's kisses are the sweetest;" and with that he embraced his favorite damsel once more and, reclining his head on her bosom, went off to sleep again.

Then cried Mukhtar, "Wherefore dost thou ask for his judgment, when amongst us sits the Prophet himself? Let him judge between us."

With these words he pointed to the empty place which had been left for a fourth person. Rich meats were piled up there on gold and silver plate, and wine sparkled in transparent crystal.

"Come, Muhammad!" exclaimed Mukhtar, addressing the vacant place; "thou in thy lifetime didst love many a beauteous woman, and in thy Paradise there is enough and to spare of beauty. I summon thee to appear before us. Here is a dispute between us two as to whose damsel is the sweeter and the lovelier. Thou hast seen them dance, thou hast heard them sing; now taste of their kisses!"

With that he beckoned to the two damsels, and they sat down, one on each side of the empty divan, and made as if they were embracing a shape sitting between them, and filled the air with their burning, fragrant kisses.

"Well, let us hear thy verdict, Muhammad!" cried Mukhtar, with drunken bravado; and, taking the crystal goblet from the empty place and raising it in the air, looked around him with a flushed, defiant face, and exclaimed, "Come! drink of the wine of this goblet her health to whom thou awardest the prize!"

Ali Pasha, shocked and filled with horror at the shamelessly impudent words he heard from his hiding-place, drew a pistol from his girdle and softly raised the trigger.

"Drink, Muhammad!" bellowed Mukhtar, raising the goblet on high, "drink to the health of the triumphant damsel! Which shall it be, Rebecca or Lizza?"

At that same instant a loud report rang through the room, and the upraised crystal goblet was shivered into a thousand fragments in Mukhtar's hand. Every one leaped from his place in terror. But whichever way they looked there was nothing to be seen. The only persons in the room were the three brothers and the damsels. Only at the spot from whence the shot had proceeded a little round cloud of bluish smoke was visible, which sluggishly dispersed. Nobody present carried weapons, and there was no door or window there by which any one could have got in.

From the minarets outside the muezzins proclaimed the prayer of dawn: "La illah il Allah! Muhammad razul Allah!"—"There is no God but God, and Muhammad is His Prophet!"

Ali Pasha did not pursue the fugitives. That day he was praying all the morning. He locked himself up in his inmost apartments, that nobody might see what he was doing. He now did what he had not done for seventy years—he wept. For a whole hour his inflexible soul was broken. So that woman whom he had loved better than life itself, she forsooth had given the first signal of approaching misfortune, the first sign of the coming struggle! Let it come! Let her veil be the first banner to lead an army against Janina! Tepelenti would not attempt to stay her in her flight. For one long hour he thought of her, and this hour was an hour of weeping; and then he bethought him of the approaching tempest which the prophetic voice had warned him of, and his heart turned to stone at the thought. Ali Pasha was not the man to cringe before danger; no, he was wont to meet it face to face, and ask of it why it had tarried so long. He used even to send occasionally for the nimetullahita dervish who had been living a long time in the fortress, and question him concerning the future. It must not be supposed, indeed, that Tepelenti ever took advice from anybody; but he would listen to the words of lunatics and soothsayers, and liked to learn from magicians and astrologers, and their sayings were not without influence upon his actions.

The dervish was a decrepit old man. Nobody knew how old he really was; it was said that only by magic did he keep himself alive at all. Every evening they laid him down on plates of copper and rubbed invigorating balsam into his withered skeleton, and so he lived on from day to day.

Two dumb eunuchs now brought him in to Tepelenti, and, bending his legs beneath him, propped him up in front of the pasha.

"Sikham," said Ali to the dervish, "I feel the approach of evil days. My sword rusted in its sheath in a single night. My buckler, which I covered with gold, has cracked from end to end. A severed head, which hid itself away from me so that I could not find it, came forth to me at night and spoke to me of my death; and in my dreams I see my sons make free with the Prophet. I ask thee not what all these things signify. That I know. Just as surely as in winter-time the hosts of rooks and crows resort to the roofs of the mosques, so surely shall my sworn enemies fall upon me. I am old compared with them, and it is a thing unheard of among the Osmanlis that a man should reach the age of nine and seventy and still be rich and mighty. Let them come! But one thing I would know—who will be the first to attack me? Tell me his name."

The dervish thereupon caused a wooden board to be placed before him on which meats were wont to be carried; then he put upon it an empty glass goblet, and across the glass he laid a thin bamboo cane. Next he wrote upon the wooden board the twenty-nine letters of the Turkish alphabet, and then, thrice prostrating himself to the ground with wide-extended arms, he fixed his eyes steadily upon the centre of the goblet.

In about half an hour the goblet began to tinkle as if some one were rubbing his wet finger along its rim. This tinkling grew stronger and stronger, louder and louder, till at last the goblet moved up and down on the wooden board, and began revolving along with the light cane placed across it, revolving at last so rapidly that it was impossible to discern the cane upon it at all.

Then, quite suddenly, the dervish raised his fingers from the table, and the goblet immediately stopped. The point of the cane stood opposite the letter ghain—G.7

"That signifies the first letter of his name," said the dervish—"G!"

And then the mysterious operation was repeated, and the magic stick spelled out the name letter by letter: "G—a—s—k—h—o B—e—y." At the last letter the goblet stopped short and would move no more.

"I know no man of that name," said Ali, amazed that he whose name was so world-renowned was to tremble before one whose name he had never heard before.

"Where does the fellow live?" he inquired of the dervish.

The magic jugglery was set going again, and now the dancing goblet spelled out the name, "Stambul."

That was enough. Ali beckoned to the eunuchs to take the dervish away again.

Ali thereupon summoned forty Albanian soldiers from the garrison, and gave to each one of them twenty ducats.

"This," said he, "is only earnest money. I want a man put to death whose name and dwelling-place I know. His name is Gaskho Bey, and he lives in Stambul. This man's head is worth as many gold pieces as there are miles between him and me. He who brings the head can measure the distance and be paid for it. The first who brings but the report of his death shall receive two hundred ducats; he who slays him, a thousand."

The Albanians consulted together for a brief moment, and then intimated that if a bey of the name of Gaskho really existed, he was as good as dead already.

Towards mid-day Ali sent for his sons. He said not a word to them of the anxieties, the visions, and the apparitions of the night before, but made them, after they had respectfully kissed his hands, sit down all around him. Mukhtar Bey he invited to sit down on his left hand, Vely on his right, and Sulaiman directly opposite.

He addressed himself first of all to Sulaiman.

"Thou art the youngest and boldest," said he. "To-morrow thou must go to sea and take three ships with thee. These ships thou must take to Sicily, load them there with sulphur, and return without losing an instant."

"Oh, my father!" replied Sulaiman, "the tempest is now abroad upon the sea. Who would venture now with a ship upon the billows? All the monsters of the ocean are now running upon the surface seeking whom they may devour, and the phantom ship, with her shadowy rigging and her shadowy crew, pursues her zigzag course across the waters."

Ali Pasha said no more, but turned towards Mukhtar Bey.

"Thou art the most crafty," said he; "go then to the captains of the Suliotes and invite them to assemble with their forces at Janina with all despatch. Spare neither promises nor assurances nor fair winds."

Mukhtar Bey's face turned quite angry, and, wagging his head, still heavy from his overnight debauch, he answered, sullenly: "In the mountains the snow is now thawing; every stream is swollen into a river; naught but a bird can find a place for its foot on the dry ground; how, then, can armies move hither and thither? Wait for a week, till the inundations have subsided. Truly there is no enemy on thy borders. In thy whole realm there is not so much as a rat to nibble at thy walls. What dost thou want now with chariots and armed men?"

Ali now turned to Vely, who was sitting on his right hand. "Go thou over to Misrim," said he, "and purchase for me two thousand horses; a thousand of them shall be meet for war-chargers, and a thousand for drawing guns."

"Oh, my father!" answered Vely, who was the eldest and wisest of Ali's sons, "I will not object to thy command that the simoon has now begun in Misrim, before whose burning, suffocating breath every living creature is forced to fly. I reck little of that, but the horses, thy precious horses, will perish. And, moreover, I would ask of thee one question. Wherefore dost thou get together a host, and horses and guns, without cause, and with no danger threatening thee? Will not all these warlike preparations excite the rage of the Padishah against thee, and so thy preparing against an imagined peril will saddle thee with a real war?"

Ali Pasha laughed aloud—a very unusual habit with him.

"Well," said he, "it is for me to prove to you, I suppose, that you are all wrong in your calculations. Dine with me and be merry. After dinner you shall see that the sea is not stormy, that the rivers are not in flood, and that the simoon is not suffocating. I have a talisman which will convince you thereof."

So he entertained his sons till late in the evening, and immediately after dinner he whispered to one of the dumb eunuchs, and then he took his sons with him into the red tower, the doors of which were left wide open. He stopped short with them in one of the rooms, the solitary semicircular window of which looked out upon the lake of Acheruz. The window was guarded by an iron grating. Here he sat down with them to smoke his narghily and sip his coffee. The sons would have preferred to mount upon the roof of the tower, where the fresh air and the fine view would have made their siesta perfect; but Ali facetiously observed that in the open air cold and hot winds were just then blowing together at the same time, and he did not want the simoon to make them sweat or the trade-winds to make them shiver.

As they were sipping their coffee there the splashing of oars was audible beneath the tower, and the sons beheld three large, flat-bottomed boats propelled upon the surface of the water, in which sat the damsels of their harems; the boats were rowed by muscular eunuchs.

The faces of the three beys lighted up when they saw the damsels being rowed on the water, and Mukhtar Bey whispered roguishly in Sulaiman's ear, "Shall we make the old man also one of our party?"

Ali overheard the whisper, and replied, with a smile, "Truly your damsels are most beauteous"—here he stroked his white beard from end to end—"I am not surprised, therefore, that you like to stay at home here and call the wind hot and cold, though it is nothing but the breath of Allah, and what comes from God cannot be bad. But your damsels are beautiful, of that there can be no doubt. Now, last night I dreamt a dream. Before me stood the Prophet, and he told me how you had challenged him to say which of your damsels was the sweeter and the more beautiful." (Here the sons regarded each other, full of fear and amazement.) "The Prophet replied," continued Ali, "that it was not meet that he should come to your damsels; they should rather go to him. So I mean to send them to Paradise."

"What doest thou?" cried all three sons, horror-stricken.

The only answer Ali gave was to give a long shrill whistle, at which signal the eunuchs drew out the plugs from holes secretly bored at the bottom of the three boats, leaping at the same time into the water, and leaving the boats in the middle of the lake.

The damsels shrieked with terror as the water began to rush into the boats from all sides. The air was filled with cries of agony.

Mukhtar rushed madly to the door and found it locked. With impotent violence he attempted to burst it open. Sulaiman meanwhile tore away at the iron window-grating with both hands, as if he fancied himself capable of pulling down the whole of the vast building by the sheer strength of his arms. The blue-eyed Albanian girl and the languishing Jewish damsel, with the fear of death in their eyes, looked up at the closed window; the waves had already begun to swallow their beautiful limbs.

Only Vely Bey remained motionless. He, at any rate, had not sinned. He had not angered the Prophet in that orgie of amorous rivalry. He had loved one only, by her only had he been loved, and she, yes, she was perishing there among the others!

The boats sank deeper and deeper; nothing could be heard but the cries of the drowning wretches in all the accents of despair. The two sons saw their damsels dying before their eyes, and were unable to rush out and save them; not even one could be rescued. One more shriek of woe, and then the boats sank. For a few moments the surface of the water was covered with bright gauze veils and shiny turbans and white limbs and dishevelled tresses, and then a few solitary turbans floated on the water.

Sulaiman, sobbing in despair, fell down in a heap close by the window, while Mukhtar fell madly on the door and kicked it with all his might, as if he would drown in the din the cries for help of the perishing damsels. Only Vely Bey looked in bitter silence upon the detestable waves, which within a minute had swallowed three heavens.

Far, far away on the crest of the rising waves a black object appeared to be swimming. What was it? Perhaps one of the damsels. One moment it vanished in the wave-valleys, the next it appeared again on the top of a high ridge of water. What could it be? But farther and farther it receded. Perchance some one had escaped, after all. Greek girls are good swimmers.

And now Ali Pasha arose from his place and said, with a smile, to his sons:

"Methinks that neither the storms of ocean, nor the swollen waters, nor the breath of the simoon will now appear so terrible to you as they did a few hours ago. Depart now with all speed. When you return you will find new harems here, which will make you forget the old ones." And with that he quitted them.

Sulaiman and Mukhtar immediately went their way. Woe to whomsoever shall now give them a pretext for wreaking their vengeance upon him!

But Vely Bey remained there looking out upon the water, and as the evening grew darker he thought upon Ali Pasha. His brothers had loaded their father with curses; he had not said a word. They will soon make their peace with their father—he never will.8

CHAPTER IV
GASKHO BEY

As to his figure—well, Gaskho Bey might have stood for a perfect model of the Farnese Hercules; his huge shoulders were almost out of proportion with the rest of his body. He could stop the wing of a windmill with one hand; on the birthday of the Sultan's heir he hoisted a six-pound cannon on his shoulders and fired it off, and he could break a hard piastre in two when he was in a good humor.

It could not be said that he had hitherto used this terrible strength to injure any one; on the contrary, he was universally known as the most forbearing of men. The pages of the court, whom he taught to fence, would sometimes in the midst of a lesson, as if by accident, but really from sheer petulance, batter him with their blunt swords till they rang again, and Gaskho Bey would always reprimand them, not for striking him but for striking so clumsily. He had never gone to war, and those who did not send him thither flattered themselves not a little on their humanity, for if it came to a serious tussle there was really no knowing what damage he might not do.

At home he was the gentlest paterfamilias conceivable. You would frequently find him on all-fours, with his little four-year-old son, Sidali, riding on his back, and persecuting his father with all sorts of barbarities. He did nothing all day but teach the pages of the Seraglio games and exercises, and at home he made paper birds for his own little boy, flew kites for and played blind man's buff with him. Whatever time he could spare from these occupations he would spend in leaning out of the window of the Summer Palace overlooking the Gökk-sü, or Sweet Waters, and looking about him a bit with a pipe in his mouth, the stem of which reached to the ground, and if any one had asked him while so engaged what he was looking at, he would assuredly have answered, "Nothing at all."

Now there were always the liveliest goings-on in the Gökk-sü Park of an evening. The harems of the beys and pashas who dwelt on its banks took the air there under the plantain-trees, and swung and danced and sang; the wandering Persian jugglers exhibited their hocus-pocus, and the magnificent Janissaries resorted thither to fight with one another. Every Friday afternoon whole bands of these rival warriors flocked thither as if to a common battle-field, and frequently left two or three corpses on the scene of their diversions.

Gaskho Bey appeared to take very little notice of all these things, his chibook curled comfortably on the ground beneath him. At every pull at it large light-blue clouds of smoke rolled upwards from its crater, taking all manner of misty shapes and forms till they disappeared through the window, and Gaskho Bey buried himself in the contemplation of these smoky phantasms as deeply as if he were intent on writing a dissertation on the philosophy of pipe-smoking, oblivious of the fact that below the very house in which he was sitting two Albanian soldiers, in high-peaked, broad-brimmed caps and coarse black woollen mantles, who seemed to be taking the greatest possible interest in him and trying to get as near him as they could, had already strolled past for the third time, always separating and going in different directions, somewhat nervously, if they perceived any one coming towards them.

Only now and then a sly expression on Gaskho's face betrayed the fact that he was conscious of something going on behind his back. There little Sidali was amusing himself, while Gaskho Bey was leaning out of the window, by kneeling on the ottoman behind, and tickling the uplifted naked soles of his father's feet with a blunt arrow. Sometimes the arrow would slip and come plumping down on Gaskho's head, and then the bey would smile indulgently at the naughtiness of his little son.

And now the evening was falling, and the crowd beneath the plantain-trees grew thinner. The two Albanians, side by side, again came towards Gaskho Bey, who now puffed forth such clouds of smoke from his chibook that one could see neither heaven nor earth because of them. But the two Albanian mercenaries could make him out very well, and both of them standing a little way from the window drew forth their pistols, and one of them standing on the right hand and the other on the left, they both aimed at Gaskho Bey's temples at a distance of three paces.

But little Sidali was too quick for them, for he now gave his father such a poke with the arrow that the latter, provoked partly by the pain and partly by the tickling, sharply turned his head, and the same instant there was the report of two shots, and two bullets—one on the right hand and one on the left—buried themselves in the window-sill.

Gaskho's movement was so unexpected that the two Albanian braves, who had imagined that their bullets must of necessity have met each other in the middle of the bey's brain, were so terrified when they saw him still sitting there unwounded, that they stood as if nailed to the earth. Indeed, before they could make up their minds to fly, Gaskho was already outside the window, upon them with a single bound, and immediately seizing the pair of them with his terrible fists, flung them to the ground as if he were playing with a couple of dummies, and without wasting so much as a word upon them, tied them together with their own leather belts, so that on the arrival of the members of his own family, who flew to the spot, alarmed by Sidali's shrieks, the two hired assassins lay half dead and all of a heap upon the ground, for Gaskho Bey's grip had wellnigh broken all their bones.

They were conveyed at once to the Kapu-Kiaja, and Gaskho Bey went too. For a long time he was unable to contain himself, and bellowed out all along the road, "I never heard of anything like it—never!"

"It is an unheard-of case, sir," said he, on arriving at the Kapu-Kiaja's. "To furtively shoot at a peaceful Mussulman when he is smoking his pipe and amusing himself with his children, I never heard the like. If any one wants to kill me, he might at least, I think, let me know beforehand, so that I may perform my ablutions, say my prayers, and take leave of my children. But just when I am smoking my chibook!—I never heard of such a thing!"

It was plain that what he took to heart the most was that they should have tried to shoot him while he was smoking his chibook.

The Kapu-Kiaja, on the other hand, looked upon the case from another point of view. To him it was a matter of comparative indifference whether the deed was attempted before or after prayers. Why, he wanted to know, should these madmen run amuck of their fellow-men at all? He therefore asked the assassins who had set them on to murder Gaskho Bey. They, at the very first stroke of the bamboo, made a clean breast of it, and threw the blame on Tepelenti.

At first the Kapu-Kiaja regarded this confession as incredible. Why, indeed, should Tepelenti be wrath with Gaskho Bey, who knew nothing at all of Ali except by report? Nay, he greatly revered him as a valiant warrior, and had never said a single word to his discredit.

Nevertheless, the two assassins not only stuck to their confession, but maintained that besides themselves eight and thirty other soldiers had been sent to Stambul by Ali on the self-same mission.

Ciauses were immediately sent to every quarter of the city to seize the described Albanians. Five or six of them hid or escaped, but the rest were captured.

The confessions of these men were practically unanimous. Every circumstance of the affair, the amount of the promised reward, the words spoken on the occasion—everything, in fact, corresponded so exactly that no doubt could possibly remain that Tepelenti had actually sent them out to murder Gaskho Bey.

The affair made a great stir everywhere. Ali Pasha was as well known in Stambul as Gaskho Bey. The former was as famous for his power and riches, his envy and revengefulness, as was the latter for his strength and gentleness, his sympathy and tenderness.

The great men of the palace, jealous for a long time of Ali's greatness, brought the matter before the Divan, and great debates ensued as to what course should be taken against this mighty protector of hired assassins. And for a long time the opinions of the counsellors of the cupolaed chamber were divided. Some were for taking Ali by the beard and despatching him there and then. Others were for advising Gaskho Bey to be content with seeing the heads of the Arnaut assassins rolling in the dust before the Pavilion of Justice, and at the same time privately informing Ali that if he were wise he would waste neither his money nor his powder on such quiet, harmless men as Gaskho Bey, who had never done, and never meant in future to do, him any harm.

The latter alternative was the opinion of the wiser heads, and among these wiser ones was the Sultan himself.

"Ali is my sharp sword," said Mahmud. "If my sword wounds any one accidentally, and without my consent, is that any reason for snapping it in twain?"

Nevertheless, the enemies of the pasha kept goading Gaskho on to demand satisfaction of Ali personally. The worthy giant, hearing his own name on everybody's lips for weeks together, grew as wild as a baited heifer, and began to believe that he was a famous man, that he alone was ordained to clip the wings of the tyrant of Epirus, and at last was so absorbed by his dreams of greatness that when he had to give the usual lessons to the youths of the Seraglio he trounced them all, in his distraction, as severely as if they had been the soldiers of Ali Pasha.

The pacific Viziers promised him a house, a garden, beautiful horses, and still more beautiful slaves. But all would not do; what he did want, he said, was the head of Tepelenti, and he cried to Heaven against them for their procrastination.

But Sultan Mahmud was a wise man. He had no need to consult star-gazers or magicians, or even the caverns of Seleucia, as to the future, in order to discover and discern the storm whose signs were already visible in the sky.

"Ye know not Ali, and ye know not me also," he said to those who urged him to pronounce judgment against Ali. "If I were to say, 'Ali must perish!' perish he would, even if my palaces came crashing down and half the realm were destroyed in consequence. If, on the other hand, Ali said 'No!' he would assuredly never submit, and would rather turn the whole realm upsidedown, till not one stone remained upon another, than surrender himself. Therefore ye know not what ye want when ye wish to see Ali and me at war with one another."

The conspirators, however, were not content with this, but distributed some silver money among the Janissaries, and egged them on to appear before the palace of the Kapu-Kiaja and demand Ali's head.

The Kiaja, warned in good time of the approaching storm, took refuge in the interior of the Seraglio, which was speedily barricaded against the Janissaries, and the mouths of the cannons attached to the gates were exhibited for their delectation. As it did not meet the views of the Janissaries just then to approach any nearer to the cannons, they gratified their fury by setting fire to the city and burning down a whole quarter of it, for they considered it no business of theirs to put out the blazing houses.

The next day, however, the tumult having subsided as usual, when the Sultan and his suite were trotting out to inspect the scene of the conflagration, and had got as far as the fountain in front of the Seraglio, the figure of a veiled woman cast herself in front of the horse's hoofs, and with audacious hands laid hold of the bridle of the steed of the Kalif.

The Sultan backed his horse to prevent it from trampling upon the woman, and, thinking she was one of those who had been burned out the day before, ordered his treasurer—who was with him—to put a silver piece in her hand and bid her depart in the name of the Prophet.

"Not money, my lord; but blood! blood!" cried the woman; and, from the ring of her voice, there was reason to suspect that she was a young woman.

The Sultan in amazement asked the woman her name.

"I am Eminah, the daughter of the Pasha of Delvino, and the wife of Ali Tepelenti."

"And whose blood dost thou require?" asked the Sultan, scandalized to see the favorite wife of so powerful a man prostrate in the dust before his horse's feet.

"I demand death upon his head!" cried the woman, with a firm voice—"on the head of Ali Tepelenti, from whose gehenna of a fortress I have escaped on the waters of a subterranean stream in order that I might accuse him to thee; and if thou dost not condemn him, I will go to the judgment-seat of God and accuse him there!"

The Sultan was horrified.

It is a terrible thing when a woman accuses her own husband, who has loaded her with benefits. He must, indeed, be an evil-doer whom turtle-doves, the gentlest of all God's creatures, attack!

The Sultan listened, full of indignation, to the woman's accusations.

After happily escaping from the fortress of Ali Pasha with the Greek girl, she learned, during her short sojourn among the Suliotes, of all Ali's cruelties, and learned also, at the same time, that in Delvino had just died a rich Armenian lady, who had been the flame of Gaskho Bey in his younger days, and had left him all the property she owned in Albania. Of this nobody as yet knew anything. What more natural than that every one should immediately fancy he had found the key to the riddle of the mysterious attempt at assassination? Why, of course, Ali wanted to slay Gaskho Bey in order that he might take possession of his Albanian property.

CHAPTER V
A MAN IN THE MIDST OF DANGERS

"They act as if I were dead already," murmured the veteran, with as bitter a feeling as if he already saw his youthful supplanter standing on his threshold. "They bury me before I am dead, they divide my property before I have made my will. Nevertheless, one day I shall stand in the gates of the Seraglio on a richer pedestal."

And with that Tepelenti sent forth his ciauses to all the towns within his domains, and to all the local governors, commanding all who had sons to send their sons and all who had brothers to send their brothers to him without delay. Then he ordered that every beast of burden that could be spared should be driven into the mountains, and that every barque they could lay their hands upon should be brought from the sea-coast into the Gulf of Durazzo. The arsenal of Janina bristled with terrific rows of cannons and bombs, and the commanders of the various army corps received instructions to concentrate their forces under the walls of Janina. At any rate, he was determined not to be taken unawares. At least, he would have time to unfurl the red flag before the dread message arrived from Stambul that the Padishah demanded his head.

Ah, ha! Ali Tepelenti would not surrender his gray beard so easily. The hunters shall find out what manner of lion they are pursuing. A firman of the Grand Signior nominated the banished Pehliván Pasha, Lord of Lepanto; Sulaiman Pasha was made Governor of Trikala, and the two mountain passes guarding it; Muhammad Bey, whose father Ali had slain, was proclaimed Lieutenant-General of Durazzo. Thus they had divided his territories beforehand among his most bitter and most dangerous enemies. Ah! this will, indeed, be a magnificent chase.

Ali called together his sons, of whom Vely was Lord of Lepanto, Sulaiman of Trikala, and Mukhtar Pasha of Durazzo. He showed them on the map where their territories lay, and pointed out that if they lost them they would have nothing left. Let all three of them, therefore, gird upon their thighs the swords he intrusted to them and fight like men. The two younger sons swore fervently that they would conquer Fortune with their weapons, but Vely Bey preserved a gloomy silence.

"Art thou not my son?" asked the veteran.

"Allah hath so willed it," answered Vely, "and I also will fight, not for thee but for myself, not for life nor for what is on the other side of death, but because I have a little child in Lepanto, and the enemy is besieging that fortress. That little child is all the world to me. I will fight as only a father can fight for his son. I will rescue him if possible. Thy glory or thy ruin is alike indifferent to me. If the report reach thee that the enemy hath taken Lepanto and slain my son, then count no more upon the sword which thou hast intrusted to me."

And with these words Vely turned his back on his father and softly withdrew.

As Ali saw his son quietly pass before him, it occurred to him whether it would not be as well to draw his pistol from his belt and shoot down the waverer before he quitted Janina. It is true that he had known all this beforehand. His own wife, his own sons, his own weapons, were to turn against him; but then, on the other hand, was he not to stand at the gate of the Seraglio on a silver pedestal?

A host of more than twenty thousand men stood under arms at his disposal, Albanians and Suliotes. A gallant host, if only it would fight. But for whom would it fight?—for him or for the Sultan? And these soldiers, when they saw him besieged, would they forget their murdered kinsfolk, their plundered fields, their burned villages? Did not every man of them know that Ali Tepelenti had been amassing treasures all his life, but had never troubled himself about good deeds? And now these treasures would surely be his ruin.

Time brought the answer. While his enemies were still afar off, the Suliotes arose, under the leadership of a girl among the mountains of Bracori, where one of Ali's grandsons, Zaid, was recruiting soldiers, and massacred Ali's men to the very last one. The last one, however, they suffered to escape and convey to Ali Zaid's severed head, at the same time informing him that it was sent by that girl the head of whose betrothed he had cut off before her very eyes, and she meant to send him still more.

This was the Greek's declaration of war. There at Janina, under his very nose, the Greek captain, Zunga, deserted the Albanian camp, and when the Grand Signior's army reached Trikala, and Gaskho Bey's herald galloped between the two armies with the imperial firman hanging round his neck, and summoned the vassals to take up arms against the Pasha, the whole camp went over to Gaskho Bey. Alone, without the smallest escort, Sulaiman, Ali Pasha's youngest son, fled without having had the opportunity of testing his father's sword, and they captured him on the road.

Still he had the other two. Mukhtar Bey, with a powerful fleet, lay in the Gulf of Durazzo, and Vely Bey, wroth though he might be with his father, was a valiant warrior, and his son was in Lepanto, and save him he must and would.

But not only his son, some one else was there also. On that cruel, murderous day when Ali Pasha drowned the harems of his sons in the lake, one person among so many escaped, and this was Xelianthé. The damsel loved Vely as much as he loved her, and contrived to let him know that she was alive. Vely Bey sent her to Lepanto, and kept her in hiding there with his little son in order that she might be far from his father.

And now the bey himself hastened to Lepanto, arrived at night in the neighborhood of the town, and perceived already from afar that the citadel in which he had concealed his darlings was in flames.

What if he had arrived too late!

With the fury of a savage wild tiger he flung himself upon the besieging Pehliván, and in a midnight battle routed him beneath the walls of Lepanto, the Albanians fighting desperately by the side of their leader. But what was the use of it? The fortress was saved, indeed, but it was already in flames. Vely, roaring with grief and pain, flung himself on the gate, scarcely recognizing again the place he had quitted so short a time ago.

He reached the pavilion where he had concealed his wife and child. It was built entirely of wood, except the roof, which was of copper. A curious mass of molten dark-red metal gleamed among the fire-brands. Vely rushed bellowing to the spot, and his soldiers, tearing aside the charred beams and rafters, came upon two skeletons burned to cinders. A coral necklace lying there, which the fire had been unable to calcine, told him that these were the remains of his wife and son.

Not a word did Vely say to a living soul; but he plunged his sword into its sheath, and that same night he rode unarmed into the camp of the discomfited Pehliván Pasha and surrendered himself to the enemy.

His army, utterly demoralized, immediately fled back to Janina, bringing the tidings to his father that Vely Bey, immediately after his victory, had surrendered of his own accord to the Sultan.

So every one abandoned Ali. His cities opened their gates to his enemies, his best friends betrayed, his two sons forsook, him. Still the third son remained. And Mukhtar Bay was the best man of the three. He was the bravest, and he loved his father the best.

Two days later came the tidings that Mukhtar Bey with his whole fleet had surrendered before Durazzo to the Kapudan Pasha.

"The soothsayer foretold it all to me," said Ali, calmly, when the news was brought to him. "So it was written beforehand in heaven. Nevertheless, at the last, I shall stand at the gates of the Seraglio on a silver pedestal!"