CHAPTER VI
THE LION IN THE FOX'S SKIN
Blow upon blow rain down upon thee, thou veteran warrior! Thine armiesgo over to the enemy, thy friends leave thee desolate, thy sons betraythee, they capture thy cities without unsheathing their swords, thineallies turn their arms against thee, and with thine own artillery, ofthe best French manufacture, the Suliotes from the walls of Janinashoot down thine Albanian guards!
Ah, those Suliotes! How they can fight! If only now they would raisetheir swords on thy behalf, how thine enemies would fall in rows! Butnow it is thy soldiers that fall before _them_! A brother and a sisterlead them on--a youth and a girl; the youth's name is Kleon, thegirl's name is Artemis. Every time thou dost hear their names, it isas if a sword were being plunged into thy heart, for the girl is shewhom thou wouldst have sacrificed to thy lust, and with whom thy wifedidst escape; and thou never dost hear that name without hearing atthe same time of the loss of thy bravest warriors!
Like the destroying angel Azrael, she fares through the din of battle,waving her white banner amidst the showers of bullets, and not one ofthem touches her. Before thy very eyes she plants the triumphantbanner on thy bastions, and thou hast not strength of mind enough leftto wish her to fall; nay, rather, when thou dost see her appear beforethee, thou dost forbid thy gunners to fire upon her!
Danger approaches Janina from all sides. Thou must drain the cup,Tepelenti, to the very last drop, to the last bitter drop; and whatthen? Why, then thou wilt stand before the Seraglio on a silverpedestal!
* * * * *
One night there was a rolling of drums before the seven gates ofJanina, and a bomb flying down from the heights of Lithanizza explodedin the market-place of the town. Up, up, ye Albanians! up, up, ye whohave any martial blood in your veins, the enemy has seized the guns onthe seven gates! Ali throws himself on his prancing steed, and in hishand is the good battle-sword which has befriended him in so many adanger. How many times has it not been the lot of Ali to loseeverything but this one sword, and then to win back everything bymeans of it?
In a moment the army of the besieged stood in battle-array. Alicontemplated the ranks of the enemy, and a smile passed across hisface. That worthy captain, Gaskho Bey, was leading his troops to theshambles. In an hour's time Ali will so completely have annihilatedthem that not even the rumor of them will remain behind. It will be abattle-field worthy of the veteran general. Every one who sees it willsay--there is no escaping from him! Only let them advance, that isall! And again he was disappointed. At the first shot, before a swordhad been drawn, his army surrendered to the enemy. If only they hadfired once, the victory would have been his; but no, the army laiddown its arms and the cunningly concealed gunners turned his ownartillery against him.
It was all over! Only seven hundred Albanian horsemen remained withAli, the rest either went over to the enemy or allowed themselves tobe taken.
The old lion waved his sword above his head, and turning to hishandful of heroes exclaimed, with a voice that rang out like a brazentrumpet, "Will ye behold Ali die?"
And with that he galloped towards the market-place of Janina, thefaithful seven hundred following closely upon his heels.
The enemy poured into the town through every gate, but themarket-place cut off one part of the town from the others, and thetriumphant hordes came upon some very evil-looking trenches bristlingwith _chevaux de frise_, and the long narrow streets were swept byAli's last twelve cannons, ably handled by the pasha's dumb eunuchs,who stood at their posts like the symbols of constancy on a tomb.
Ali Pasha put down his foot in the middle of Janina. Of his tenthousand horsemen only seven hundred remained with him. The enemy hadtwenty thousand men and two hundred guns, and yet all the skill ofGaskho Bey was incapable of dislodging Ali from the market-place ofJanina, and although the enemy held one portion of the city, it wasunable to take the other portion. If only they could have come toclose quarters with him, they would have crushed him with one hand;but get at him they could not--that required skill, not strength.
At last the besiegers set the town on fire all around him, but stillAli did not budge from his place, and the wind blew the flames in theface of Gaskho Bey, who began to look about him uncomfortably when thetwo Suliote kinsfolk, Kleon and Artemis, at the head of theirsquadrons, urged him to boldly assault the market-place.
Tepelenti saw the girl with her white banner, and as her troops filledthe broad space at the head of the square, he himself, at first, drewnear to her. Four cannons were pointed at the Suliotes, loaded withchain-shot and broken glass. Ali looked towards them with a gloomycountenance, then stuck his sword in its sheath, bade his gunners turnthe guns round, harness the horses to them, and take refuge in thecitadel. He would not let a single shot be fired at the Suliotes.
The moment Ali turned his back, the besieging host captured the fieldof battle. They followed hard upon the heels of the retreating bandall the way, and when Ali reached the bridge, the Spahis andTimariots, like two swarms of bees mingled together, gained the headof the bridge at the same time, and swarmed after him with a shout oftriumph. The real struggle began on the bridge itself. Man to man theyfought at close quarters with their shorter weapons (they could use noother), and clubs and dirks did bloody work in the throng which pouredfrom two different quarters, along and over the overcrowded bridgelike ants coming out of a slender reed. Six hundred of the Albanianssucceeded in escaping into the citadel, and then, at Ali's command,the iron gates were clapped to, leaving the remaining hundred toperish on the bridge, where the overwhelming crowd swallowed them up.Each single Albanian fought against ten to twenty Timariots. Thebridge rang with the din of combat, and trembled beneath the weight ofthe heavy crowd. Then suddenly the guns on both sides of the bastionswhich were attached to the bridge began to roar, the supports of thecaptured bridge collapsed, and the bridge itself, with its load offighting Turks and Albanians, plunged down into the deep trenchesbelow.
Down there were sharp-pointed stakes beneath the deep waters, andthose of the besiegers who remained on the bank were horrified toperceive that not one of the fallen crowd reappeared on the surface ofthe water, while the water itself gradually grew redder and redder,till at last it was a bright crimson, painted by the blood of thecorpses below.
And opposite to them stood the fast-barred gate.
Ah--ha! 'Tis not so easy to capture Tepelenti as ye thought.
Everywhere else ye have triumphed; ye have triumphed up to the verylast point. And now ye _have_ come to the last point, and yourvictories are worth nothing, for the last point is still to be won.
The fortress is unapproachable. The bastions are built in the middleof the lake, and from their dark quadrangular cavities rows of guns(each one of them a sixty-pounder) sweep the surface of the water, sothat it is impossible to draw near in boats. On the land side onehundred cannons defend the bastions, and who can surmount the tripleditch?
Ye will never capture Ali there. He has sufficient muniments of warto last him for an indefinite period, and to show them how determinedhe was, he caused the solitary gate of the fortress to be filled withmasonry and walled up. So the fortress has no longer a gate. Evendesertion is now an impossibility.
There he will remain, then, walled up as in a tomb, buried alive! Theonly roads from thence lead to heaven or hell; the exit from the landside is guarded by the Suliotes; even if he could fly he could notescape from them.
The campaign is ended. The victorious Gaskho Bey proclaims himselfPasha of Janina. The whole of Epirus does homage to him, and desertsthe fallen Vizier. In Stambul thanksgivings are offered up in the Ejubmosque and the church of St. Sophia for the accomplished victory,which is proclaimed, amidst the roaring of the cannons, by heralds inthe great market-place; and all the newspapers of Europe amazedlyreport that the mighty and terrible adventurer, the ever-victoriousveteran of seventy-nine, the party-leader who grew to such a heightthat it was doubtful whether he or the Sultan were the real ru
ler ofTurkey, the man who had been the ally of the great Napoleon, who a fewmonths before had sent as a present to England a preciousdinner-service of pure gold worth 30,000 thaler, who had heaped upmore treasures than any Eastern nabob--is suddenly crushed,annihilated, shut up in a fortress! It now only remains for him todie.
And not very long afterwards he did die. One night a couple of boldAlbanian horsemen descended the bastions by means of a long rope, and,crossing the lake of Acheruz on a pine log, sought out Gaskho Bey inhis camp that very night.
Ali Tepelenti was dead. They were the first to bear the joyful tidingsto the bey. He died in his grief, in his wretchedness. Perhaps also hehad taken poison. On the morrow, at three o'clock, they had arrangedto bury him in the fortress! Before his death he had called togetherhis lieutenants, and taken an oath of them that they would defend thefortress to the very last gasp of the very last man. His treasureswere piled up in the red tower--more than thirty millions of piastres.He had left it all to them. But what was the use of all this treasureto them if they could not get out of this eyrie? They would notsurrender themselves, for Ali had made them swear by every Turkishsaint that they would defend the fortress to the death. But the rankand file were of a different opinion; they would joyfully retire fromthe fortress if they were assured of a free forgiveness. Gaskho Beyhad only to stretch out his hand and the fortress of Janina, theimpregnable fortress with its two hundred cannons and its enormousmass of treasure, would be his.
Early in the morning the gray moonless flag, the sign of death, waswaving on the red tower of Janina, and the guns overlooking the waterfired three and thirty volleys, whose echo proclaimed among themountains that Ali Tepelenti was dead. Within the fortress sounded theroll of the muffled drums, and it was also possible to distinguish thedirges of the imams.
Gaskho Bey and his staff, from the top of the Lithanizza hills,watched the burial of the pasha. There was an observatory here fromwhose balcony they could look down into the court-yard, and thesplendid telescopes, which the sultan had got from Vienna, renderedpowerful assistance to the onlookers, who through them could observethe smallest details of what was going on in the court-yard of thefortress; one telescope in particular brought the objects so near thatone could read the initial letters of the verses of the Kuran whichthe imams held in their hands.
In the midst of a simple coffin lay Ali Pasha. It was really he; ofthat there could be no doubt. Let every one look for himself! There helay--dead, cold, motionless. His lieutenants and his servants stoodaround him weeping. Those who walked along by his side stooped down tokiss his hands.
In the town outside the Suliotes knew of Ali's death, and by way ofcompliment they fired a bomb into the citadel. But the match of thebomb was too short, and it exploded in the air.
From the observatory they could see very well the fright of the crowdassembled in the court-yard at the whizzing of the bomb over theirheads, and how every one looked anxiously at the little round whitecloud there; only he who lay dead in the midst of them remained coldand tranquil. He will never again be disturbed by the roar of anexploding bomb.
The imams raised him on their shoulders, and, amidst the melancholydirges of the mourners and the muffled roll of the drums, they carriedhim away to his open tomb, for his grave was already dug.
The Moslems do not put their dead in a closed coffin; they only halfboard the tomb up in order that the angels of death may have room toplace the corpse in a sitting posture when they come to take anaccount of his actions.
They really did lower Ali Tepelenti into his tomb.
The garrison fired a triple salute, the imams thrice sang their sacredverses, and then came the gravediggers and cast the earth upon thecorpse. A large marble slab was standing there, and with it theypressed down the earth on the tomb, at the same time placing twoturbaned headstones, one at each end of the tomb.
They really did bury Ali.
When the imams and the officers had departed from the covered tomb,Gaskho Bey summoned the keepers of the observatory to the summit ofLithanizza and laid this command upon them:
"Let a man stand in front of this telescope from morning to evening(and mind that he is relieved every four hours), and never withdrawhis eye from that tomb. At night, when the moon goes down, a rocket isto be fired every five minutes, that the watchers may see the tomb andnever leave it out of sight, and report upon it every hour."
What? Is Gaskho Bey actually afraid that old Ali, a veteran ofseventy-nine, will be able to arise from his tomb and hurl away thatheavy marble slab with his dead hands? There are men of whom it isimpossible to believe that they are dead, and whom people are afraidof even when they are buried.
Every hour till late in the evening they reported to Gaskho Bey thatthe tomb remained unchanged, and all the night through not a soulapproached it.
Tepelenti, then, was really dead--totally dead.
Early next morning Gaskho Bey heard a very curious story.
In the artillery barracks, where the round guns stood, a drummer hadlaid down his drum close beside him, with the drumsticks leaning overit, when he suddenly perceived the two drumsticks begin to move oftheir own accord over the tightly drawn skin of the drums as if someinvisible hand wished to beat a tattoo. The drummer cried out at thismarvel, and fancied that a _dzhin_ was in the drum.
Gaskho Bey would not believe it till he had himself gone to thebarracks and seen with his own eyes how the two drumsticks vibratedwith sufficient force to tap the drum pretty loudly, moving in aspiral line backward and forward across it, tap-tap-tapping as theywent.
"It is very marvellous!" cried the bey; and he immediately summonedthe imams to drive the _dzhin_ out of the drum.
The imams set to work at once. They fetched their fumigators and theirsacred books, and they fumigated the drum with nose-offending odorsand recited over it drum-expelling exorcisms in a shrill voice. Andcertainly if the devil was in that drum, and had anything of a nose orears, he would have been obliged to escape from that noise and stink.So long as the drum was in any one's hand the drumsticks did not move,but when it was put down on the ground the mysterious tap-tappingbegan again.
The imams went on howling, and horribly they howled.
The chief of the observatory was present during this scene. As aFrench renegade he was a man of some education, and therefore he didnot accept the theory of the _dzhins_. When he perceived that theimams were not successful in expelling the evil spirits, he calledGaskho Bey aside and whispered in his ear:
"I know nothing about your _dzhins_, and don't understand what you aredriving at with all this noise and stench, but I can tell you thatthis beating of the drum is a sign that invisible hands are at workhere."
"What?"
"It means that we ought to get away from here, for they are diggingmines beneath us, and that is why the ground trembles and thedrumsticks vibrate."
Gaskho Bey began smiling. He had as little idea of sapping and miningas the French renegade had of Turkish monsters.
"How superstitious thou art, my brave moosir!" said he, shrugging hisshoulders and looking down upon the Frenchman.
The latter, however, did not remain there much longer, but hastened asquickly as he could to the summit of the Lithanizza.
After about an hour and a half's more hubbub the imams succeeded inexpelling the _dzhin_. The drum grew quiet, the excitement subsided,and the soldiers were instructed to lay two swords crosswise in frontof the gate, so that the spirit might not be able to come back anymore; and with that termination of the affair every one was satisfied.
* * * * *
Opposite the gate of the fortress of Janina, at the head of thecollapsed bridge, stood a stone building, fenced about with redoubtsand palisades, which had now fallen into the hands of the Suliotes.This building had been chosen by the two Greek kinsfolk for theirdwelling-place. They wanted to get as close to Ali as possible; theywould not suffer him to escape even in the shape of a bird or aspirit; their large siege-guns
were pointed at the walled-up gate. Lethim surrender or find his tomb in the fortress.
And lo! he _had_ found his tomb without consulting them about it. Invain they had sharpened their weapons against him--the sword of Deathis quicker and cuts down sooner. They had not been able to reach himon the field of battle; they had not been able to plunge theiravenging swords into his heart; they had not been able to bring hisgray head to the block; it had been reserved for him to pass quietlyaway--to die in his bed, untroubled, unmolested, to die the death ofthe righteous.
Kleon and Artemis were sitting sullenly in a room of the fort by thelight of a flickering candle. The girl had absently divested herselfof her cuirass and was walking up and down the room with folded arms.There was not a single womanly trait in her face. It was as cold asthe face of a statue.
"So he is dead, then--dead!"
This phrase she repeated to herself again and again. She seemed unableto get away from it.
"Ali has died, and not by my hand."
Kleon was strikingly like his sister; indeed, his young face scarcelydiffered at all from hers, but in his eyes quite another sort of flamesparkled. Her face, full of dark thoughts, was much more terrible;his was free and open, and full of radiant hope.
"My triumph has lost its worth if Ali is dead," she said, with a sigh."The old fox has dodged my steel by taking refuge in hell. Oh, wouldthat I might follow him thither also, that I might tear his graybeard, which he has bathed in my kinsman's blood!"
"Behold! here is my gray beard!" cried a voice at that instant fromthe other end of the room, and the brother and sister beheld AliTepelenti standing before them.
The terror-stricken young people involuntarily crossed themselves.Horror nailed them to the ground and petrified all their limbs, whenthey saw what they imagined to be a spectre standing there before themin the self-same gray robe in which he had been buried two daysbefore.
"Behold, here I am, Ali Tepelenti!"
With that the spectre clapped his hands, and from every corner of theroom rushed forth Albanians armed to the teeth, and before the brotherand sister could approach their weapons, they were overpowered andtied together.
It was really Ali Tepelenti who stood before them.
They had put him away underground, it is true, but underground therewere paths and passages only too well known to him. The wholespectacle of the interment had been arranged by himself, and there wasan exit from the bottom of his tomb into subterranean corridors. Whenthe general joy and satisfaction at the victory was at its height, hewas abroad and at work.
A strongly built subterranean trench had been constructed below theditches encircling the redoubts, and its ramifications extended to thefort at the head of the bridge. Ali had so completely surprised thegarrison that they had not been able to fire a shot; the Suliotes hadbeen surprised and disarmed while in their dreams.
Up, up, Gaskho Bey! Arise, Muhammad Aga! To horse, ye captains! Seizethy sword, Pehlivan Pasha! Danger is at hand! This is a bad night forsleeping!
* * * * *
Suddenly a frightful explosion shook the ground, just as if the earthwas being wrenched from its hinges, and amidst a flame brighter thanthe light of day, which seemed to leap up to the very stars, hugeround cannons were seen flying. The gunners in the barracks were alsopitched into the air. The minarets tottered and fell before theterrific shock, every building round about crumbled into ruins. In amoment one-half of the town was reduced to a rubbish-heap, and thenext moment a hail of burning beams and lacerated human limbs fellback upon the ruins from the blood and fire besmudged heavens.
It was thus that Ali Pasha signified his resurrection to his enemies!He had gone underground, and now from underground he began the waranew.
Gaskho Bey, his gigantic body half undressed (he had just leaped outof bed), rushed to the end of the street, and was so confused that heasked all whom he met where he was. The suddenly aroused soldiers,half mad with terror, rushed hither and thither in confusion, cryingout, one for his horse, another for his weapons. And above theirheads, more terrible than heaven's thunder-bolts, resounded the dreadcry, "Ali, Ali!" There comes the entombed pasha on a white horse, withhis white beard; who will dare to look him in the face? Thepanic-stricken throng falls in thousands beneath the swords of theAlbanians, blood flows in streams in the streets of Janina, and AliPasha, the dead man, the buried captain, fills the hearts of theirwarriors with the fear of death. There is none who can stand againsthim.
Only Pehlivan, the stalwart hero, was able to prevent the vastbesieging army from being scattered altogether by a handful ofArnauts. He rallied the fugitives outside the town, and, while Ali'smen-at-arms were murdering every one inside, he quickly seized all thegates, advanced in battle-array, and stayed the triumph of the veterancaptain.
And enough had surely been done.
Three thousand of the besiegers lay dead, the guns were spiked oroverthrown, and the leaders of the Suliote band were prisoners--andall this the result of Ali's nocturnal rally! It was time for him toreturn.
Pehlivan thus recaptured the town and marshalled his men in themarket-place, without pursuing Ali any further. But he had reckonedwithout Gaskho Bey, who now came rushing up and furiously accostedhim:
"Why hast thou not pursued him right into the citadel?"
"It would not do to press Ali too closely," replied the practisedgeneral; "let him fly, if fly he will."
At this, Gaskho Bey, foaming with rage, tore the sword out ofPehlivan's hand (where he had left his own sword he could not havesaid for the life of him), and, placing himself at the head of a bandof Spahis, began to pursue the retreating foe.
Ali was proceeding quite leisurely towards the fortress, as if he didnot trouble himself about his pursuers, although they were six timesas numerous as his forces.
When Gaskho Bey had got within ear-shot, Tepelenti shouted back tohim:
"Thou hast come to a bad place, brave Bey. This ground is mine, andwhat is beneath it is mine also, dost thou not know that yet?"
Gaskho Bey naturally did not understand a word of this till, at agesture from Ali, a rocket flew up into the air, at which signal thoseinside the fortress suddenly exploded all the mines which had been dugunder all the streets of the town. Tepelenti had prepared these duringhis fortunate days by piercing water conduits and making subterraneanvaults large enough to hold great stores of gunpowder.
Ali rallied his own bands at the head of the bridge, and when,suddenly, the explosion burst forth along the whole length of thestreet, and the destroying flame tossed the pursuing squadrons intothe air one after the other, he amused himself by contemplating theruin from the top of the fort, and was the last who disappeared in thehidden tunnel. For a long time those in the fortress could hear theagonized cries of the vanquished. One-third of the besieging army hadbeen destroyed in a single night. The rest quitted the accursed town,which seemed to have been built over hell itself, and took up aposition in the fields outside and on the heights of Lithanizza.
The rising sun revealed a horrible spectacle. The town of Janina nolonger existed, the beautiful tall houses, the cupolaed mosques, theslender white minarets, the imposing barracks--where were they?Instead of them, all that could be seen was a shapeless mass ofpiled-up ruins; here and there, on a dark background, scorched byflickering flames, a huddle-muddle of broken rafters, mangled corpses,charred black or gaping hideously open, lay scattered about amongstthe rubbish, and from the mouth of a conduit at the side of thebastion there trickled sadly down into the lake a dark red stream,which wound its way in and out amongst the ruins.
* * * * *
"Poor children, how sweetly they are sleeping!"
Thus spoke Ali.
In a corner of the red tower, sleeping side by side, were the twoSuliote kinsfolk, Artemis and Kleon. They slept in each other'sembrace, and not even the gaze of Ali awoke them.
"Don't arouse them," said Ali to his dumb eunuchs; "let them sleep
on!"
And again he regarded them with a smile--they slept so soundly. Andyet they knew not when they fell asleep whether they would ever awakeagain.
Ali did not arouse the slumberers. Thrice he sent to see if they hadawakened, but he would not have them disturbed. At last the hand ofthe youth made his chain clank, and both of them opened their eyes atthe sound.
"I was on my way to Akro-Corinth," said he, rubbing his large dreamyeyes with his hands, "and I saw them rebuilding the Parthenon."
"I stood at Thermopylae," said the girl, "and the enemy fell before meby thousands."
"And now we shall go to the block," sighed Kleon, listening as theiron doors of his dungeon slowly opened.
"Be strong!" whispered the girl, pressing the hand of her brotherwhich was enlaced in hers.
The dumb eunuchs surrounded them, and led them before Ali Pasha.
The pasha was sitting on a divan, and still wore his funeral robe; allthe furniture was shrouded with cinder-colored cloth; there wasnothing golden, nothing that sparkled in the room.
The brother and sister stood before him, pressing each other's hands.
"My dear children," said the pasha, in a voice that trembled withemotion, "don't look into each other's eyes, but look at me!"
At this unusual tone, at these kindly words, the brother and sisterdid look at him, and perceived that the old man was looking at themsadly, doubtfully, and that his eyes were full of tears.
Ali beckoned to the eunuchs, and they freed the brother and sisterfrom their chains.
"Behold, ye are free, and may return to your homes," said Ali.
These words had the effect of an electric shock upon the youth, andhis face lit up with a flush of joy.
"Why dost thou rejoice?" cried Artemis, casting a severe look uponhim; "dost thou not perceive that the monster is mocking us? He onlywants to excite joy within us that he may kindle our hopes, and thenmake death all the more bitter to us. Why dost thou make sport of us,thou old devil? Slay us quickly, or slay us with lingering torments,'tis all one to us, but do not mock us!"
Tepelenti devoutly raised his eyes to heaven.
"My soul is an open book before you. Ye are free. Ye free Suliotes, weunderstand one another. I have sinned grievously against you, but yehave revenged yourself upon me. I burned your villages, ye, in return,have destroyed my fortresses. I have pillaged your lands, and ye havetaken my possessions from me. I have slain your bridegroom andsnatched thee from thy parent's house; thou hast cut off the head ofmy favorite grandson, and ravished from me my favorite wife. Now weare quits, and owe each other nothing. Go in peace!"
There was so much sincerity, so much repentant, contrite grief in thewords of Ali, that the watchful maid began to regard him with curioussympathy.
"Thou art amazed at my change of countenance," said Ali, observing theimpression his words had produced on Artemis. "Thou hast not seen melike this before! That other Ali is no more. He died, and was buried.A penitent kneels before thee who has a horror of his past sins, andbegs thy forgiveness, kissing the hem of thy garment."
And, indeed, Ali fell down on his knees before Artemis, in order thathe might kiss the border of her robe, and breaking forth into moans,shed tears at the girl's feet, so that she involuntarily bent down andraised him up.
She was a woman, after all, and could not bear to see any one weepingbefore her.
"Listen now to what I say," continued the pasha, "and do not fancythat Ali has gone mad. This night I saw a vision. A beauteous andradiantly majestic maiden descended at my threshold from the midst ofthe bright, open heavens, surrounded by a company of winged children'sheads. The maiden looked at me so gently, so kindly. A divine lightshone from her countenance, and, on the earth beneath, all the flowersturned their faces towards her as if she were the sun. In the arms ofthis heavenly maid sat a child, but what a child! At the sight of him,even I, old man as I am, trembled with joy. Round about the head ofthis child was a wreath of stars, and the smile upon his face wassalvation itself. And when I raised my trembling hands towards her,the heavenly lady and the child extended their arms towards me, andfrom the lips of the maiden, in a sweet, inexpressibly sweet voice,came these words: 'Ali Tepelenti, I call thee!' And I, all trembling,fell down on my knees before her."
The brother and sister involuntarily knelt down beside Ali andstammered, full of devotion, "Blessed be the most holy Virgin!"
Ali Pasha continued the recital of his vision.
"With my face covered, I listened to the words of the brightapparition, and now she addressed me once more in a dolorous voice,which pierced my very heart, 'Ali Tepelenti, behold me!' And when Iraised my face, lo! I beheld seven swords pointing towards the heartof the heavenly maid, and I felt my hand grow numb with fright. 'AliTepelenti,' said the lady for the third time, 'these swords _thou_hast thrust into my wounds, and my blood be upon thy head!' And I,groaning, made answer, 'How could I have done so when I do not knowthee?' And she replied, 'He who persecutes mine, persecutes me, andwho robs my temples, robs me; didst thou not pull down the churches ofTepelen, Turezzo, and Tripolizza?' 'I swear that I will build them upagain,' I replied, raising my hand to give solemnity to my vow; and asI spoke one of the seven swords fell from the heart of the lady.'Didst thou not rob the Suliotes of their children,' inquired theheavenly vision anew, 'in order to bring them up as Moslems?' 'I swearthat I will make them Christians again!' and at these words the secondsword fell out of her heart. 'Didst thou not carry off their maidensfor thine own harem?' 'I swear that I will give them back to theSuliotes!' and with that the third sword fell from her heart. 'Didstthou not gather together immense treasures from the heritage of widowsand orphans?' And, smiting the ground with my head, I answered: 'Allmy treasures shall be dedicated to thy service.' And thus she recordedmy mortal sins one by one, and thus I swore to make rigorousreparation for them with an irrefragable oath, and as many times as Iso swore a sword fell at my feet. Finally but one sword remained inher bleeding heart, and then she asked me, 'Hast thou not sought thedeath of that Suliote brother and sister who were the most faithfuldefenders of my altars? Hast thou not plunged them into thy dungeon,and is not their death already resolved upon in thy heart?' And,terrified, I laid my hand upon my heart, for verily that thought wasin it, and not without a fierce struggle, I stammered, 'Oh, heavenlyvision! these two young people are my mightiest enemies, and theyhave sworn to kill me; yet if thou dost command it I will lay my grayhead in their hands, and I will be in their power, not they in mine.'At these words the last sword also fell from her heart, and sheanswered, 'Ali Tepelenti, take these swords in thy hand, and do asthou hast said.' And with that she reascended into heaven, the cloudsclosed behind her, and I remained alone with the seven swords in myhand, on which seven vows were written. This vision I saw in the nightthat has just past; and now reflect upon my words."
The minds of the brother and sister were deeply agitated. The oldMoslem before them had spoken with such devotion, with such enthusiasmof his vision, that it was impossible to question its reality. Theemotion visible in his countenance, the tears in his eyes, the tremorin his voice, proved that he really felt what he said. While they werestanding there pondering over the old man's vision, he took them bythe hand and led them into his treasure-chamber, and showed them theheaps and heaps of gold and silver, the coins piled up in vats, andthe steel which had been melted into bars and stacked up there.
"My treasures are at your disposal--use them as you will." Then,selecting from amongst his choicest diamonds two stones, worth ahundred thousand sequins, he placed them in the hands of Kleon andArtemis, and said, "These I will send to the war-chest of theHetaeria!"
Why, what does Ali mean by mentioning this secret society, which hadalready undermined the whole Turkish Empire--just as he had underminedJanina? Perhaps he would fire these mines also! Of a truth the arm ofAli reached as far as Stambul! aye, and as far as Bucharest also.
And now he led the brother and sister into his armory, and there theysaw wh
ole chests full of firearms from the manufactories of the bestEnglish and French makers.
"You see, I could arm a whole realm with the weapons I have inJanina."
The brother and sister sighed; one and the same thought suddenlyoccurred to them both.
"Tepelenti," said the girl.
"Command me!"
"Thou hast done much harm to us, we also have done much harm to thee;let us act as if we now saw each other for the first time."
"I forgive you."
"I will forget that thou didst put to death my betrothed in this room,and thou forget that we killed thy grandson. Call to mind, moreover,that not only are we captives in this fortress, but thou art alsosurrounded by the hosts of thine enemies."
"I alone am a captive," said Ali, humbly. "I swear by Allah, as I havepromised the holy Virgin, that I will let you and all your companionsfree! What may happen to you after that I care not. Ali has not longto live now. But your days of combat are yet to be, and if ever thetime should come when your plans need the help of arms and treasures,remember that there is enough of both at Janina."
Artemis was constrained to believe in the sincerity of Ali's words.
And now the pasha, with his own hand, selected two beautiful Damascusblades from among his store of weapons, and bound them to the girdlesof the brother and sister. What a warmth of self-confidence came overthem when they felt once more that they had swords by their sides!
Then he led them down to their companions, who were assembled in thecourt-yard of the fortress, and informed them that they were free togo whither they would. And then he put wine and pilaf before thejubilant crowd of captives, and left them to eat and drink with hisown Arnauts; and, beneath the peace-making influence of the good wine,it was not very long before they fell to kissing one another andswearing eternal fellowship like brothers.
Then Ali produced his best long-range rifles, with bayonets attached,and distributed them amongst the captive Suliotes; he had not theleast fear now that they would turn these arms against him. Then hekissed the brother and sister on their foreheads, and, giving them hisblessing, let them through that secret tunnel which led into the town.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in Gaskho Bey's camp outside curious reports began tocirculate. A pair of captured Albanians, who had been surprisedamongst the ruins of the town when Ali retreated, began to make themost astounding revelations before their judges; amongst other thingsthey maintained that the Suliotes, in the camp of the bey, had asecret understanding with the Pasha of Janina--their former master.And, as a matter of fact, every one had observed that Ali had quittedthe field of battle rather than fire upon the Suliotes.
But the captives confessed still more. They said that Artemis andKleon had had secret meetings with Ali in the subterranean tunnel,and had surrendered to him voluntarily. It must have been so, arguedthose who had survived the last sally. Ali had made his assault fromthe tower at the head of the bridge, and yet the Suliotes there hadnot so much as fired a gun to signify his approach.
The captives also insisted that Ali was going to make another sally onthe following night against the besieging army, and then all theChristians in the camp of the bey would join him.
These reports, with still more terrible variations, began to extendthroughout the whole army, and here and there slight _melees_ eventook place between Christians and Moslems. The Osmanlis began tothreaten the foreign soldiers, and the latter began to everywhere formthemselves into independent little bands for mutual protection.
Gaskho Bey and Pehlivan Pasha hastily summoned a council of war atthis disquieting symptom, and it was there resolved that the Greeksshould be disarmed. For this purpose they assembled them together inthe midst of the camp, surrounded them with Turkish veterans, andthen, pointing the guns at them, summoned them to instantly lay downtheir arms or they should all be shot down like dogs.
The Suliotes and Albanians listened to this summons with terror. Theybeheld the bloodthirsty masses around them, and reflected how manytimes men had lost their lives by surrendering the very weaponswherewith they might have defended themselves, and, in theirhesitation, they chose out twelve youths from amongst their ranks togo to the general and ask the reason of this alarming demonstration.
Gaskho Bey was still in a towering passion, and the bold speech of theyoung men irritated him still further. He had them dragged into themidst of the camp, in front of the assembled battalions, and commandedthat their heads should be cut off, proclaiming at the same time thatany who dared to disobey this order should meet with the same fate.
The garments of the twelve young men were stripped from off them inthe presence of their comrades, and the usual head severing giantstood behind them, ready to force them down upon their knees anddecapitate them one by one. But he had not yet cut off a single headwhen a loud noise was heard coming from the direction of Janina; itwas the liberated sister and brother. Artemis and Kleon, at the headof their bands. They had beheld from the tower of Janina the dangerwhich threatened their comrades, and arrived just as the executionerswere preparing to carry out Gaskho Bey's commands.
The Suliotes scattered here and there looked at each other. Atremendous roar filled the air--a roar of grief and rage andterror--breaking forth into despair. Those from before, those frombehind, fell upon the ranks of the Moslems. In a moment Gaskho Bey'swhole camp was converted into a chaotic mob, where Albanians andSpahis. Suliotes and Timariotes, fought together without any fixedplan, and, in utter defiance of all military science, recognizingneither friend nor foe. In vain the standard-bearers raised theirbanners, in vain the officers of the Spahis roared themselves hoarse,and the Sorbadzhis and the gigantic Gaskho Bey himself did the same.The army was so completely disorganized that not even the victoriousenemy could make head or tail of it. Towards evening the Suliotes,under Kleon and Artemis, captured Lithanizza; while Gaskho Bey, in hisdespair, fled all the way to Durazzo. When he got there he discoveredthat of all his army only twelve ciauses remained with him. The wholehost had fled higgledy-piggledy along the first road it came across,leaving behind it all its artillery, baggage, and ammunition wagons.
But Ali Pasha, sweetly smiling, calmly looked on from the red tower ofJanina, while the enemy worried itself to death, and the besiegingthousands scattered in every direction without his having to waste asingle cannon-shot upon them.
But as I have already said. Ali was often so reduced as to possessnothing but his sword, and with this same sword he would wineverything back again.