THE LION IN THE FOX'S SKIN
Blow upon blow rain down upon thee, thou veteran warrior! Thine armies
go over to the enemy, thy friends leave thee desolate, thy sons betray
thee, they capture thy cities without unsheathing their swords, thine
allies turn their arms against thee, and with thine own artillery, of
the best French manufacture, the Suliotes from the walls of Janina
shoot down thine Albanian guards!
Ah, those Suliotes! How they can fight! If only now they would raise
their swords on thy behalf, how thine enemies would fall in rows! But
now it is thy soldiers that fall before _them_! A brother and a sister
lead them on--a youth and a girl; the youth's name is Kleon, the
girl's name is Artemis. Every time thou dost hear their names, it is
as if a sword were being plunged into thy heart, for the girl is she
whom thou wouldst have sacrificed to thy lust, and with whom thy wife
didst escape; and thou never dost hear that name without hearing at
the 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 of
them touches her. Before thy very eyes she plants the triumphant
banner on thy bastions, and thou hast not strength of mind enough left
to wish her to fall; nay, rather, when thou dost see her appear before
thee, 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 what
then? Why, then thou wilt stand before the Seraglio on a silver
pedestal!
* * * * *
One night there was a rolling of drums before the seven gates of
Janina, and a bomb flying down from the heights of Lithanizza exploded
in the market-place of the town. Up, up, ye Albanians! up, up, ye who
have any martial blood in your veins, the enemy has seized the guns on
the seven gates! Ali throws himself on his prancing steed, and in his
hand is the good battle-sword which has befriended him in so many a
danger. How many times has it not been the lot of Ali to lose
everything but this one sword, and then to win back everything by
means of it?
In a moment the army of the besieged stood in battle-array. Ali
contemplated the ranks of the enemy, and a smile passed across his
face. That worthy captain, Gaskho Bey, was leading his troops to the
shambles. In an hour's time Ali will so completely have annihilated
them that not even the rumor of them will remain behind. It will be a
battle-field worthy of the veteran general. Every one who sees it will
say--there is no escaping from him! Only let them advance, that is
all! And again he was disappointed. At the first shot, before a sword
had been drawn, his army surrendered to the enemy. If only they had
fired once, the victory would have been his; but no, the army laid
down its arms and the cunningly concealed gunners turned his own
artillery against him.
It was all over! Only seven hundred Albanian horsemen remained with
Ali, the rest either went over to the enemy or allowed themselves to
be taken.
The old lion waved his sword above his head, and turning to his
handful of heroes exclaimed, with a voice that rang out like a brazen
trumpet, "Will ye behold Ali die?"
And with that he galloped towards the market-place of Janina, the
faithful seven hundred following closely upon his heels.
The enemy poured into the town through every gate, but the
market-place cut off one part of the town from the others, and the
triumphant hordes came upon some very evil-looking trenches bristling
with _chevaux de frise_, and the long narrow streets were swept by
Ali'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 ten
thousand horsemen only seven hundred remained with him. The enemy had
twenty thousand men and two hundred guns, and yet all the skill of
Gaskho Bey was incapable of dislodging Ali from the market-place of
Janina, and although the enemy held one portion of the city, it was
unable to take the other portion. If only they could have come to
close 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 still
Ali did not budge from his place, and the wind blew the flames in the
face of Gaskho Bey, who began to look about him uncomfortably when the
two Suliote kinsfolk, Kleon and Artemis, at the head of their
squadrons, urged him to boldly assault the market-place.
Tepelenti saw the girl with her white banner, and as her troops filled
the broad space at the head of the square, he himself, at first, drew
near to her. Four cannons were pointed at the Suliotes, loaded with
chain-shot and broken glass. Ali looked towards them with a gloomy
countenance, then stuck his sword in its sheath, bade his gunners turn
the guns round, harness the horses to them, and take refuge in the
citadel. He would not let a single shot be fired at the Suliotes.
The moment Ali turned his back, the besieging host captured the field
of battle. They followed hard upon the heels of the retreating band
all the way, and when Ali reached the bridge, the Spahis and
Timariots, like two swarms of bees mingled together, gained the head
of the bridge at the same time, and swarmed after him with a shout of
triumph. The real struggle began on the bridge itself. Man to man they
fought at close quarters with their shorter weapons (they could use no
other), and clubs and dirks did bloody work in the throng which poured
from two different quarters, along and over the overcrowded bridge
like ants coming out of a slender reed. Six hundred of the Albanians
succeeded in escaping into the citadel, and then, at Ali's command,
the iron gates were clapped to, leaving the remaining hundred to
perish on the bridge, where the overwhelming crowd swallowed them up.
Each single Albanian fought against ten to twenty Timariots. The
bridge rang with the din of combat, and trembled beneath the weight of
the heavy crowd. Then suddenly the guns on both sides of the bastions
which were attached to the bridge began to roar, the supports of the
captured bridge collapsed, and the bridge itself, with its load of
fighting Turks and Albanians, plunged down into the deep trenches
below.
Down there were sharp-pointed stakes beneath the deep waters, and
those of the besiegers who remained on the bank were horrified to
perceive that not one of the fallen crowd reappeared on the surface of
the water, while the water itself gradually grew redder and redder,
till at last it was a bright crimson, painted by the blood of the
corpses 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 very
last point. And now ye _have_ come to the last point, and your
victories are worth nothing, for the last point is still to be won.
The fortress is unapproachable. The bastions are built in the middle
of the lake, and from their dark quadrangular cavities rows of guns
(each one of them a sixty-pounder) sweep the surface of the water, so
that it is impossible to draw near in boats. On the land side one
hundred cannons defend the bastions, and who can surmount the triple
ditch?
Ye will never capture Ali there. He has sufficient muniments of war
to last him for an indefinite period, and to show them how determined
he was, he caused the solitary gate of the fortress to be filled with
masonry and walled up. So the fortress has no longer a gate. Even
desertion is now an impossibility.
There he will remain, then, walled up as in a tomb, buried alive! The
only roads from thence lead to heaven or hell; the exit from the land
side is guarded by the Suliotes; even if he could fly he could not
escape from them.
The campaign is ended. The victorious Gaskho Bey proclaims himself
Pasha of Janina. The whole of Epirus does homage to him, and deserts
the fallen Vizier. In Stambul thanksgivings are offered up in the Ejub
mosque and the church of St. Sophia for the accomplished victory,
which is proclaimed, amidst the roaring of the cannons, by heralds in
the great market-place; and all the newspapers of Europe amazedly
report that the mighty and terrible adventurer, the ever-victorious
veteran of seventy-nine, the party-leader who grew to such a height
that it was doubtful whether he or the Sultan were the real ruler of
Turkey, the man who had been the ally of the great Napoleon, who a few
months before had sent as a present to England a precious
dinner-service of pure gold worth 30,000 thaler, who had heaped up
more treasures than any Eastern nabob--is suddenly crushed,
annihilated, shut up in a fortress! It now only remains for him to
die.
And not very long afterwards he did die. One night a couple of bold
Albanian horsemen descended the bastions by means of a long rope, and,
crossing the lake of Acheruz on a pine log, sought out Gaskho Bey in
his camp that very night.
Ali Tepelenti was dead. They were the first to bear the joyful tidings
to the bey. He died in his grief, in his wretchedness. Perhaps also he
had taken poison. On the morrow, at three o'clock, they had arranged
to bury him in the fortress! Before his death he had called together
his lieutenants, and taken an oath of them that they would defend the
fortress to the very last gasp of the very last man. His treasures
were 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 treasure
to them if they could not get out of this eyrie? They would not
surrender themselves, for Ali had made them swear by every Turkish
saint that they would defend the fortress to the death. But the rank
and file were of a different opinion; they would joyfully retire from
the fortress if they were assured of a free forgiveness. Gaskho Bey
had only to stretch out his hand and the fortress of Janina, the
impregnable fortress with its two hundred cannons and its enormous
mass of treasure, would be his.
Early in the morning the gray moonless flag, the sign of death, was
waving on the red tower of Janina, and the guns overlooking the water
fired three and thirty volleys, whose echo proclaimed among the
mountains that Ali Tepelenti was dead. Within the fortress sounded the
roll of the muffled drums, and it was also possible to distinguish the
dirges 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 from
whose balcony they could look down into the court-yard, and the
splendid telescopes, which the sultan had got from Vienna, rendered
powerful assistance to the onlookers, who through them could observe
the smallest details of what was going on in the court-yard of the
fortress; one telescope in particular brought the objects so near that
one could read the initial letters of the verses of the Kuran which
the imams held in their hands.
In the midst of a simple coffin lay Ali Pasha. It was really he; of
that there could be no doubt. Let every one look for himself! There he
lay--dead, cold, motionless. His lieutenants and his servants stood
around him weeping. Those who walked along by his side stooped down to
kiss his hands.
In the town outside the Suliotes knew of Ali's death, and by way of
compliment they fired a bomb into the citadel. But the match of the
bomb was too short, and it exploded in the air.
From the observatory they could see very well the fright of the crowd
assembled in the court-yard at the whizzing of the bomb over their
heads, and how every one looked anxiously at the little round white
cloud there; only he who lay dead in the midst of them remained cold
and tranquil. He will never again be disturbed by the roar of an
exploding bomb.
The imams raised him on their shoulders, and, amidst the melancholy
dirges of the mourners and the muffled roll of the drums, they carried
him away to his open tomb, for his grave was already dug.
The Moslems do not put their dead in a closed coffin; they only half
board the tomb up in order that the angels of death may have room to
place the corpse in a sitting posture when they come to take an
account of his actions.
They really did lower Ali Tepelenti into his tomb.
The garrison fired a triple salute, the imams thrice sang their sacred
verses, and then came the gravediggers and cast the earth upon the
corpse. A large marble slab was standing there, and with it they
pressed down the earth on the tomb, at the same time placing two
turbaned 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 of
Lithanizza 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 withdraw
his eye from that tomb. At night, when the moon goes down, a rocket is
to be fired every five minutes, that the watchers may see the tomb and
never leave it out of sight, and report upon it every hour."
What? Is Gaskho Bey actually afraid that old Ali, a veteran of
seventy-nine, will be able to arise from his tomb and hurl away that
heavy marble slab with his dead hands? There are men of whom it is
impossible to believe that they are dead, and whom people are afraid
of even when they are buried.
Every hour till late in the evening they reported to Gaskho Bey that
the tomb remained unchanged, and all the night through not a soul
approached 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 had
laid down his drum close beside him, with the drumsticks leaning over
it, when he suddenly perceived the two drumsticks begin to move of
their own accord over the tightly drawn skin of the drums as if some
invisible hand wished to beat a tattoo. The drummer cried out at this
marvel, and fancied that a _dzhin_ was in the drum.
Gaskho Bey would not believe it till he had himself gone to the
barracks and seen with his own eyes how the two drumsticks vibrated
with sufficient force to tap the drum pretty loudly, moving in a
spiral line backward and forward across it, tap-tap-tapping as they
went.
"It is very marvellous!" cried the bey; and he immediately summoned
the imams to drive the _dzhin_ out of the drum.
The imams set to work at once. They fetched their fumigators and their
sacred books, and they fumigated the drum with nose-offending odors
and recited over it drum-expelling exorcisms in a shrill voice. And
certainly if the devil was in that drum, and had anything of a nose or
ears, 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-tapping
began again.
The imams went on howling, and horribly they howled.
The chief of the observatory was present during this scene. As a
French renegade he was a man of some education, and therefore he did
not accept the theory of the _dzhins_. When he perceived that the
imams were not successful in expelling the evil spirits, he called
Gaskho Bey aside and whispered in his ear:
"I know nothing about your _dzhins_, and don't understand what you are
driving at with all this noise and stench, but I can tell you that
this beating of the drum is a sign that invisible hands are at work
here."
"What?"
"It means that we ought to get away from here, for they are digging
mines beneath us, and that is why the ground trembles and the
drumsticks vibrate."
Gaskho Bey began smiling. He had as little idea of sapping and mining
as the French renegade had of Turkish monsters.
"How superstitious thou art, my brave moosir!" said he, shrugging his
shoulders and looking down upon the Frenchman.
The latter, however, did not remain there much longer, but hastened as
quickly as he could to the summit of the Lithanizza.
After about an hour and a half's more hubbub the imams succeeded in
expelling the _dzhin_. The drum grew quiet, the excitement subsided,
and the soldiers were instructed to lay two swords crosswise in front
of the gate, so that the spirit might not be able to come back any
more; and with that termination of the affair every one was satisfied.
* * * * *
Opposite the gate of the fortress of Janina, at the head of the
collapsed bridge, stood a stone building, fenced about with redoubts
and palisades, which had now fallen into the hands of the Suliotes.
This building had been chosen by the two Greek kinsfolk for their
dwelling-place. They wanted to get as close to Ali as possible; they
would not suffer him to escape even in the shape of a bird or a
spirit; their large siege-guns were pointed at the walled-up gate. Let
him surrender or find his tomb in the fortress.
And lo! he _had_ found his tomb without consulting them about it. In
vain they had sharpened their weapons against him--the sword of Death
is quicker and cuts down sooner. They had not been able to reach him
on the field of battle; they had not been able to plunge their
avenging swords into his heart; they had not been able to bring his
gray head to the block; it had been reserved for him to pass quietly
away--to die in his bed, untroubled, unmolested, to die the death of
the righteous.
Kleon and Artemis were sitting sullenly in a room of the fort by the
light of a flickering candle. The girl had absently divested herself
of 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 as
the face of a statue.
"So he is dead, then--dead!"
This phrase she repeated to herself again and again. She seemed unable
to get away from it.
"Ali has died, and not by my hand."
Kleon was strikingly like his sister; indeed, his young face scarcely
differed at all from hers, but in his eyes quite another sort of flame
sparkled. 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, would
that I might follow him thither also, that I might tear his gray
beard, which he has bathed in my kinsman's blood!"
"Behold! here is my gray beard!" cried a voice at that instant from
the other end of the room, and the brother and sister beheld Ali
Tepelenti standing before them.
The terror-stricken young people involuntarily crossed themselves.
Horror nailed them to the ground and petrified all their limbs, when
they saw what they imagined to be a spectre standing there before them
in the self-same gray robe in which he had been buried two days
before.
"Behold, here I am, Ali Tepelenti!"
With that the spectre clapped his hands, and from every corner of the
room rushed forth Albanians armed to the teeth, and before the brother
and sister could approach their weapons, they were overpowered and
tied together.
It was really Ali Tepelenti who stood before them.
They had put him away underground, it is true, but underground there
were paths and passages only too well known to him. The whole
spectacle of the interment had been arranged by himself, and there was
an exit from the bottom of his tomb into subterranean corridors. When
the general joy and satisfaction at the victory was at its height, he
was abroad and at work.
A strongly built subterranean trench had been constructed below the
ditches encircling the redoubts, and its ramifications extended to the
fort at the head of the bridge. Ali had so completely surprised the
garrison that they had not been able to fire a shot; the Suliotes had
been surprised and disarmed while in their dreams.
Up, up, Gaskho Bey! Arise, Muhammad Aga! To horse, ye captains! Seize
thy sword, Pehliván Pasha! Danger is at hand! This is a bad night for
sleeping!
* * * * *
Suddenly a frightful explosion shook the ground, just as if the earth
was being wrenched from its hinges, and amidst a flame brighter than
the light of day, which seemed to leap up to the very stars, huge
round cannons were seen flying. The gunners in the barracks were also
pitched into the air. The minarets tottered and fell before the
terrific shock, every building round about crumbled into ruins. In a
moment one-half of the town was reduced to a rubbish-heap, and the
next moment a hail of burning beams and lacerated human limbs fell
back 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 war
anew.
Gaskho Bey, his gigantic body half undressed (he had just leaped out
of bed), rushed to the end of the street, and was so confused that he
asked all whom he met where he was. The suddenly aroused soldiers,
half mad with terror, rushed hither and thither in confusion, crying
out, one for his horse, another for his weapons. And above their
heads, more terrible than heaven's thunder-bolts, resounded the dread
cry, "Ali, Ali!" There comes the entombed pasha on a white horse, with
his white beard; who will dare to look him in the face? The
panic-stricken throng falls in thousands beneath the swords of the
Albanians, blood flows in streams in the streets of Janina, and Ali
Pasha, the dead man, the buried captain, fills the hearts of their
warriors with the fear of death. There is none who can stand against
him.
Only Pehliván, the stalwart hero, was able to prevent the vast
besieging army from being scattered altogether by a handful of
Arnauts. He rallied the fugitives outside the town, and, while Ali's
men-at-arms were murdering every one inside, he quickly seized all the
gates, advanced in battle-array, and stayed the triumph of the veteran
captain.
And enough had surely been done.
Three thousand of the besiegers lay dead, the guns were spiked or
overthrown, and the leaders of the Suliote band were prisoners--and
all this the result of Ali's nocturnal rally! It was time for him to
return.
Pehliván thus recaptured the town and marshalled his men in the
market-place, without pursuing Ali any further. But he had reckoned
without Gaskho Bey, who now came rushing up and furiously accosted
him:
"Why hast thou not pursued him right into the citadel?"
"It would not do to press Ali too closely," replied the practised
general; "let him fly, if fly he will."
At this, Gaskho Bey, foaming with rage, tore the sword out of
Pehliván's hand (where he had left his own sword he could not have
said for the life of him), and, placing himself at the head of a band
of Spahis, began to pursue the retreating foe.
Ali was proceeding quite leisurely towards the fortress, as if he did
not trouble himself about his pursuers, although they were six times
as numerous as his forces.
When Gaskho Bey had got within ear-shot, Tepelenti shouted back to
him:
"Thou hast come to a bad place, brave Bey. This ground is mine, and
what is beneath it is mine also, dost thou not know that yet?"
Gaskho Bey naturally did not understand a word of this till, at a
gesture from Ali, a rocket flew up into the air, at which signal those
inside the fortress suddenly exploded all the mines which had been dug
under all the streets of the town. Tepelenti had prepared these during
his fortunate days by piercing water conduits and making subterranean
vaults 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 the
street, and the destroying flame tossed the pursuing squadrons into
the air one after the other, he amused himself by contemplating the
ruin from the top of the fort, and was the last who disappeared in the
hidden tunnel. For a long time those in the fortress could hear the
agonized cries of the vanquished. One-third of the besieging army had
been destroyed in a single night. The rest quitted the accursed town,
which seemed to have been built over hell itself, and took up a
position in the fields outside and on the heights of Lithanizza.
The rising sun revealed a horrible spectacle. The town of Janina no
longer existed, the beautiful tall houses, the cupolaed mosques, the
slender white minarets, the imposing barracks--where were they?
Instead of them, all that could be seen was a shapeless mass of
piled-up ruins; here and there, on a dark background, scorched by
flickering flames, a huddle-muddle of broken rafters, mangled corpses,
charred black or gaping hideously open, lay scattered about amongst
the rubbish, and from the mouth of a conduit at the side of the
bastion 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 two
Suliote kinsfolk, Artemis and Kleon. They slept in each other's
embrace, 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. And
yet they knew not when they fell asleep whether they would ever awake
again.
Ali did not arouse the slumberers. Thrice he sent to see if they had
awakened, but he would not have them disturbed. At last the hand of
the youth made his chain clank, and both of them opened their eyes at
the sound.
"I was on my way to Akro-Corinth," said he, rubbing his large dreamy
eyes with his hands, "and I saw them rebuilding the Parthenon."
"I stood at Thermopylæ," said the girl, "and the enemy fell before me
by thousands."
"And now we shall go to the block," sighed Kleon, listening as the
iron doors of his dungeon slowly opened.
"Be strong!" whispered the girl, pressing the hand of her brother
which 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; all
the furniture was shrouded with cinder-colored cloth; there was
nothing 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 with
emotion, "don't look into each other's eyes, but look at me!"
At this unusual tone, at these kindly words, the brother and sister
did look at him, and perceived that the old man was looking at them
sadly, doubtfully, and that his eyes were full of tears.
Ali beckoned to the eunuchs, and they freed the brother and sister
from 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, and
his face lit up with a flush of joy.
"Why dost thou rejoice?" cried Artemis, casting a severe look upon
him; "dost thou not perceive that the monster is mocking us? He only
wants to excite joy within us that he may kindle our hopes, and then
make 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, we
understand one another. I have sinned grievously against you, but ye
have revenged yourself upon me. I burned your villages, ye, in return,
have destroyed my fortresses. I have pillaged your lands, and ye have
taken my possessions from me. I have slain your bridegroom and
snatched thee from thy parent's house; thou hast cut off the head of
my favorite grandson, and ravished from me my favorite wife. Now we
are quits, and owe each other nothing. Go in peace!"
There was so much sincerity, so much repentant, contrite grief in the
words of Ali, that the watchful maid began to regard him with curious
sympathy.
"Thou art amazed at my change of countenance," said Ali, observing the
impression his words had produced on Artemis. "Thou hast not seen me
like 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, and
begs thy forgiveness, kissing the hem of thy garment."
And, indeed, Ali fell down on his knees before Artemis, in order that
he 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 and
raised him up.
She was a woman, after all, and could not bear to see any one weeping
before her.
"Listen now to what I say," continued the pasha, "and do not fancy
that Ali has gone mad. This night I saw a vision. A beauteous and
radiantly majestic maiden descended at my threshold from the midst of
the bright, open heavens, surrounded by a company of winged children's
heads. The maiden looked at me so gently, so kindly. A divine light
shone from her countenance, and, on the earth beneath, all the flowers
turned their faces towards her as if she were the sun. In the arms of
this 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 of
this child was a wreath of stars, and the smile upon his face was
salvation itself. And when I raised my trembling hands towards her,
the heavenly lady and the child extended their arms towards me, and
from 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 and
stammered, 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 bright
apparition, and now she addressed me once more in a dolorous voice,
which pierced my very heart, 'Ali Tepelenti, behold me!' And when I
raised my face, lo! I beheld seven swords pointing towards the heart
of the heavenly maid, and I felt my hand grow numb with fright. 'Ali
Tepelenti,' 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 know
thee?' And she replied, 'He who persecutes mine, persecutes me, and
who robs my temples, robs me; didst thou not pull down the churches of
Tepelen, Turezzo, and Tripolizza?' 'I swear that I will build them up
again,' I replied, raising my hand to give solemnity to my vow; and as
I spoke one of the seven swords fell from the heart of the lady.
'Didst thou not rob the Suliotes of their children,' inquired the
heavenly vision anew, 'in order to bring them up as Moslems?' 'I swear
that I will make them Christians again!' and at these words the second
sword fell out of her heart. 'Didst thou not carry off their maidens
for thine own harem?' 'I swear that I will give them back to the
Suliotes!' and with that the third sword fell from her heart. 'Didst
thou not gather together immense treasures from the heritage of widows
and orphans?' And, smiting the ground with my head, I answered: 'All
my treasures shall be dedicated to thy service.' And thus she recorded
my mortal sins one by one, and thus I swore to make rigorous
reparation for them with an irrefragable oath, and as many times as I
so swore a sword fell at my feet. Finally but one sword remained in
her bleeding heart, and then she asked me, 'Hast thou not sought the
death of that Suliote brother and sister who were the most faithful
defenders 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 was
in it, and not without a fierce struggle, I stammered, 'Oh, heavenly
vision! these two young people are my mightiest enemies, and they
have sworn to kill me; yet if thou dost command it I will lay my gray
head 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 she
answered, 'Ali Tepelenti, take these swords in thy hand, and do as
thou hast said.' And with that she reascended into heaven, the clouds
closed behind her, and I remained alone with the seven swords in my
hand, on which seven vows were written. This vision I saw in the night
that has just past; and now reflect upon my words."
The minds of the brother and sister were deeply agitated. The old
Moslem before them had spoken with such devotion, with such enthusiasm
of his vision, that it was impossible to question its reality. The
emotion visible in his countenance, the tears in his eyes, the tremor
in his voice, proved that he really felt what he said. While they were
standing there pondering over the old man's vision, he took them by
the hand and led them into his treasure-chamber, and showed them the
heaps and heaps of gold and silver, the coins piled up in vats, and
the 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 a
hundred thousand sequins, he placed them in the hands of Kleon and
Artemis, and said, "These I will send to the war-chest of the
Hetæria!"
Why, what does Ali mean by mentioning this secret society, which had
already undermined the whole Turkish Empire--just as he had undermined
Janina? Perhaps he would fire these mines also! Of a truth the arm of
Ali 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 they
saw whole chests full of firearms from the manufactories of the best
English and French makers.
"You see, I could arm a whole realm with the weapons I have in
Janina."
The brother and sister sighed; one and the same thought suddenly
occurred 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 also
surrounded by the hosts of thine enemies."
"I alone am a captive," said Ali, humbly. "I swear by Allah, as I have
promised the holy Virgin, that I will let you and all your companions
free! What may happen to you after that I care not. Ali has not long
to live now. But your days of combat are yet to be, and if ever the
time 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 Damascus
blades from among his store of weapons, and bound them to the girdles
of the brother and sister. What a warmth of self-confidence came over
them when they felt once more that they had swords by their sides!
Then he led them down to their companions, who were assembled in the
court-yard of the fortress, and informed them that they were free to
go whither they would. And then he put wine and pilaf before the
jubilant crowd of captives, and left them to eat and drink with his
own Arnauts; and, beneath the peace-making influence of the good wine,
it was not very long before they fell to kissing one another and
swearing 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 the
least fear now that they would turn these arms against him. Then he
kissed the brother and sister on their foreheads, and, giving them his
blessing, let them through that secret tunnel which led into the town.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, in Gaskho Bey's camp outside curious reports began to
circulate. A pair of captured Albanians, who had been surprised
amongst the ruins of the town when Ali retreated, began to make the
most astounding revelations before their judges; amongst other things
they maintained that the Suliotes, in the camp of the bey, had a
secret understanding with the Pasha of Janina--their former master.
And, as a matter of fact, every one had observed that Ali had quitted
the field of battle rather than fire upon the Suliotes.
But the captives confessed still more. They said that Artemis and
Kleon had had secret meetings with Ali in the subterranean tunnel,
and had surrendered to him voluntarily. It must have been so, argued
those who had survived the last sally. Ali had made his assault from
the tower at the head of the bridge, and yet the Suliotes there had
not so much as fired a gun to signify his approach.
The captives also insisted that Ali was going to make another sally on
the following night against the besieging army, and then all the
Christians in the camp of the bey would join him.
These reports, with still more terrible variations, began to extend
throughout the whole army, and here and there slight _mêlées_ even
took place between Christians and Moslems. The Osmanlis began to
threaten the foreign soldiers, and the latter began to everywhere form
themselves into independent little bands for mutual protection.
Gaskho Bey and Pehliván Pasha hastily summoned a council of war at
this disquieting symptom, and it was there resolved that the Greeks
should be disarmed. For this purpose they assembled them together in
the midst of the camp, surrounded them with Turkish veterans, and
then, pointing the guns at them, summoned them to instantly lay down
their arms or they should all be shot down like dogs.
The Suliotes and Albanians listened to this summons with terror. They
beheld the bloodthirsty masses around them, and reflected how many
times men had lost their lives by surrendering the very weapons
wherewith they might have defended themselves, and, in their
hesitation, they chose out twelve youths from amongst their ranks to
go to the general and ask the reason of this alarming demonstration.
Gaskho Bey was still in a towering passion, and the bold speech of the
young men irritated him still further. He had them dragged into the
midst of the camp, in front of the assembled battalions, and commanded
that their heads should be cut off, proclaiming at the same time that
any who dared to disobey this order should meet with the same fate.
The garments of the twelve young men were stripped from off them in
the presence of their comrades, and the usual head severing giant
stood behind them, ready to force them down upon their knees and
decapitate them one by one. But he had not yet cut off a single head
when a loud noise was heard coming from the direction of Janina; it
was the liberated sister and brother. Artemis and Kleon, at the head
of their bands. They had beheld from the tower of Janina the danger
which threatened their comrades, and arrived just as the executioners
were preparing to carry out Gaskho Bey's commands.
The Suliotes scattered here and there looked at each other. A
tremendous roar filled the air--a roar of grief and rage and
terror--breaking forth into despair. Those from before, those from
behind, fell upon the ranks of the Moslems. In a moment Gaskho Bey's
whole camp was converted into a chaotic mob, where Albanians and
Spahis. Suliotes and Timariotes, fought together without any fixed
plan, and, in utter defiance of all military science, recognizing
neither friend nor foe. In vain the standard-bearers raised their
banners, 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 victorious
enemy could make head or tail of it. Towards evening the Suliotes,
under Kleon and Artemis, captured Lithanizza; while Gaskho Bey, in his
despair, fled all the way to Durazzo. When he got there he discovered
that of all his army only twelve ciauses remained with him. The whole
host 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 of
Janina, while the enemy worried itself to death, and the besieging
thousands scattered in every direction without his having to waste a
single cannon-shot upon them.
But as I have already said. Ali was often so reduced as to possess
nothing but his sword, and with this same sword he would win
everything back again.