EMINAH
The vanquished lion was shut up within a space six yards square; a
narrow tower into all four windows of which his enemies were peeping
was now his sole possession! There he sits in that octagonal chamber,
in which he had passed so many memorable moments. Perhaps now, as he
leaned his heavy head upon his hand, the remembrance of those moments
passed before his mind's eye like a procession of melancholy shadows.
Around him lay his treasures in shining piles; heaps of gold and
silver, massive gold plate, the spoils of sanctuaries, sparkling gems,
lay scattered about the floor higgledy-piggledy, like so much sand or
gravel.
Of all his kinsfolk, of all his warriors, not one was present with
him; all had fallen on the battle-field, fighting either with him or
against him. Of the seventy warriors who had taken refuge with him in
the tower, sixty-four had deserted him. Kurshid had promised a pardon
to the renegades, and only six remained with Ali. Why did these six
remain? Ali had not told them not to leave him.
These faithful ones were keeping guard in his antechamber, and for
some little time they had been whispering together.
At last they went in to Ali.
Tepelenti looked them every one through and through. He could read
what they wanted in their confused looks and their unsteady eyes. He
did not wait for them to speak, but said, with a wave of his hand:
"Go! leave me; you are the last. Go where the others have gone; save
yourselves. Life is sweet; live long and happily. I will remain here.
Tepelenti can die alone."
Sighing deeply, the soldiers turned away. They durst not raise their
eyes to the face of the gray-haired veteran. Noiselessly, without a
word, on the tips of their toes, five of them withdrew. But the sixth
remained there still, and, after casting about for a word for some
time, said, at last, to Ali:
"Oh, sir, cast the fulness of pride from thy heart, suffer not thy
name to perish! The Sultan is merciful; bow thy head before him and he
will still be gracious to thee!"
The soldier had scarce uttered the last word of this recommendation
when Ali softly drew a pistol from his girdle and shot him through the
head, so that he spun round and fell backward across the threshold.
This was all the reward he got for advising Ali to ask for mercy.
And now Ali is alone. His doors, his gates stand wide open; anybody
who so pleases can go in and out. Why, then, does nobody come to seize
the solitary veteran? why do they fear to cross the threshold of the
vanquished foe?
But hearken! fresh footsteps are resounding on the staircase, and
through the open door, guarded by the corpse of the last soldier whom
Ali slew, a strange man entered, dressed in an unusual, new-fangled
uniform; he was Kurshid Pasha's silihdar.
Tepelenti allowed him to approach within five paces of where he sat,
and then beckoned him to stop.
"Speak; what dost thou want?"
"Ali Tepelenti," said the silihdar, "surrender. Thou hast nothing left
in the world and nobody to aid thee. My master, the seraskier, Kurshid
Pasha, hath sent me to thee that I might receive thy sword and escort
thee to his camp."
Tepelenti, with the utmost _sang-froid_, drew forth from the folds of
his caftan a magnificent gold watch in an enamelled case set with
diamonds.
"Hearken!" said he, in a low, soft voice. "It is now twenty minutes
past ten; take this watch and keep it as a souvenir of me. Greet
Kurshid Pasha from me, and point out to him that it was twenty minutes
past ten when you spoke with me, and let him take notice that if after
twenty minutes past eleven I can see from the windows of this tower a
single hostile soldier in the court-yard of the fortress, then--I
swear it by the mercies of Allah!--I will blow the fortress into the
air, with every living soul within it. Inform Kurshid Pasha of this
when you give him my salutation."
The silihdar hastened off, and at a quarter to eleven not a soul was
to be seen in the court-yard of the fortress of Janina. Alive in his
citadel sits Ali Tepelenti, the tyrant of Epirus, mighty even in his
fall, who has nothing and nobody left, save only his indomitable
heart.
Night descended upon the fortress of Janina, but sleep did not descend
upon the eyes of Ali.
He sat in that red tower where he had perpetrated his crimes, in that
chamber where his victims had breathed forth the last sighs of their
tortured lives, and all round about glittering treasures looked upon
Ali as if with eyes of fire--all of it the price of robbery, fraud,
treason. What if these things could speak?
Everything was silent, night lay black before the eyes of men, only
Ali saw shadows moving about therein, phantoms with pale, phantoms
with bloody faces, who rose from the tomb to visit their persecutor
and announce to him the hour of his death.
Ali trembled not before them; he had seen them at other times also. He
had slept face to face with the severed head that spoke to him, he had
listened to the enigmatical words of the _dzhin_ of Seleucia, and he
called them to mind again now. Calmly he looked back upon the current
of his past life, from which so many horrible shapes arose and glared
at him with cold, stony eyes. He recked them not, Allah had so ordered
it. The hare nibbles the root, the vulture devours the hare, the
hunter shoots the vulture, the lion fells the hunter, and the worm
eats the lion. What, after all, is Ali? Naught but a greater worm than
the rest. He has devoured much, and now a stronger than he devours
him, and a still greater worm will devour this stronger one also.
Everything was fulfilled which had been prophesied concerning him. His
own sons, his own wife, his own arms had fought against him. If only
his wife had not done this he could have borne the rest.
"One, two," the decapitated head had said, and the last moments of
the two years were just passing away. "The hand which wipes out the
deeds of the mighty shall at last blot out thy deeds also, and thou
shalt be not a hero whom the world admires, but a slave whom it
curses. Those whom thou didst love will bless the hour of thy death,
and thy enemies will weep, and God will order it so to avert the ruin
of thy nation."
So it is, so it has chanced; the hazard of the die has gone against
him, and he has nothing left.
If only his wife had not betrayed him!
At other times also Ali had seen these phantoms of the night arise. He
had seen them rise from the tomb pale and bloody; but in his heart
there had always been a sweet refuge, the charming young damsel whose
childlike face and angelic eyes had robbed the evil sorcery of all its
power. When Tepelenti covered his gray head with her long, thick,
flowing locks, he reposed behind them as in the shade of Paradise,
whither those heart-tormenting memories could not pursue him. Why
should he have lost her? She was the first of all, and the dearest;
but Fate at the last would not even leave him her.
Even now his thoughts went back to her. The pale light of that face,
that memory, lightened his solitary, darkened soul, which was as
desolate as the night outside.
But lo! it is as if the night grew brighter; a sort of errant light
glides along the walls and a gleam of sunshine breaks unexpectedly
through the open door of the room.
The pasha looked in that direction with amazement. Who could his
visitor be at that hour? Who is coming to drive the phantoms of
darkness from his room and from his heart?
A pale female form, with a smile upon her face and tears in her eyes,
appears before him. She comes right up to the spot where Tepelenti is
sitting on the ground. She places her torch in an iron sconce in the
wall and stands there before the pasha.
Ali looked at her sadly. He fancied that this also was only a dream
shape, only one of those apparitions created by a fevered mind, like
those which walked beside him headless and bloody. It was Eminah, at
whose word the devastating tempest had been unchained against the
mightiest of despots.
Tepelenti believed neither his eyes nor his heart when he saw her thus
before him. The damsel took the old man by the hand and called him by
his name, and even now the pasha believed that the warmth of that hand
and the sweetness of that voice were only part of a dream.
"Wherefore hast thou come?" he inquired in a whisper, or perchance he
did not ask but only dreamed that he asked.
Yet the gracious, childlike damsel was sitting there at his feet as at
other times, and she had pillowed his gray head upon her breast and
covered his face with the tent of her long tresses, as she had done
long, long ago in the happy times that were gone.
Oh, how sweet it would be to still live!
"Oh, Ali Tepelenti, let go the hand of Death from thy hand and grasp
my hand instead! See how warm it is! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, rise up from
among these barrels of gunpowder, and rather lay thy head upon my
breast; hearken how it beats! Oh, Ali Tepelenti, ask mercy from the
Sultan! See, now how lovely life is!"
Only at these words did Ali recover himself. His enemies had sought
out this woman, the only being that he loved, and sent her to him to
soothe away the rage of his soul and soften his heart with her
caresses. Oh, how well they understood his heart!
"Kurshid Pasha swore to me that he would obtain the Sultan's favor for
thee," said Eminah, in a tone of conviction. "He wrote a letter under
his seal that thou shouldst never die beneath the hands of the
executioner; that thy death should not be a violent one, unless it
were in an honorable duel or on the field of battle. Behold, here is
the letter!"
If at that moment Ali had listened to his heart, he must have extended
the hand of submission without any letter of amnesty, but, like an
escutcheon above a crown, pride was perched higher than his heart and
spurned the offer.
"Allah may humble Ali, but Ali will never humble himself."
"Then thou wilt not live with me?" asked Eminah, fixing her piteously
entreating eyes upon her husband.
Ali shook his head in silence.
"Then I will die with thee!" cried the damsel, with a determined
voice.
The pasha regarded her in amazement.
"I swear," cried Eminah, "that I will either go back with thee or die
with thee here! Dost thou hear that noise? They are slamming to the
iron gates from the outside. At this moment every exit is closed, so
that even if I wished to escape from hence I could not. These doors
can only open at a word from Ali, and they will only open once more.
Either thou wilt go with me from hence or I will remain here with
thee."
Ali pressed the damsel to his bosom. She lay clinging there like a
tender blossom. He pressed his lips to that pale brow, and covering
her gently and gradually with his silken caftan, he whispered in a
scarcely audible voice:
"Be it so! be it so! Here we will die together!"
Early next morning a flourish of trumpets awoke the Lord of Janina,
the Lord of the last tower of Janina. The herald of Kurshid Pasha was
standing beneath the round windows, and delivered in a loud voice the
general's message to Ali Pasha, whereby he summoned Tepelenti to
surrender voluntarily on the strength of the solemn assurance
confirmed by oath to his wife.
Tepelenti appeared at the window with Eminah reclining on his bosom.
"Go back to your master," he cried to the messenger, "and tell him
that Ali and his wife have resolved to die here together. The moment
an armed host enters the court-yard of this fortress I will
immediately blow up the tower."
In half an hour the messenger returned and again summoned Ali to the
window.
"Kurshid Pasha sends thee this message," cried he. "If thou dost
surrender, it is well, and if thou dost not surrender, it is well
also. Thou hast still half an hour wherein thou mayest choose betwixt
life and death. After that thou mayest, if thou wilt, throw thy torch
into thy powder barrels and blow the fortress into the air. As to
thyself, Kurshid Pasha troubles himself but little. As to thy
treasures they will not remain in the air, and when they come to the
ground it will be easy to pick them up. If, however, thou dost delay
thy resolution beyond the half-hour, then Kurshid Pasha himself will
help thee in the matter, and will blow up thy tower for thee, to save
thee the trouble of blowing it up thyself. Do as thou wilt, then, and
hoist either the white or the red flag as seemeth best to thee, for in
half an hour the fortress of Janina shall see thee no more."
Ali listened solemnly to this ultimatum, and let the messenger depart
without an answer.
Eminah lay down on a sofa in a corner, all trembling. Ali paced the
vast chamber to and fro with long strides; but his strides became more
and more uncertain. If only this woman were not here! If only he might
be spared seeing her before him; might be spared half an hour's
deliberation as to what he was to do! Nevertheless minute after minute
sped away, and still Tepelenti could not make up his mind. Twice his
hand seized the burning torch; he had but to bend over the nearest
barrel of powder and all would be over; but on each occasion his eye
fell upon the trembling woman who lay there looking at him without a
word, and the death-bearing match fell from his hand. No, no; he was
incapable of doing the terrible deed. And now the hour struck; the
time had passed. Ali felt a pressure about his heart. Would Kurshid
accomplish his dreadful threat?
At that instant a report sounded outside the fortress, and half a
moment later a red-hot steel bullet burst through the metal roof and
the massive vault of the tower with a violent crash. Falling heavily
on the marble floor, it rebounded thence, and, passing between the
powder-barrels, describing a wide semicircle as it went, ricocheted
once more and struck the wall opposite, in which it bored a deep hole,
whence it flashed and gleamed with a strong red glare, forcing blue
sparks from the nitrous humidity of the walls.
Ali was now convinced that the enemy was quite capable of keeping his
promise.
The scared woman, mad with terror, flung herself at his feet, and
snatching the white veil from her head, forced it into the pasha's
hand.
Tepelenti hastily seized the veil, and, hanging it on the point of a
lance, hoisted it out of the round window.
Outside the besiegers set up a shout of triumph. Eminah, kissing Ali's
hands, sank down at his feet. Tepelenti had given her more than
manhood can bear to give: for her sake he had humbled his pride to the
dust. If only he could have died as he had lived!
"Go, now," he said to the woman, with a sigh; "go and tell my enemies
that they may come for me. I am theirs!"