ned to place themselves under Kursheed's
standard, and enormous forces now threatened Janina. All Epirus awaited
the denoument with anxiety.

Had he been less avaricious, Ali might have enlisted all the adventurers
with whom the East was swarming, and made the sultan tremble in his
capital. But the aged pacha clung passionately to his treasures. He
feared also, perhaps not unreasonably, that those by whose aid he might
triumph would some day become his master. He long deceived himself with
the idea that the English, who had sold Parga to him, would never allow
a Turkish fleet to enter the Ionian Sea. Mistaken on this point, his
foresight was equally at fault with regard to the cowardice of his sons.
The defection of his troops was not less fatal, and he only understood
the bearing of the Greek insurrection which he himself had provoked,
so far as to see that in this struggle he was merely an instrument in
procuring the freedom of a country which he had too cruelly oppressed
to be able to hold even an inferior rank in it. His last letter to the
Suliots opened the eyes of his followers, but under the influence of a
sort of polite modesty these were at least anxious to stipulate for the
life of their vizier. Kursheed was obliged to produce firmans from the
Porte, declaring that if Ali Tepelen submitted, the royal promise
given to his sons should be kept, and that he should, with them, be
transferred to Asia Minor, as also his harem, his servants; and his
treasures, and allowed to finish his days in peace. Letters from Ali's
sons were shown to the Agas, testifying to the good treatment they had
experienced in their exile; and whether the latter believed all this,
or whether they merely sought to satisfy their own consciences, they
henceforth thought only of inducing their rebellious chief to submit.
Finally, eight months' pay, given them in advance, proved decisive, and
they frankly embraced the cause of the sultan.

The garrison of the castle on the lake, whom Ali seemed anxious to
offend as much as possible, by refusing their pay, he thinking them
so compromised that they would not venture even to accept an amnesty
guaranteed by the mufti, began to desert as soon as they knew the
Toxidae had arrived at the Imperial camp. Every night these Skipetars
who could cross the moat betook themselves to Kursheed's quarters.
One single man yet baffled all the efforts of the besiegers. The chief
engineer, Caretto, like another Archi