was the report of two shots, and two bullets--one on the
right hand and one on the left--buried themselves in the window-sill.

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

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

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

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

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

At first the Kapu-Kiaja regarded this confession as incredible. Why,
indeed, should Tepelenti be wrath with Gaskho Bey, who knew nothing at
all of Ali except by report? Nay, he greatly revered him as a valian