a bullet went near
him.

"Let him alone," said Ali; "we shall never be able to kill this man."
And his old energy left him as if he had suddenly become crippled.

He invited Kurshid Pasha to intercede for him with the Sultan, that he
might be restored to favor, offering in such case to place his
treasures at the disposal of the Grand Signior, and turn his arms
against the Greeks. Kurshid demanded an assurance to this effect in
writing, and when Ali complied, Kurshid sent the document, not to the
Sultan at Stambul but to the Suliotes at Arta, that they might see how
ready Ali was to betray them. The Greeks, in disgust, abandoned Ali.
This last treachery dismayed them at the very zenith of their triumph;
they perceived that a mighty antagonist had risen against them in
Kurshid Pasha, who was magnanimous enough not to make use of traitors,
but spurn them with contempt. This intellectual superiority guaranteed
the success of Kurshid's arms. The Turkish commander had been acute
enough to extend the hand of reconciliation, not to Ali, but to the
Suliotes.

Tepelenti waited in vain in the tower of Janina for the arrival of the
army of deliverance. The Suliotes returned to their villages, and
Artemis reflected with secret joy that in the very red tower in which
Ali had decapitated her plighted lover, he himself now sat in his
despair, environed by foes, waiting with the foolish hope that the
embittered Suliotes would hasten to deliver him.

The Epirote rebellion was already subdued by Kurshid Pasha, and only
one point in the whole empire now glowed with a dangerous fire--the
haughty Janina.

CHAPTER XV

CARETTO

Ali had now only about room enough to cover his head. His enemies had
twenty times as much, and they besieged him night and day. The
fortress on the hill of Lithanizza and the Isle of La Gulia were in
Kurshid's power already.

Still the old warrior did not surrender. The bombs thrown into the
fortress levelled his palaces with the ground. His marble halls were
reduced to rubbish heaps, his kiosks were smoking ruins, and his
splendid gardens lay buried, obliterated. Yet, for all that, Ali Pasha
vomited back his wrath upon the besiegers out of eighty guns, and it
happened more than once that hidden mines exploded beneath the more
forward advanced of the enemy's batteries, blowing guns and gunners
into the air.

The defence was conducted by an Italian engineer whom Ali had enticed
into his service in