deep void than be
condemned to the embraces of Ali Pasha. How the two girls abominated
him!--the one because he had murdered her love, the other because he
had loved her.

"Don't be afraid," they said to each other; and fastening their
bundles to a long rope which was used in torturing, they let it down
into the deep well, with a lamp at the end of it, and when the water
put out the light they fastened the other end of the rope to the hinge
of the door, and each in turn let herself down by it.

And whether they lived or whether they died, Ali Pasha lost on that
day two talismans which he should have guarded more jealously than the
light of his eyes: one was the spirit of blessing, the other the
spirit of cursing, both of which he had held fast bound, and both of
which had now been let loose.

* * * * *

At the moment when the two damsels plunged into the lake of Acheruz
the slumber of tranquillity disappeared from the eyes of Ali Pasha,
and he began to see spectres.

A peculiar feeling came over him. He whom phantoms avoided even when
he slept, he who had never even dreamed of fear, he whom the angel of
sleep had never known to be a coward, now began to experience a
peculiar sensation which was worse than any sickness and more painful
than any suffering. He was afraid!

He dreamed that the head of the young Suliot, which had been cut off
by his order, and which had rolled away and disappeared so that nobody
could find it, was now standing face to face with him on a table,
staring at him fixedly with stony eyes, and repeatedly addressing the
sleeper by name: "Ali Pasha! Ali Pasha!"

The limbs of the sleeper shook all over in a strange tremor.

"Ali Pasha!" he heard the head call for the third time.

Groaning, writhing, and turning himself about, he contrived to knock
the head off the cushion, smearing all the bed with blood. And now he
saw and heard more terrible things than ever.

"One, two," said the severed head. And Ali understood that this was
the number of the years he had still to live. "Thy head hath no longer
either hand or foot," continued the head; and Ali was obliged to
listen to what it said. "Two severed heads now stand face to face,
mine and thine. Why dost thou not reply to me? Why dost thou not look
into my eyes? Two headless trunks stand before the throne of God, mine
and thine. How shall the Lord recognize thee? He inquires which is
Ali. For every soul there