that in an hour, when
he should have been joined by the Suliots, he would support them, and
he then pushed forward, preceded by two field-pieces with their waggons,
and followed by fifteen hundred men, as far as a large plateau on which
he perceived at a little distance an encampment which he supposed to be
that of the Suliots. He then ordered the Mirdite prince, Kyr Lekos,
to advance with an escort of twenty-five men, and when within hearing
distance to wave a blue flag and call out the password. An Imperial
officer replied with the countersign "flouri," and Lekos immediately
sent back word to Ali to advance. His orderly hastened back, and the
prince entered the camp, where he and his escort were immediately
surrounded and slain.

On receiving the message, Ali began to advance, but cautiously, being
uneasy at seeing no signs of the Mirdite troop. Suddenly, furious cries,
and a lively fusillade, proceeding from the vineyards and thickets,
announced that he had fallen into a trap, and at the same moment Omar
Pacha fell upon his advance guard, which broke, crying "Treason!"

Ali sabred the fugitives mercilessly, but fear carried them away, and,
forced to follow the crowd, he perceived the Kersales and Baltadgi Pacha
descending the side of Mount Paktoras, intending to cut off his retreat.
He attempted another route, hastening towards the road to Dgeleva,
but found it held by the Tapagetae under the Bimbashi Aslon of
Argyro-Castron. He was surrounded; all seemed lost, and feeling that
his last hour had come, he thought only of selling his life as dearly as
possible. Collecting his bravest soldiers round him, he prepared for
a last rush on Omar Pacha, when, suddenly, with an inspiration born of
despair, he ordered his ammunition waggons to be blown up. The Kersales,
who were about to seize them, vanished in the explosion, which scattered
a hail of stones and debris far and wide. Under cover of the smoke and
general confusion, Ali succeeded in withdrawing his men to the shelter
of the guns of his castle of Litharitza, where he continued the fight in
order to give time to the fugitives to rally, and to give the support he
had promised to those fighting on the other slope; who, in the meantime,
had carried the second battery and were attacking the fortified camp.
Here the Seraskier Ismail met them with a resistance so well managed,
that he was able to conceal the attack he was preparing to make on their
rear. Ali, guessing tha