leave it again with all
haste. This greeting was due to Ali's chief engineer, Caretto, who next
day sent a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst of a group of
Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where Kursheed
was forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these contemptible
gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become uncomfortable.
I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan
(Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which
will leave it considerable trouble to pacify." Then, after a moment's
silence, he ordered the public criers to inform his soldiers of the
insurrections in Wallachia and the Morea, which news, proclaimed from
the ramparts, and spreading immediately in the Imperial camp, caused
there much dejection.

The Greeks were now everywhere proclaiming their independence, and
Kursheed found himself unexpectedly surrounded by enemies. His position
threatened to become worse if the siege of Janina dragged on much
longer. He seized the island in the middle of the lake, and threw up
redoubts upon it, whence he kept up an incessant fire on the southern
front of the castle of Litharitza, and, a practicable trench of nearly
forty feet having been made, an assault was decided on. The troops
marched out boldly, and performed prodigies of valour; but at the end
of an hour, Ali, carried on a litter because of his gout, having led
a sortie, the besiegers were compelled to give way and retire to their
intrenchments, leaving three hundred dead at the foot of the rampart.
"The Pindian bear is yet alive," said Ali in a message to Kursheed;
"thou mayest take thy dead and bury them; I give them up without ransom,
and as I shall always do when thou attackest me as a brave man ought."
Then, having entered his fortress amid the acclamations of his
soldiers, he remarked on hearing of the general rising of Greece and
the Archipelago, "It is enough! two men have ruined Turkey!" He then
remained silent, and vouchsafed no explanation of this prophetic
sentence.

Ali did not on this occasion manifest his usual delight on having gained
a success. As soon as he was alone with Basilissa, he informed her with
tears of the death of Chainitza. A sudden apoplexy had stricken this
beloved sister, the life of his councils, in her palace of Libokovo,
where she remained undisturbed until her death. She owed this special
favour to her riches and to the inte