dragged to the bazaar and sold ignominiously to Turcoman
shepherds, after which the executioners at once proceeded to make an
inventory of the spoils of their victims.

But the inheritance of Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey.
The kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was
instantly laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot. "Wretch!" cried
Mouktar, roaring like a bull escaped from the butcher, "dost thou
think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch? I also am a Tepelenian! To arms,
comrades! they would slay us!" As he spoke, he rushed, sword in hand,
upon the Turks, and, driving them back, succeeded in barricading himself
in his apartments.

Presently a troop of janissaries from Koutaieh, ordered to be in
readiness, advanced, hauling up cannon, and a stubborn combat began.
Mouktar's frail defences were soon in splinters. The venerable
Metche-Bono, father of Elmas Bey, faithful to the end, was killed by a
bullet; and Mouktar, having slain a host of enemies with his own hand
and seen all his friends perish, himself riddled with wounds, set fire
to the powder magazine, and died, leaving as inheritance for the sultan
only a heap of smoking ruins. An enviable fate, if compared with that of
his father and brothers, who died by the hand of the executioner.

The heads of Ali's children, sent to Constantinople and exposed at
the gate of the seraglio, astonished the gaping multitude. The sultan
himself, struck with the beauty of Mehemet and Selim, whose long
eyelashes and closed eyelids gave them the appearance of beautiful
youths sunk in peaceful slumber, experienced a feeling of emotion.
"I had imagined them," he said stupidly, "to be quite as old as their
father;" and he expressed sorrow for the fate to which he had condemned
them.