d a goat to be pinioned and muzzled, and
fastened under the tree, covered with my cape; I then returned home by
a roundabout path. Soon after I had left, the conspirators arrived, and
fired a volley at the goat.

"They ran up to make certain of my death, but were interrupted by a
piquet of my men, who unexpectedly emerged from a copse where I had
posted them, and they were obliged to return to Tepelen, which they
entered, riotous with joy, crying 'Ali Bey is dead, now we are free!'
This news reached my harem, and I heard the cries of my mother and my
wife mingled with the shouts of my enemies. I allowed the commotion to
run its course and reach its height, so as to indicate which were my
friends and which my foes. But when the former were at the depth of
their distress and the latter at the height of their joy, and, exulting
in their supposed victory, had drowned their prudence and their courage
in floods of wine, then, strong in the justice of my cause, I appeared
upon the scene. Now was the time for my friends to triumph and for my
foes to tremble. I set to work at the head of my partisans, and before
sunrise had exterminated the last of my enemies. I distributed their
lands, their houses, and their goods amongst my followers, and from that
moment I could call the town of Tepelen my own."

A less ambitious man might perhaps have remained satisfied with such a
result. But Ali did not look upon the suzerainty of a canton as a final
object, but only as a means to an end; and he had not made himself
master of Tepelen to limit himself to a petty state, but to employ it as
a base of operations.

He had allied himself to Ali of Argyro-Castron to get rid of his
enemies; once free from them, he began to plot against his supplanter.
He forgot neither his vindictive projects nor his ambitious schemes. As
prudent in execution as bold in design, he took good care not to openly
attack a man stronger than himself, and gained by stratagem what he
could not obtain by violence. The honest and straightforward character
of his brother-in-law afforded an easy success to his perfidy. He
began by endeavouring to suborn his sister Chainitza, and several times
proposed to her to poison her husband; but she, who dearly loved the
pacha, who was a kind husband and to whom she had borne two children,
repulsed his suggestions with horror, and threatened, if he persisted,
to denounce him. Ali, fearing the consequences if she carried out
her thre