het.

"Not money, my lord; but blood! blood!" cried the woman; and, from the
ring of her voice, there was reason to suspect that she was a young
woman.

The Sultan in amazement asked the woman her name.

"I am Eminah, the daughter of the Pasha of Delvino, and the wife of
Ali Tepelenti."

"And whose blood dost thou require?" asked the Sultan, scandalized to
see the favorite wife of so powerful a man prostrate in the dust
before his horse's feet.

"I demand death upon his head!" cried the woman, with a firm
voice--"on the head of Ali Tepelenti, from whose gehenna of a fortress
I have escaped on the waters of a subterranean stream in order that I
might accuse him to thee; and if thou dost not condemn him, I will go
to the judgment-seat of God and accuse him there!"

The Sultan was horrified.

It is a terrible thing when a woman accuses her own husband, who has
loaded her with benefits. He must, indeed, be an evil-doer whom
turtle-doves, the gentlest of all God's creatures, attack!

The Sultan listened, full of indignation, to the woman's accusations.

After happily escaping from the fortress of Ali Pasha with the Greek
girl, she learned, during her short sojourn among the Suliotes, of all
Ali's cruelties, and learned also, at the same time, that in Delvino
had just died a rich Armenian lady, who had been the flame of Gaskho
Bey in his younger days, and had left him all the property she owned
in Albania. Of this nobody as yet knew anything. What more natural
than that every one should immediately fancy he had found the key to
the riddle of the mysterious attempt at assassination? Why, of course,
Ali wanted to slay Gaskho Bey in order that he might take possession
of his Albanian property.

CHAPTER V

A MAN IN THE MIDST OF DANGERS

The Pasha of Janina, for thirty successive days, received nothing but
ill tidings; and twice within the period of two waxing moons did his
own power as steadily wane.

The first Job's-messenger which reached him was the Arnaut horseman,
who had escaped from Stambul, and whom the Sultan's Tartars had
pursued as far as Adrianople. This man told him that the attempt on
the life of Gaskho Bey had failed, and that the captured assassins had
revealed the name of their employer.

"Behold, I have wounded myself with my own sword," exclaimed Ali. "The
prophetic voice of Seleucia spoke the truth; yea, verily, it spoke the
truth."

And still more of the prophecy was to be accompl