nd exclaimed:

"What hast thou done with thy sword?"

"I have sold it," answered Ali, resolutely.

At this the mother flew into a violent rage, and catching up a
bludgeon, belabored Ali with it until she was tired. The big, muscular
lad allowed himself to be beaten, and neither wept nor said a word,
nor even tried to defend himself.

"And now dost see that spindle?" cried Dame Khamko. "Learn to spin the
thread and turn the bobbins quickly; thou shalt not eat idle bread at
home, I can tell thee. A man who can sell his sword is fit for nothing
but to sit beside a distaff."

So Ali sat down to spin.

For a couple of days he endured the insults which his mother heaped
upon him, and on the third day he returned to the Armenian, to whom he
had sold his sword, robbed him of and slew of him with it, plundered
and burned down his house, and from thenceforth became such a famous
robber that the whole countryside lived in mortal terror of him.

Dame Khamko lived a long time after this event, and ruined her son's
soul altogether by urging him to kill and slay without mercy, till one
fine day her son murdered her likewise, and thus added her blood also
to the blood of those whom, at his mother's instigation, he had
cruelly murdered.

And this lad became the Pasha of Janina. Ali Tepelenti!

Through what an ocean of treachery, perjury, robbery, and homicide he
had to wade before he attained to that eminence! How often was he not
so reduced as to have nothing left but his sword and his crafty brain?
But many a time, in the midst of his most brilliant successes, in the
very plenitude of his power, he would bethink him of the two quiet
little huts where he and Behram had been wont to dwell. He never heard
of Behram now, but he used frequently to think in those days and
wonder what would have become of himself if he had listened to
Behram's words and lived a quiet, contented life. 'Tis true he would
not have been so mighty a man as he was now, but would he not have
been a much happier one?

Once, when he was a very great potentate, he had visited the little
village in the glen in which they had hidden away together. But nobody
would tell him anything of Behram. He had disappeared none knew
whither. Perhaps he had died since then!

CHAPTER VIII

THE PEN OF MAHMOUD

When, during the reign of Mahmoud II., the caravan of Meccan pilgrims
was plundered by the Vechabites, lying in ambush, the Sultan ordered
the rulers o