reastwork of the ramparts. Caretto had got to the end of the chain
and was grasping it with both hands; below him yawned a depth of
thirty feet. The chain was not long enough, and there he was suspended
between two deaths.

"Come back," cried the watchers, aiming their pistols at his head, "or
we will shoot you through and through!"

Caretto cast a wild glance upward, the bandage fell from his bloody
eye, and he looked at them with the dying fury of a desperately
wounded wild beast. Then suddenly he kicked himself clear of the wall
by a sharp movement of his foot, and describing the arc of a circle,
he plunged into the depth beneath him like a rebounding bullet. The
Albanians fired after him, but neither of them hit him. Below, at the
foot of the bastion, the daring Italian lay motionless for a moment,
but then he quickly rose to his feet and began to clamber up the other
side of the ditch. He could only make use of one arm, for the other
had been dislocated in his fall. Straining all his might, he struggled
up; a whole shower of bullets pursued him and whistled about his head,
but not one of them hit him, for the heavy snowfall made it difficult
to take aim. At last he reached the top of the opposite side of the
trench, and then he turned round and shook his fist at the devastating
fortress, and disappeared in a heavy snow-drift. The gunners kept on
firing after him at random for some time.

Ali Pasha turned pale and almost fell from his horse when the tidings
reached him that Caretto had escaped.

"It is all over now!" cried he in despair, broke his sword in two, and
shut himself up in the red tower. In the outer court-yard they saw him
no more.

Ali knew for certain that with the departure of Caretto the last
remains of his power had vanished; his stronghold and its resources
were hopelessly ruined if any one revealed their secrets to his
enemies outside. Caretto knew everything, and "the one-eyed Giaour"
was received with great triumph in the camp of Kurshid Pasha. The next
day Ali Pasha had bitter experience of the fact that the hand which
had hitherto defended him was now turned against him. Within nine
hours a battery, constructed by Caretto, had made a breach thirty
fathoms wide in the outworks of Janina; the other cannons of the
besiegers were set up in places whither Ali's mines did not extend,
and when he made new ones they were immediately rendered inoperative
by countermining, and at last Caretto disc