ips of their toes, five of them withdrew. But the sixth
remained there still, and, after casting about for a word for some
time, said, at last, to Ali:

"Oh, sir, cast the fulness of pride from thy heart, suffer not thy
name to perish! The Sultan is merciful; bow thy head before him and he
will still be gracious to thee!"

The soldier had scarce uttered the last word of this recommendation
when Ali softly drew a pistol from his girdle and shot him through the
head, so that he spun round and fell backward across the threshold.
This was all the reward he got for advising Ali to ask for mercy.

And now Ali is alone. His doors, his gates stand wide open; anybody
who so pleases can go in and out. Why, then, does nobody come to seize
the solitary veteran? why do they fear to cross the threshold of the
vanquished foe?

But hearken! fresh footsteps are resounding on the staircase, and
through the open door, guarded by the corpse of the last soldier whom
Ali slew, a strange man entered, dressed in an unusual, new-fangled
uniform; he was Kurshid Pasha's silihdar.

Tepelenti allowed him to approach within five paces of where he sat,
and then beckoned him to stop.

"Speak; what dost thou want?"

"Ali Tepelenti," said the silihdar, "surrender. Thou hast nothing left
in the world and nobody to aid thee. My master, the seraskier, Kurshid
Pasha, hath sent me to thee that I might receive thy sword and escort
thee to his camp."

Tepelenti, with the utmost _sang-froid_, drew forth from the folds of
his caftan a magnificent gold watch in an enamelled case set with
diamonds.

"Hearken!" said he, in a low, soft voice. "It is now twenty minutes
past ten; take this watch and keep it as a souvenir of me. Greet
Kurshid Pasha from me, and point out to him that it was twenty minutes
past ten when you spoke with me, and let him take notice that if after
twenty minutes past eleven I can see from the windows of this tower a
single hostile soldier in the court-yard of the fortress, then--I
swear it by the mercies of Allah!--I will blow the fortress into the
air, with every living soul within it. Inform Kurshid Pasha of this
when you give him my salutation."

The silihdar hastened off, and at a quarter to eleven not a soul was
to be seen in the court-yard of the fortress of Janina. Alive in his
citadel sits Ali Tepelenti, the tyrant of Epirus, mighty even in his
fall, who has nothing and nobody left, save only his indomitable
heart.

Ni