ght descended upon the fortress of Janina, but sleep did not descend
upon the eyes of Ali.

He sat in that red tower where he had perpetrated his crimes, in that
chamber where his victims had breathed forth the last sighs of their
tortured lives, and all round about glittering treasures looked upon
Ali as if with eyes of fire--all of it the price of robbery, fraud,
treason. What if these things could speak?

Everything was silent, night lay black before the eyes of men, only
Ali saw shadows moving about therein, phantoms with pale, phantoms
with bloody faces, who rose from the tomb to visit their persecutor
and announce to him the hour of his death.

Ali trembled not before them; he had seen them at other times also. He
had slept face to face with the severed head that spoke to him, he had
listened to the enigmatical words of the _dzhin_ of Seleucia, and he
called them to mind again now. Calmly he looked back upon the current
of his past life, from which so many horrible shapes arose and glared
at him with cold, stony eyes. He recked them not, Allah had so ordered
it. The hare nibbles the root, the vulture devours the hare, the
hunter shoots the vulture, the lion fells the hunter, and the worm
eats the lion. What, after all, is Ali? Naught but a greater worm than
the rest. He has devoured much, and now a stronger than he devours
him, and a still greater worm will devour this stronger one also.

Everything was fulfilled which had been prophesied concerning him. His
own sons, his own wife, his own arms had fought against him. If only
his wife had not done this he could have borne the rest.

"One, two," the decapitated head had said, and the last moments of
the two years were just passing away. "The hand which wipes out the
deeds of the mighty shall at last blot out thy deeds also, and thou
shalt be not a hero whom the world admires, but a slave whom it
curses. Those whom thou didst love will bless the hour of thy death,
and thy enemies will weep, and God will order it so to avert the ruin
of thy nation."

So it is, so it has chanced; the hazard of the die has gone against
him, and he has nothing left.

If only his wife had not betrayed him!

At other times also Ali had seen these phantoms of the night arise. He
had seen them rise from the tomb pale and bloody; but in his heart
there had always been a sweet refuge, the charming young damsel whose
childlike face and angelic eyes had robbed the evil sorcery of all i