a
tragic figure in the history of the Tepeleni family.

But Ali was once more deprived of the fruit of his bloody schemes.
Notwithstanding all his intrigues, the sanjak of Delvino was conferred,
not upon him, but upon a bey of one of the first families of Zapouria.
But, far from being discouraged, he recommenced with new boldness and
still greater confidence the work of his elevation, so often begun and so
often interrupted. He took advantage of his increasing influence to
ingratiate himself with the new pasha, and was so successful in
insinuating himself into his confidence, that he was received into the
palace and treated like the pacha's son. There he acquired complete
knowledge of the details of the pachalik and the affairs of the pacha,
preparing himself to govern the one when he had got rid of the other.

The sanjak of Delvino was bounded from Venetian territory by the district
of Buthrotum. Selim, a better neighbour and an abler politician than his
predecessors, sought to renew and preserve friendly commercial relations
with the purveyors of the Magnificent Republic. This wise conduct,
equally advantageous for both the bordering provinces, instead of gaining
for the pacha the praise and favours which he deserved, rendered him
suspected at a court whose sole political idea was hatred of the name of
Christian, and whose sole means of government was terror. Ali
immediately perceived the pacha's error, and the advantage which he
himself could derive from it. Selim, as one of his commercial
transactions with the Venetians, had sold them, for a number of years,
the right of felling timber in a forest near Lake Reloda. Ali
immediately took advantage of this to denounce the pasha as guilty of
having alienated the territory of the Sublime Porte, and of a desire to
deliver to the infidels all the province of Delvino. Masking his
ambitious designs under the veil of religion and patriotism, he lamented,
in his denunciatory report, the necessity under which he found himself,
as a loyal subject and faithful Mussulman, of accusing a man who had been
his benefactor, and thus at the same time gained the benefit of crime and
the credit of virtue.

Under the gloomy despotism of the Turks, a man in any position of
responsibility is condemned almost as soon as accused; and if he is not
strong enough to inspire terror, his ruin is certain. Ali received at
Tepelen, where he had retired to more conveniently weave his perfidio