t
did not interfere with his private authority, he not only paid with
exactitude all dues to the sultan, to whom he even often advanced money,
but he also pensioned the most influential ministers. He was bent on
having no enemies who could really injure his power, and he knew that in
an absolute government no conviction can hold its own against the power
of gold.

Having thus annihilated the nobles, deceived the multitude with plausible
words and lulled to sleep the watchfulness of the Divan, Ali resolved to
turn his arms against Kormovo. At the foot of its rocks he had, in
youth, experienced the disgrace of defeat, and during thirty nights Kamco
and Chainitza had endured all horrors of outrage at the hands of its
warriors. Thus the implacable pacha had a twofold wrong to punish, a
double vengeance to exact.

This time, profiting by experience, he called in the aid of treachery.
Arrived at the citadel, he negotiated, promised an amnesty, forgiveness
for all, actual rewards for some. The inhabitants, only too happy to
make peace with so formidable an adversary, demanded and obtained a truce
to settle the conditions. This was exactly what Ali expected, and
Kormovo, sleeping on the faith of the treaty, was suddenly attacked and
taken. All who did not escape by flight perished by the sword in the
darkness, or by the hand of the executioner the next morning. Those who
had offered violence aforetime to Ali's mother and sister were carefully
sought for, and whether convicted or merely accused, were impaled on
spits, torn with redhot pincers, and slowly roasted between two fires;
the women were shaved and publicly scourged, and then sold as slaves.

This vengeance, in which all the nobles of the province not yet entirely
ruined were compelled to assist, was worth a decisive victory to Ali.
Towns, cantons, whole districts, overwhelmed with terror, submitted
without striking a blow, and his name, joined to the recital of a
massacre which ranked as a glorious exploit in the eyes of this savage
people, echoed like thunder from valley to valley and mountain to
mountain. In order that all surrounding him might participate in the joy
of his success Ali gave his army a splendid festival. Of unrivalled
activity, and, Mohammedan only in name, he himself led the chorus in the
Pyrrhic and Klephtic dances, the ceremonials of warriors and of robbers.
There was no lack of wine, of sheep, goats, and lambs roasted before
enormous fir