was more
frequently on horseback that he appeared among his labourers. Often he
sat on the bastions in the midst of the batteries, and conversed
familiarly with those who surrounded him. He narrated the successes
formerly obtained against the sultan by Kara Bazaklia, Vizier of Scodra,
who, like himself, had been attained with the sentence of deprivation and
excommunication; recounting how the rebel pacha, shut up in his citadel
with seventy-two warriors, had seen collapse at his feet the united
forces of four great provinces of the Ottoman Empire, commanded by
twenty-two pachas, who were almost entirely annihilated in one day by the
Guegues. He reminded them also, of the brilliant victory gained by
Passevend Oglon, Pacha of Widdin, of quite recent memory, which is
celebrated in the warlike songs of the Klephts of Roumelia.

Almost simultaneously, Ali's sons, Mouktar and Veli, arrived at Janina.
Veli had been obliged, or thought himself obliged, to evacuate Lepanto by
superior forces, and brought only discouraging news, especially as to the
wavering fidelity of the Turks. Mouktar, on the contrary, who had just
made a tour of inspection in the Musache, had only noticed favourable
dispositions, and deluded himself with the idea that the Chaonians, who
had taken up arms, had done so in order to aid his father. He was
curiously mistaken, for these tribes hated Ali with a hatred all the
deeper for being compelled to conceal it, and were only in arms in order
to repel aggression.

The advice given by the sons to their father as to the manner of treating
the Mohammedans differed widely in accordance with their respective
opinions. Consequently a violent quarrel arose between them, ostensibly
on account of this dispute, but in reality on the subject of their
father's inheritance, which both equally coveted. Ali had brought all his
treasure to Janina, and thenceforth neither son would leave the
neighbourhood of so excellent a father. They overwhelmed him with marks
of affection, and vowed that the one had left Lepanto, and the other
Berat, only in order to share his danger. Ali was by no means duped by
these protestations, of which he divined the motive only too well, and
though he had never loved his sons, he suffered cruelly in discovering
that he was not beloved by them.

Soon he had other troubles to endure. One of his gunners assassinated a
servant of Vela's, and Ali ordered the murderer to be punished, but when
th