se with him.
Calm and immovable, he gave signals to the soldiers who were still
occupying part of the ruins of Janina, and encouraged them by voice and
gesture. Observing the enemy's movements by the help of a telescope, he
improvised means of counteracting them. Sometimes he amused himself by,
greeting curious persons and new-comers after a fashion of his own. Thus
the chancellor of the French Consul at Prevesa, sent as an envoy to
Kursheed Pacha, had scarcely entered the lodging assigned to him, when he
was visited by a bomb which caused him to leave it again with all haste.
This greeting was due to Ali's chief engineer, Caretto, who next day sent
a whole shower of balls and shells into the midst of a group of
Frenchmen, whose curiosity had brought them to Tika, where Kursheed was
forming a battery. "It is time," said Ali, "that these contemptible
gossip-mongers should find listening at doors may become uncomfortable.
I have furnished matter enough for them to talk about. Frangistan
(Christendom) shall henceforth hear only of my triumph or my fall, which
will leave it considerable trouble to pacify." Then, after a moment's
silence, he ordered the public criers to inform his soldiers of the
insurrections in Wallachia and the Morea, which news, proclaimed from the
ramparts, and spreading immediately in the Imperial camp, caused there
much dejection.

The Greeks were now everywhere proclaiming their independence, and
Kursheed found himself unexpectedly surrounded by enemies. His position
threatened to become worse if the siege of Janina dragged on much longer.
He seized the island in the middle of the lake, and threw up redoubts
upon it, whence he kept up an incessant fire on the southern front of the
castle of Litharitza, and a practicable trench of nearly forty feet
having been made, an assault was decided on. The troops marched out
boldly, and performed prodigies of valour; but at the end of an hour,
Ali, carried on a litter because of his gout, having led a sortie, the
besiegers were compelled to give way and retire to their intrenchments,
leaving three hundred dead at the foot of the rampart. "The Pindian bear
is yet alive," said Ali in a message to Kursheed; "thou mayest take thy
dead and bury them; I give them up without ransom, and as I shall always
do when thou attackest me as a brave man ought." Then, having entered
his fortress amid the acclamations of his soldiers, he remarked on
hearing of the genera