The assassins published the death of the pacha, attributing it, as is usual in Turkey, to a fit of cerebral apoplexy.  But the truth soon leaked out from the lying shrouds in which it had been wrapped.  Reports even exceeded the truth, and public opinion implicated Chainitza in a crime of which she had been but the witness.  Appearances certainly justified these suspicions.  The young wife had soon consoled herself in the arms of her second husband for the loss of the first, and her son by him presently died suddenly, thus leaving Soliman in lawful and peaceful possession of all his brother’s wealth.  As for the little girl, as she had no rights and could hurt no one, her life was spared and she was eventually married to a bey of Cleisoura, destined in the sequel to cut 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 pacha, 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 pacha 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 perfidious plots, an order to get rid of the pacha.  At the receipt of the firman of execution he leaped with joy, and flew to Delvino to seize the prey which was abandoned to him.