His first act of authority was to exterminate the bands of Armatolis, or Christian militia, which infested the plain.  He laid violent hands on all whom he caught, and drove the rest back into their mountains, splitting them up into small bands whom he could deal with at his pleasure.  At the same time he sent a few heads to Constantinople, to amuse the sultan and the mob, and some money to the ministers to gain their support.  “For,” said he, “water sleeps, but envy never does.”  These steps were prudent, and whilst his credit increased at court, order was reestablished from the defiles of the Perrebia of Pindus to the vale of Tempe and to the pass of Thermopylae.

These exploits of the provost-marshal, amplified by Oriental exaggeration, justified the ideas which were entertained of the capacity of Ali Pacha.  Impatient of celebrity, he took good care himself to spread his fame, relating his prowess to all comers, making presents to the sultan’s officers who came into his government, and showing travellers his palace courtyard festooned with decapitated heads.  But what chiefly tended to consolidate his power was the treasure which he ceaselessly amassed by every means.  He never struck for the mere pleasure of striking, and the numerous victims of his proscriptions only perished to enrich him.  His death sentences always fell on beys and wealthy persons whom he wished to plunder.  In his eyes the axe was but an instrument of fortune, and the executioner a tax-gatherer.

CHAPTER III

Having governed Thessaly in this manner during several years, Ali found himself in a position to acquire the province of Janina, the possession of which, by making him master of Epirus, would enable him to crush all his enemies and to reign supreme over the three divisions of Albania.

But before he could succeed in this, it was necessary to dispose of the pacha already in possession.  Fortunately for Ali, the latter was a weak and indolent man, quite incapable of struggling against so formidable a rival; and his enemy speedily conceived and put into execution a plan intended to bring about the fulfilment of his desires.  He came to terms with the same Armatolians whom he had formerly treated so harshly, and let them loose, provided with arms and ammunition, on the country which he wished to obtain.  Soon the whole region echoed with stories of devastation and pillage.  The pacha, unable to repel the incursions of these mountaineers, employed the few troops he had in oppressing the inhabitants of the plains, who, groaning under both extortion and rapine, vainly filled the air with their despairing cries.  Ali hoped that the Divan, which usually judged only after the event, seeing that Epirus lay desolate, while Thessaly flourished under his own administration, would, before long, entrust himself with the government of both provinces, when a family incident occurred, which for a time diverted the course of his political manoeuvres.