Ali, caring little for passion which evaporated in tears and cries, sent an order to Mouktar to appear before him at once.  “He will not kill you,” he remarked to his messenger, with a bitter smile.  And, in fact, the man who a moment before was furiously raging and storming against his father, as if overwhelmed by this imperious message, calmed down, and obeyed.

“Come hither, Mouktar,” said the pacha, extending his murderous hand to be kissed as soon as his son appeared.  “I shall take no notice of your anger, but in future never forget that a man who braves public opinion as I do fears nothing in the world.  You can go now; when your troops have rested from their march, you can come and ask for orders.  Go, remember what I have said.”

Mouktar retired as submissively as if he had just received pardon for some serious crime, and found no better consolation than to spend the night with Veli in drinking and debauchery.  But a day was to come when the brothers, alike outraged by their father, would plot and carry out a terrible vengeance.

However, the Porte began to take umbrage at the continual aggrandisement of the Pacha of Janina.  Not daring openly to attack so formidable a vassal, the sultan sought by underhand means to diminish his power, and under the pretext that Ali was becoming too old for the labour of so many offices, the government of Thessaly was withdrawn from him, but, to show that this was not done in enmity, the province was entrusted to his nephew, Elmas Bey, son of Suleiman and Chainitza.

Chainitza, fully as ambitious as her brother, could not contain her delight at the idea of governing in the name of her son, who was weak and gentle in character and accustomed to obey her implicitly.  She asked her brother’s permission to go to Trikala to be present at the installation, and obtained it, to everybody’s astonishment; for no one could imagine that Ali would peacefully renounce so important a government as that of Thessaly.  However, he dissembled so skilfully that everyone was deceived by his apparent resignation, and applauded his magnanimity, when he provided his sister with a brilliant escort to conduct her to the capital of the province of which he had just been deprived in favour of his nephew.  He sent letters of congratulation to the latter as well as magnificent presents, among them a splendid pelisse of black fox, which had cost more than a hundred thousand francs of Western money.  He requested Elmas Bey to honour him by wearing this robe on the day when the sultan’s envoy should present him with the firman of investiture, and Chainitza herself was charged to deliver both gifts and messages.