Chainitza arrived safely at Trikala, and faithfully delivered the messages with which she had been entrusted.  When the ceremony she so ardently desired took place, she herself took charge of all the arrangements.  Elmas, wearing the black fox pelisse, was proclaimed, and acknowledged as Governor of Thessaly in her presence.  “My son is pacha!” she cried in the delirium of joy.  “My son is pacha! and my nephews will die of envy!” But her triumph was not to be of long duration.  A few days after his installation, Elmas began to feel strangely languid.  Continual lethargy, convulsive sneezing, feverish eyes, soon betokened a serious illness.  Ali’s gift had accomplished its purpose.  The pelisse, carefully impregnated with smallpox germs taken from a young girl suffering from this malady, had conveyed the dreaded disease to the new pacha, who, not having been inoculated, died in a few days.

The grief of Chainitza at her son’s death displayed itself in sobs, threats, and curses, but, not knowing whom to blame for her misfortune, she hastened to leave the scene of it, and returned to Janina, to mingle her tears with those of her brother.  She found Ali apparently in such depths of grief, that instead of suspecting, she was actually tempted to pity him, and this seeming sympathy soothed her distress, aided by the caresses of her second son, Aden Bey.  Ali, thoughtful of his own interests, took care to send one of his own officers to Trikala, to administer justice in the place of his deceased nephew, and the Porte, seeing that all attempts against him only caused misfortune, consented to his resuming the government of Thessaly.

This climax roused the suspicions of many persons.  But the public voice, already discussing the causes of the death of Elmas, was stifled by the thunder of the cannon, which, from the ramparts of Janina, announced to Epirus the birth of another son to Ali, Salik Bey, whose mother was a Georgian slave.

Fortune, seemingly always ready both to crown Ali’s crimes with success and to fulfil his wishes, had yet in reserve a more precious gift than any of the others, that of a good and beautiful wife who should replace, and even efface the memory of the beloved Emineh.

The Porte, while sending to Ali the firman which restored to him the government of Thessaly, ordered him to seek out and destroy a society of coiners who dwelt within his jurisdiction.  Ali, delighted to prove his zeal by a service which cost nothing but bloodshed, at once set his spies to work, and having discovered the abode of the gang, set out for the place attended by a strong escort.  It was a village called Plikivitza.

Having arrived in the evening, he spent the night in taking measures to prevent escape, and at break of day attacked the village suddenly with his whole force.  The coiners were seized in the act.  Ali immediately ordered the chief to be hung at his own door and the whole population to be massacred.  Suddenly a young girl of great beauty made her way through the tumult and sought refuge at his feet.  Ali, astonished, asked who she was.  She answered with a look of mingled innocence and terror, kissing his hands, which she bathed with tears, and said: