He learned from his spies that the general’s staff, counting on the “Truce of God,” a tacit suspension of all hostilities during the feast of Bairam, the Mohammedan Easter, intended to repair to the chief mosque, in the quarter of Loutcha.  This building, spared by the bombs, had until now been respected by both sides.  Ali, according to reports spread by himself, was supposed to be ill, weakened by fasting, and terrified into a renewal of devotion, and not likely to give trouble on so sacred a day.  Nevertheless he ordered Caretto to turn thirty guns against the mosque, cannon, mortars and howitzers, intending, he said, to solemnise Bairam by discharges of artillery.  As soon as he was sure that the whole of the staff had entered the mosque, he gave the signal.

Instantly, from the assembled thirty pieces, there issued a storm of shells, grenades and cannon-balls.  With a terrific noise, the mosque crumbled together, amid the cries of pain and rage of the crowd inside crushed in the ruins.  At the end of a quarter of an hour the wind dispersed the smoke, and disclosed a burning crater, with the large cypresses which surrounded the building blazing as if they had been torches lighted for the funeral ceremonies of sixty captains and two hundred soldiers.

“Ali Pacha is yet alive!” cried the old Homeric hero of Janina, leaping with joy; and his words, passing from mouth to mouth, spread yet more terror amid Kursheed’s soldiers, already overwhelmed by the horrible spectacle passing before their eyes.

Almost on the same day, Ali from the height of his keep beheld the standard of the Cross waving in the distance.  The rebellious Greeks were bent on attacking Kursheed.  The insurrection promoted by the Vizier of Janina had passed far beyond the point he intended, and the rising had become a revolution.  The delight which Ali first evinced cooled rapidly before this consideration, and was extinguished in grief when he found that a conflagration, caused by the besiegers’ fire, had consumed part of his store in the castle by the lake.  Kursheed, thinking that this event must have shaken the old lion’s resolution, recommenced negotiations, choosing the Kiaia of Moustai Pacha:  as an envoy, who gave Ali a remarkable warning.  “Reflect,” said he, “that these rebels bear the sign of the Cross on their standards.  You are now only an instrument in their hands.  Beware lest you become the victim of their policy.”  Ali understood the danger, and had the sultan been better advised, he would have pardoned Ali on condition of again bringing Hellas under his iron yoke.  It is possible that the Greeks might not have prevailed against an enemy so formidable and a brain so fertile in intrigue.  But so simple an idea was far beyond the united intellect of the Divan, which never rose above idle display.  As soon as these negotiations had commenced, Kursheed filled the roads with his couriers, sending often two in a day to Constantinople,