Although reduced to the direst misery, Caretto could not forget that he owed his life to the master who now only repaid his services with the most sordid ingratitude.  When he had first come to Epirus, Ali, recognising his ability, became anxious to retain him, but without incurring any expense.  He ascertained that the Neapolitan was passionately in love with a Mohammedan girl named Nekibi, who returned his affection.  Acting under Ali’s orders, Tahir Abbas accused the woman before the cadi of sacrilegious intercourse with an infidel.  She could only escape death by the apostasy of her lover; if he refused to deny his God, he shared her fate, and both would perish at the stake.  Caretto refused to renounce his religion, but only Nekibi suffered death.  Caretto was withdrawn from execution, and Ali kept him concealed in a place of safety, whence he produced him in the time of need.  No one had served him with greater zeal; it is even possible that a man of this type would have died at his post, had his cup not been filled with mortification and insult.

Eluding the vigilance of Athanasius Vaya, whose charge it was to keep guard over him, Caretto let himself down by a cord fastened to the end of a cannon:  He fell at the foot of the rampart, and thence dragged himself, with a broken arm, to the opposite camp.  He had become nearly blind through the explosion of a cartridge which had burnt his face.  He was received as well as a Christian from whom there was now nothing to fear, could expect.  He received the bread of charity, and as a refugee is only valued in proportion to the use which can be made of him, he was despised and forgotten.

The desertion of Caretto was soon followed by a defection which annihilated Ali’s last hopes.  The garrison which had given him so many proofs of devotion, discouraged by his avarice, suffering from a disastrous epidemic, and no longer equal to the necessary labour in defence of the place, opened all the gates simultaneously to the enemy.  But the besiegers, fearing a trap, advanced very slowly; so that Ali, who had long prepared against every sort of surprise, had time to gain a place which he called his “refuge.”

It was a sort of fortified enclosure, of solid masonry, bristling with cannon, which surrounded the private apartments of his seraglio, called the “Women’s Tower.”  He had taken care to demolish everything which could be set on fire, reserving only a mosque and the tomb of his wife Emineh, whose phantom, after announcing an eternal repose, had ceased to haunt him.  Beneath was an immense natural cave, in which he had stored ammunition, precious articles, provisions, and the treasures which had not been sunk in the lake.  In this cave an apartment had been made for Basilissa and his harem, also a shelter in which he retired to sleep when exhausted with fatigue.  This place was his last resort, a kind of mausoleum; and he did not seem distressed at beholding the castle in the hands of his enemies.  He calmly allowed them to occupy the entrance, deliver their hostages, overrun the ramparts, count the cannon which were on the platforms, crumbling from the hostile shells; but when they came within hearing, he demanded by one of his servants that Kursheed should send him an envoy of distinction; meanwhile he forbade anyone to pass beyond a certain place which he pointed out.