But the inheritance of Mouktar Pacha was not quite such an easy prey.  The kapidgi-bachi who dared to present him with the bowstring was instantly laid dead at his feet by a pistol-shot.  “Wretch!” cried Mouktar, roaring like a bull escaped from the butcher, “dost thou think an Arnaout dies like an eunuch?  I also am a Tepelenian!  To arms, comrades! they would slay us!” As he spoke, he rushed, sword in hand, upon the Turks, and, driving them back, succeeded in barricading himself in his apartments.

Presently a troop of janissaries from Koutaieh, ordered to be in readiness, advanced, hauling up cannon, and a stubborn combat began.  Mouktar’s frail defences were soon in splinters.  The venerable Metche-Bono, father of Elmas Bey, faithful to the end, was killed by a bullet; and Mouktar, having slain a host of enemies with his own hand and seen all his friends perish, himself riddled with wounds, set fire to the powder magazine, and died, leaving as inheritance for the sultan only a heap of smoking ruins.  An enviable fate, if compared with that of his father and brothers, who died by the hand of the executioner.

The heads of Ali’s children, sent to Constantinople and exposed at the gate of the seraglio, astonished the gaping multitude.  The sultan himself, struck with the beauty of Mehemet and Selim, whose long eyelashes and closed eyelids gave them the appearance of beautiful youths sunk in peaceful slumber, experienced a feeling of emotion.  “I had imagined them,” he said stupidly, “to be quite as old as their father;” and he expressed sorrow for the fate to which he had condemned them.