had exercised in the family.  This he mentioned regularly in conversation, writing in the same style to his agents at Constantinople, and everywhere where there was any profit in slandering a family whose ruin he desired for the sake of their possessions.  Before long he made a pretext out of the scandal started by himself, and prepared to take up arms in order, he said, to avenge his friend Sepher Bey, when he was anticipated by Ibrahim Pacha, who roused against him the allied Christians of Thesprotia, foremost among whom ranked the Suliots famed through Albania for their courage and their love of independence.

After several battles, in which his enemies had the a vantage, Ali began negotiations with Ibrahim, and finally concluded a treaty offensive and defensive.  This fresh alliance was, like the first, to be cemented by a marriage.  The virtuous Emineh, seeing her son Veli united to the second daughter of Ibrahim, trusted that the feud between the two families was now quenched, and thought herself at the summit of happiness.  But her joy was not of long duration; the death-groan was again to be heard amidst the songs of the marriage-feast.

The daughter of Chainitza, by her first husband, Ali, had married a certain Murad, the Bey of Clerisoura.  This nobleman, attached to Ibrahim Pacha by both blood and affection, since the death of Sepher Bey, had, become the special object of Ali’s hatred, caused by the devotion of Murad to his patron, over whom he had great influence, and from whom nothing could detach him.  Skilful in concealing truth under special pretexts, Ali gave out that the cause of his known dislike to this young man was that the latter, although his nephew by marriage, had several times fought in hostile ranks against him.  Therefore the amiable Ibrahim made use of the marriage treaty to arrange an honourable reconciliation between Murad Bey and his uncle, and appointed the former “Ruler a the Marriage Feast,” in which capacity he was charged to conduct the bride to Janina and deliver her to her husband, the young Veli Bey.  He had accomplished his mission satisfactorily, and was received by Ali with all apparent hospitality.  The festival began on his arrival towards the end of November 1791, and had already continued several days, when suddenly it was announced that a shot had been fired upon Ali, who had only escaped by a miracle, and that the assassin was still at large.  This news spread terror through the city and the palace, and everyone dreaded being seized as the guilty person.  Spies were everywhere employed, but they declared search was useless, and that there must bean extensive conspiracy against Ali’s life.  The latter complained of being surrounded by enemies, and announced that henceforth he would receive only one person at a time, who should lay down his arms before entering the hall now set apart for public audience.  It was a chamber built over a vault, and entered by a sort of trap-door, only reached by a ladder.