to protect them from either surprise or conquest.  The sum necessary for present use was deposited in the powder magazine, so that, if driven to extremity, it might be destroyed in a moment; the remainder was enclosed in strong-boxes, and sunk in different parts of the lake.  This labour lasted a fortnight, when, finally, Ali put to death the gipsies who had been employed about it, in order that the secret might remain with himself.

While he thus set his own affairs in order, he applied himself to the troubling those of his adversary.  A great number of Suliots had joined the Ottoman army in order to assist in the destruction of him who formerly had ruined their country.  Their camp, which for a long time had enjoyed immunity from the guns of Janina, was one day overwhelmed with bombs.  The Suliots were terrified, until they remarked that the bombs did not burst.  They then, much astonished, proceeded to pick up and examine these projectiles.  Instead of a match, they found rolls of paper enclosed in a wooden cylinder, on which was engraved these words, “Open carefully.”  The paper contained a truly Macchiavellian letter from Ali, which began by saying that they were quite justified in having taken up arms against him, and added that he now sent them a part of the pay of which the traitorous Ismail was defrauding them, and that the bombs thrown into their cantonment contained six thousand sequins in gold.  He begged them to amuse Ismail by complaints and recriminations, while his gondola should by night fetch one of them, to whom he would communicate what more he had to say.  If they accepted his proposition, they were to light three fires as a signal.

The signal was not long in appearing.  Ali despatched his barge, which took on board a monk, the spiritual chief of the Suliots.  He was clothed in sackcloth, and repeated the prayers for the dying, as one going to execution.  Ali, however, received him with the utmost cordiality:  He assured the priest of his repentance, his good intentions, his esteem for the Greek captains, and then gave him a paper which startled him considerably.  It was a despatch, intercepted by Ali, from Khalid Effendi to the Seraskier Ismail, ordering the latter to exterminate all Christians capable of bearing arms.  All male children were to be circumcised, and brought up to form a legion drilled in European fashion; and the letter went on to explain how the Suliots, the Armatolis, the Greek races of the mainland and those of the Archipelago should be disposed of.  Seeing the effect produced on the monk by the perusal of this paper, Ali hastened to make him the most advantageous offers, declaring that his own wish was to give Greece a political existence, and only requiring that the Suliot captains should send him a certain number of their children as hostages.  He then had cloaks and arms brought which he presented to the monk, dismissing him in haste, in order that darkness might favour his return.