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.

THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—­1639

About the end of the year 1639, a troop of horsemen arrived, towards midday, in a little village at the northern extremity of the province of Auvergne, from the direction of Paris.  The country folk assembled at the noise, and found it to proceed from the provost of the mounted police and his men.  The heat was excessive, the horses were bathed in sweat, the horsemen covered with dust, and the party seemed on its return from an important expedition.  A man left the escort, and asked an old woman who was spinning at her door if there was not an inn in the place.  The woman and her children showed him a bush hanging over a door at the end of the only street in the village, and the escort recommenced its march at a walk.  There was noticed, among the mounted men, a young man of distinguished appearance and richly dressed, who appeared to be a prisoner.  This discovery redoubled the curiosity of the villagers, who followed the cavalcade as far as the door of the wine-shop.  The host came out, cap in hand, and the provost enquired of him with a swaggering air if his pothouse was large enough to accommodate his troop, men and horses.  The host replied that he had the best wine in the country to give to the king’s servants, and