Soliman, taking advantage of a moment when he was unobserved, drew a
pistol from his belt and blew out his brother's brains. Chainitza ran
at the sound, and saw her husband lying dead between her brother and her
brother-in-law. Her cries for help were stopped by threats of death
if she moved or uttered a sound. As she lay, fainting with grief and
terror, Ali made a sign to Soliman, who covered her with his cloak,
and declared her his wife. Ali pronounced the marriage concluded, and
retired for it to be consummated. Thus was celebrated this frightful
wedding, in the scene of an awful crime, beside the corpse of a man who
a moment before had been the husband of the bride and the brother of the
bridegroom.

The assassins published the death of the pacha, attributing it, as
is usual in Turkey, to a fit of cerebral apoplexy. But the truth soon
leaked out from the lying shrouds in which it had been wrapped. Reports
even exceeded the truth, and public opinion implicated Chainitza in
a crime of which she had been but the witness. Appearances certainly
justified these suspicions. The young wife had soon consoled herself in
the arms of her second husband for the loss of the first, and her son by
him presently died suddenly, thus leaving Soliman in lawful and peaceful
possession of all his brother's wealth. As for the little girl, as she
had no rights and could hurt no one, her life was spared and she was
eventually married to a bey of Cleisoura, destined in the sequel to cut
a tragic figure in the history of the Tepeleni family.

But Ali was once more deprived of the fruit of his bloody schemes.
Notwithstanding all his intrigues, the sanjak of Delvino was conferred,
not upon him, but upon a bey of one of the first families of Zapouria.
But, far from being discouraged, he recommenced with new boldness and
still greater confidence the work of his elevation, so often begun and