Obsequious towards the Sublime Porte, so long as it did not interfere
with his private authority, he not only paid with exactitude all dues to
the sultan, to whom he even often advanced money, but he also pensioned
the most influential ministers. He was bent on having no enemies
who could really injure his power, and he knew that in an absolute
government no conviction can hold its own against the power of gold.

Having thus annihilated the nobles, deceived the multitude with
plausible words, and lulled to sleep the watchfulness of the Divan, Ali
resolved to turn his arms against Kormovo. At the foot of its rocks he
had, in youth, experienced the disgrace of defeat, and during thirty
nights Kamco and Chainitza had endured all horrors of outrage at the
hands of its warriors. Thus the implacable pacha had a twofold wrong to
punish, a double vengeance to exact.

This time, profiting by experience, he called in the aid of treachery.
Arrived at the citadel, he negotiated, promised an amnesty, forgiveness
for all, actual rewards for some. The inhabitants, only too happy to
make peace with so formidable an adversary, demanded and obtained a
truce to settle the conditions. This was exactly what Ali expected, and
Kormovo, sleeping on the faith of the treaty, was suddenly attacked and
taken. All who did not escape by flight perished by the sword in the
darkness, or by the hand of the executioner the next morning. Those who
had offered violence aforetime to Ali's mother and sister were carefully
sought for, and whether convicted or merely accused, were impaled on
spits, torn with redhot pincers, and slowly roasted between two fires;
the women were shaved and publicly scourged, and then sold as slaves.

This vengeance, in which all the nobles of the province not yet entirely
ruined were compelled to assist, was worth a decisive victory to Ali.