I who speak am he!"

The old woman stood overwhelmed with astonishment. She departed calling
down blessings on the pacha, who assured her a pension of fifteen
hundred francs for the rest of her days.

But these two good actions are only flashes of light illuminating the
dark horizon of Ali's life for a brief moment. Returned to Janina, he
resumed his tyranny, his intrigues, and cruelty. Not content with
the vast territory which owned his sway, he again invaded that of his
neighbours on every pretext. Phocis, Mtolia, Acarnania, were by turns
occupied by his troops, the country ravaged, and the inhabitants
decimated. At the same time he compelled Ibrahim Pacha to surrender his
last remaining daughter, and give her in marriage to his nephew, Aden
Bey, the son of Chainitza. This new alliance with a family he had so
often attacked and despoiled gave him fresh arms against it, whether by
being enabled better to watch the pacha's sons, or to entice them into
some snare with greater ease.

Whilst he thus married his nephew, he did not neglect the advancement of
his sons. By the aid of the French Ambassador, whom he had convinced
of his devotion to the Emperor Napoleon, he succeeded in getting the
pachalik of Morea bestowed on Veli, and that of Lepanto on Mouktar. But
as in placing his sons in these exalted positions his only aim was
to aggrandise and consolidate his own power, he himself ordered their
retinues, giving them officers of his own choosing. When they departed
to their governments, he kept their wives, their children, and even
their furniture as pledges, saying that they ought not to be encumbered
with domestic establishments in time of war, Turkey just then being at
open war with England. He also made use of this opportunity to get rid