The Sultan in amazement asked the woman her name.
"I am Eminah, the daughter of the Pasha of Delvino, and the wife of Ali Tepelenti."
"And whose blood dost thou require?" asked the Sultan, scandalized to see the favorite wife of so powerful a man prostrate in the dust before his horse's feet.
"I demand death upon his head!" cried the woman, with a firm voice—"on the head of Ali Tepelenti, from whose gehenna of a fortress I have escaped on the waters of a subterranean stream in order that I might accuse him to thee; and if thou dost not condemn him, I will go to the judgment-seat of God and accuse him there!"
The Sultan was horrified.
It is a terrible thing when a woman accuses her own husband, who has loaded her with benefits. He must, indeed, be an evil-doer whom turtle-doves, the gentlest of all God's creatures, attack!
The Sultan listened, full of indignation, to the woman's accusations.
After happily escaping from the fortress of Ali Pasha with the Greek girl, she learned, during her short sojourn among the Suliotes, of all Ali's cruelties, and learned also, at the same time, that in Delvino had just died a rich Armenian lady, who had been the flame of Gaskho Bey in his younger days, and had left him all the property she owned in Albania. Of this nobody as yet knew anything. What more natural than that every one should immediately fancy he had found the key to the riddle of the mysterious attempt at assassination? Why, of course, Ali wanted to slay Gaskho Bey in order that he might take possession of his Albanian property.