The Lion of Janina; Or, The Last Days of the Janissaries: A Turkish Novel

by Mór Jókai

The fortress is unapproachable. The bastions are built in the middle of the lake, and from their dark quadrangular cavities rows of guns (each one of them a sixty-pounder) sweep the surface of the water, so that it is impossible to draw near in boats. On the land side one hundred cannons defend the bastions, and who can surmount the triple ditch?

Ye will never capture Ali there. He has sufficient muniments of war to last him for an indefinite period, and to show them how determined he was, he caused the solitary gate of the fortress to be filled with masonry and walled up. So the fortress has no longer a gate. Even desertion is now an impossibility.

There he will remain, then, walled up as in a tomb, buried alive! The only roads from thence lead to heaven or hell; the exit from the land side is guarded by the Suliotes; even if he could fly he could not escape from them.

The campaign is ended. The victorious Gaskho Bey proclaims himself Pasha of Janina. The whole of Epirus does homage to him, and deserts the fallen Vizier. In Stambul thanksgivings are offered up in the Ejub mosque and the church of St. Sophia for the accomplished victory, which is proclaimed, amidst the roaring of the cannons, by heralds in the great market-place; and all the newspapers of Europe amazedly report that the mighty and terrible adventurer, the ever-victorious veteran of seventy-nine, the party-leader who grew to such a height that it was doubtful whether he or the Sultan were the real ruler of Turkey, the man who had been the ally of the great Napoleon, who a few months before had sent as a present to England a precious dinner-service of pure gold worth 30,000 thaler, who had heaped up more treasures than any Eastern nabob—is suddenly crushed, annihilated, shut up in a fortress! It now only remains for him to die.

And not very long afterwards he did die. One night a couple of bold Albanian horsemen descended the bastions by means of a long rope, and, crossing the lake of Acheruz on a pine log, sought out Gaskho Bey in his camp that very night.

Ali Tepelenti was dead. They were the first to bear the joyful tidings to the bey. He died in his grief, in his wretchedness. Perhaps also he had taken poison. On the morrow, at three o'clock, they had arranged to bury him in the fortress! Before his death he had called together his lieutenants, and taken an oath of them that they would defend the fortress to the very last gasp of the very last man. His treasures were piled up in the red tower—more than thirty millions of piastres. He had left it all to them. But what was the use of all this treasure to them if they could not get out of this eyrie? They would not surrender themselves, for Ali had made them swear by every Turkish saint that they would defend the fortress to the death. But the rank and file were of a different opinion; they would joyfully retire from the fortress if they were assured of a free forgiveness. Gaskho Bey had only to stretch out his hand and the fortress of Janina, the impregnable fortress with its two hundred cannons and its enormous mass of treasure, would be his.

Early in the morning the gray moonless flag, the sign of death, was waving on the red tower of Janina, and the guns overlooking the water fired three and thirty volleys, whose echo proclaimed among the mountains that Ali Tepelenti was dead. Within the fortress sounded the roll of the muffled drums, and it was also possible to distinguish the dirges of the imams.

Gaskho Bey and his staff, from the top of the Lithanizza hills, watched the burial of the pasha. There was an observatory here from whose balcony they could look down into the court-yard, and the splendid telescopes, which the sultan had got from Vienna, rendered powerful assistance to the onlookers, who through them could observe the smallest details of what was going on in the court-yard of the fortress; one telescope in particular brought the objects so near that one could read the initial letters of the verses of the Kuran which the imams held in their hands.

In the midst of a simple coffin lay Ali Pasha. It was really he; of that there could be no doubt. Let every one look for himself! There he lay—dead, cold, motionless. His lieutenants and his servants stood around him weeping. Those who walked along by his side stooped down to kiss his hands.

In the town outside the Suliotes knew of Ali's death, and by way of compliment they fired a bomb into the citadel. But the match of the bomb was too short, and it exploded in the air.