"I am," said the servant who had changed clothes with Zaid, and he approached Kleon.
"Bow down before me, thou slave!" cried Kleon, kicking him.
The servant bowed his head before the victor, and he never raised it again, for Kleon chopped it off with his bloody sword, and sticking it on the point thereof, raised it on high and cried to his bloodthirsty comrades: "Here is their second general, Zaid, who came to subdue us! Hallelujah!" and the victorious host repeated after him, "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!"
And then they stuck the heads of the two generals on the points of two lances, and carried them through the streets of Puló in the sight of the crowds of women and children on the housetops, bellowing, "We have conquered! We have conquered! These are the heads of the enemy's leaders: one of them is Omar Vrione, and the other is Zaid Bey! Kyrie eleison?"
And what face was ever so pale as Zaid's when he heard his name called out and saw how they mocked and jeered at the head they took for his?
The Suliotes returned to Janina with the captives and the emblems of victory. Tepelenti, hearing that they had decapitated Zaid, went down into the camp and demanded his head.
Kleon was sitting in front of his tent en déshabille. He was not disposed to part with the symbol of victory, but wanted it to dazzle the eyes of the host for some little time longer.
But Ali was ready at once with a good idea: "Cut off the head of another prisoner," said he, "in its stead; none will notice the difference."
Kleon acted upon the advice, and immediately sent forth his men-at-arms to take the exhibited head to Ali. But Ali shook his own head when he saw it, and wagging his finger at Kleon, he said: "Thou art over-young, my son, to try and impose upon Ali. Thou wouldst turn my counsel to my own hurt, and give me the head of another instead of Zaid's!"
Kleon leaped to his feet. "Do you mean to say that is not Zaid's head?"