If Emineh, his wife, was a model of virtue, his father-in-law, Capelan, was a composition of every vice--selfish, ambitious, turbulent, fierce.

Confident in his courage, and further emboldened by his remoteness from the capital, the Pacha of Delvino gloried in setting law and authority at defiance.
Ali's disposition was too much like that of his father-in-law to prevent him from taking his measure very quickly.

He soon got on good terms with him, and entered into his schemes, waiting for an opportunity to denounce him and become his successor.

For this opportunity he had not long to wait.
Capelan's object in giving his daughter to Tepeleni was to enlist him among the beys of the province to gain independence, the ruling passion of viziers.

The cunning young man pretended to enter into the views of his father-in-law, and did all he could to urge him into the path of rebellion.
An adventurer named Stephano Piccolo, an emissary of Russia, had just raised in Albania the standard of the Cross and called to arms all the Christians of the Acroceraunian Mountains.