But Ali, professing to follow the advice of some severe reformers who wished to restore decent morality, arrested at the same time fifteen ladies belonging to the best Christian families in Janina.

A Wallachian, named Nicholas Janco, took the opportunity to denounce his own wife, who was on the point of becoming a mother, as guilty of adultery, and handed her also over to the pacha.

These unfortunate women were brought before Ali to undergo a trial of which a sentence of death was the foregone conclusion.

They were then confined in a dungeon, where they spent two days of misery.

The third night, the executioners appeared to conduct them to the lake where they were to perish.