On this side there was no deliverance, so now, with the fury of despair, the insurgents flung themselves on the guns of Ibraham Pasha, three times charging his death-vomiting batteries, and, thrice recoiling, leaving the ground covered with their corpses, the terrible grape-shot mowing them down in heaps. It was all, all over. The flowers of Begtash's garden, vanquished, humbled by the new soldiers, fled for refuge to the huge quadrangular barracks which occupied the ground at the rear of the Etmeidan. Kara Makan did not live to experience that hour of humiliation; a cannon-ball took off his head so cleanly that his body could only be identified by his girdle. Within the walls of the barracks the Janissaries made ready for their last desperate combat. It was now late. Ibrahim the Infernal began to bombard the barracks with red-hot bullets, and within an hour's time the whole of the enormous building was in flames. Those who were inside the gates remained there, for there they were doomed to perish together. Amidst the roaring of the flames their death-cries were audible, but the flames grew stronger every moment and the cry of their mortal anguish waxed fainter. The generals stood around the building, and tears glittered in more eyes than one; after all, it had been a valiant host! Had been! Those words explain their doom. On that day twenty thousand Janissaries fell by the command of the Padishah. Those whom the bullet and the sword did not reach perished by the axe and the bowstring. Their bodies were given to the Bosphorus, and for a long time afterwards the billows of distant seas cast their headless trunks on the shores of countries far away. These were the flowers of Begtash. And so the name of the Janissaries was blotted out of the annals of Ottoman history. The wearing of their uniforms and their insignia was forbidden under sentence of death. Their barracks were levelled with the ground, their banners were torn to bits, their kettles were smashed to pieces, their memory was made accursed. The order of the Priests of Begtash was abolished forever, their religious homes were destroyed, their possessions confiscated. Thus came to an end a soldiery which had existed for centuries, which the wise Chendereli founded, and which had won so many glorious triumphs for the Ottoman arms. It was now unlawful to mention its very name. But when the bloody work was done, the Ottoman nation arose again full of fresh vigor, and it owed a new life, full of glorious days, to the hand which delivered the empire from its two greatest enemies--Tepelenti and the Janissaries. GLOSSARY OF THE TURKISH WORDS USED IN THIS STORY AGA--a military and aulic title. AKINJI--a sort of irregular cavalry. ANADOLI HISSAR--eastern castle. AZAB--irregular infantry. BAIRAM--the great Muhammadan ecclesiastical feast. BAYADERE--a dancing-girl. BEY--a dignitary next below a pasha.