old adage, "The Turk's dominions are Scanderbeg's revenues," is a sufficient witness to his admirable financiering. He realized fully that the legacy of hate bequeathed by Amurath to Mohammed would bear bitter fruits in the hands of that fierce and able monarch, and so employed every interval of peace in strengthening himself for the struggle that was to follow. Twice again during his lifetime was Epeiros invaded by the Ottomans; and Scanderbeg, driven from his lair, was hunted like a deer from hill to hill, now lying in covert, now fiercely resisting, but unconquered always. Wily offers of friendship from the sultan were received with a not unnatural suspicion, and courteously declined; hired assassins were detected, and delivered up to a prompt and pitiless justice. For forty years this Albanian soldier defended his mountain eyrie from a power vast enough to destroy two empires, and cruel enough to make the whole Eastern world tremble. Constantinople fell, while Croia stood unharmed. The last news brought to Scanderbeg, as he lay dying at Lyssa, was that the Turks had invaded the Venetian dominions. The feeble warrior raised himself in
