text:  It has been an uniform maxim of the Ottoman domestic policy which singularly contrasts with their scrupulous observance of the treaties entered into with foreign powers that no faith is to be kept with _fermanlis_ or traitors to the Padishah; and in the assured belief confirmed by hostages and solemn oaths that the sultan was willing to accede to his demands Abaza-Hassan suffered himself to be drawn from his headquarters at Aintab with thirty of his officers to a conference with Morteza at Aleppo: but in the midst of the banquet which followed this interview Abaza and his comrades found themselves in the grasp of the executioners--while their followers dispersed through the town were slaughtered without mercy on the signal of a gun fired from the castle; and the army panic-stricken at the fate of its leaders quickly melted away