eatened him, he pretended to comply,
conquered by fear, and promised everything that was required, but
only to break his word the first opportunity. He had a tutor specially
attached to his person and charged to supervise all his actions. He
constantly deluded him by fresh tricks, and when he thought himself free
from the consequences, he maltreated him with gross violence. It
was only in his youth, after his father's death, that he became more
manageable; he even consented to learn to read, to please his mother,
whose idol he was, and to whom in return he gave all his affection.

If Kamco had so strong a liking for Ali, it was because she found in
him, not only her blood, but also her character. During the lifetime of
her husband, whom she feared, she seemed only an ordinary woman; but
as soon as his eyes were closed, she gave free scope to the violent
passions which agitated her bosom. Ambitious, bold, vindictive, she
assiduously cultivated the germs of ambition, hardihood, and vengeance
which already strongly showed themselves in the young Ali. "My son,"
she was never tired of telling him, "he who cannot defend his patrimony
richly deserves to lose it. Remember that the property of others is only
theirs so long as they are strong enough to keep it, and that when you
find yourself strong enough to take it from them, it is yours. Success
justifies everything, and everything is permissible to him who has the
power to do it."

Ali, when he reached the zenith of his greatness, used to declare that
his success was entirely his mother's work. "I owe everything to my
mother," he said one day to the French Consul; "for my father, when
he died, left me nothing but a den of wild beasts and a few fields. My
imagination, inflamed by the counsels of her who has given me life twice
over, since she has made me both a man and a vizier, revealed to me the
secret of my destiny. Thenceforward I saw nothing in Tepelen but the
natal air from which I was to spring on the prey which I devoured
mentally. I dreamt of nothing else but power, treasures, palaces, in
short what time has realised and still promises; for the point I have
now reached is not the limit of my hopes."

Kamco did not confine herself to words; she employed every means to
increase the fortune of her beloved son and to make him a power. Her
first care was to poison the children of Veli's favourite slave, who
had died before him. Then, at ease about the interior of her fam