esh 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 family, she
directed her attention to the exterior. Renouncing all the habit of her
sex, she abandoned the veil and the distaff, and took up arms, under
pretext of maintaining the rights of her children. She collected round
her her husband's old partisans, wh