Ali Pacha | Page 7

up, he broke
the door or jumped out of the window; if they threatened 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 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, whom she attached to her, service,
some by presents, others by various favours, and she gradually enlisted
all the lawless and adventurous men in Toscaria. With their aid, she
made herself all powerful in Tepelen, and inflicted the most rigorous
persecutions on such as remained hostile to her.

But the inhabitants of the two adjacent villages of Kormovo and
Kardiki, fearing lest this terrible woman, aided by her son, now grown
into a man, should strike a blow against their independence; made a
secret alliance against her, with the object of putting her out of the way
the first convenient opportunity. Learning one day that Ali had started
on a distant expedition with his best soldiers; they surprised Tepelen
under cover of night, and carried off Kamco and her daughter Chainitza
captives to Kardiki. It was proposed to put them to death; and sufficient
evidence to justify their execution was not wanting; but their beauty
saved their lives; their captors preferred to revenge themselves by
licentiousness rather than by murder. Shut up all day in prison, they
only emerged at night to pass into the arms of the men who had won
them by lot the previous morning. This state of things lasted for a
month, at the end of which a Greek of Argyro-Castron, named G.
Malicovo, moved by compassion for their horrible fate, ransomed them
for twenty thousand piastres, and took them back to Tepelen.
Ali had just returned. He was accosted by his mother and sister, pale
with fatigue, shame, and rage. They told him what had taken place,
with cries and tears, and Kamco added, fixing her distracted eyes upon
him, "My son! my son! my soul will enjoy no peace till Kormovo and
Kardikil destroyed by thy scimitar, will no longer exist to bear witness