The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

"Haidee, still calm, but with a calmness more dreadful than the anger of
another would have been, handed to the president the record of her sale,
written in Arabic. It had been supposed some of the papers might be in
the Arabian, Romaic, or Turkish language, and the interpreter of the
House was in attendance. One of the noble peers, who was familiar
with the Arabic language, having studied it during the famous Egyptian
campaign, followed with his eye as the translator read aloud:--

"'I, El-Kobbir, a slave-merchant, and purveyor of the harem of his
highness, acknowledge having received for transmission to the sublime
emperor, from the French lord, the Count of Monte Cristo, an emerald
valued at eight hundred thousand francs; as the ransom of a young
Christian slave of eleven years of age, named Haidee, the acknowledged
daughter of the late lord Ali Tepelini, pasha of Yanina, and of
Vasiliki, his favorite; she having been sold to me seven years
previously, with her mother, who had died on arriving at Constantinople,
by a French colonel in the service of the Vizier Ali Tepelini, named