Volume I Part 72 (1/2)
”So you know Captain Joliette?”
”Yes, he saved my life, and thereby became my lord and master”
”You knoho has captured him?”
”Yes, they are the enemies of my race as they are of yours They are called the Ajassuas and fear nothing and nobody--oh, they are the eions below!”
”Are they la?”
”Yes”
”And you assert that Captain Joliette is still alive?”
”Yes, he still lives, I swear it; but he is suffering untold tortures in a daeon Oh, would I could suffer his anguish and terrors for him; he has saved me, and now that he should miserably die!”
Hot tears ran over Medje's brown cheeks, and her small hands were clasped convulsively Monte-Cristo watched her narrowly, and Coucou's tale that the Arabian girl had disappeared alain came into his mind
”You love Captain Joliette?” he asked
”Does not the weak child love its father who guides its tottering footsteps? Yes, I love hi trunk which gives support to the clinging vine”
”And why do the Arabs refuse to pern of an accursed caste, the brand of the murderous Khouans”
Medje's face became fiery red
”Hear me,” she said, ”before you condemn me You will be just to me not only on account of your brother but also for the sake of this child”
She pointed to Spero, who had again fallen asleep, and Monte-Cristo, frightened in spite of hiain”
”My father,” began Medje hastily, ”was a hty Kabyle chief He was a wise man and his tribe was industrious and prosperous
”Then came the day when your countrymen, the French, set foot on our sacred shores My father suainst the invaders During a bitter fight between the Europeans and the Arabs a traitor showed the eneh the defile, and, taken by surprise, my father saw himself surrounded by the enemy Our troops had been so decimated by the murderous fire that scarcely more than a hundred remained A e in a cave, and hardly had my father entered it with his troops when the treacherous -place to the ene and fired in on the helpless Arabs, ere caught like rats in a hole
”In less than half an hour only half of the nu, and the French called upon the froeneral, in which he offered his own life and pledged that none of the tribe of Ben-Ali-Sainst the French This he did on condition that his eneral accepted the offer and e; then he bared his bosom to be shot
”But the French ht friends and allies in Africa, not slaves He did not want his life, but his friendshi+p We lived very happy and peaceful after that, only ere called renegades by the other tribes, and especially the Khouans, that murderous class which believes that it pleases Allah if they shed their fellow beings' blood
”Five years had elapsed, and I was then twelve years old, when reat feast in honor of a celebrated French coht, when the festivities were over, and ere all lying in a deep sleep, the Khouans e My father was assassinated and my mother and I taken prisoners
We were carried into the desert with other prisoners ofan oasis, the captives were tied to the trunks of trees, and their lihans My mother was one of those tortured to death in this way Her last words were: 'Medje, avenge us, and remember your father's oath' I swooned as she died I was recalled to life by sharp pain onbeforea white-hot iron in his hand, hich he had just branded me
”'By Allah,' he exclaimed, 'I forbid you to touch this n'