ll be the last: Can you prove the
authenticity of what you have now stated?'--'I can, sir,' said Haidee,
drawing from under her veil a satin satchel highly perfumed; 'for here
is the register of my birth, signed by my father and his principal
officers, and that of my baptism, my father having consented to my being
brought up in my mother's faith,--this latter has been sealed by the
grand primate of Macedonia and Epirus; and lastly (and perhaps the most
important), the record of the sale of my person and that of my mother
to the Armenian merchant El-Kobbir, by the French officer, who, in his
infamous bargain with the Porte, had reserved as his part of the booty
the wife and daughter of his benefactor, whom he sold for the sum of
four hundred thousand francs.' A greenish pallor spread over the count's
cheeks, and his eyes became bloodshot at these terrible imputations,
which were listened to by the assembly with ominous silence.

"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
Fernand Mondego. The above-mentioned purchase was made on his highness's
account, whose mandate I had, for the sum of four hundred thousand
francs.

"'Given at Constantinople, by authority of his highness, in the year
1247 of the Hegira.

"'Signed El-Kobbir.'

"'That this record should have all due authority, it shall bear the
imperial seal, which the vendor is bound to have affixed to it.'

"Near the merchant'