The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas
its progress all the chances lucky and unlucky passed through his brain. If he closed his eyes, he saw the letters of Cardinal Spada written on the wall in characters of flame; if he slept for a moment, the wildest dreams haunted his brain. He descended into grottos paved with emeralds, with panels of rubies, and the roof glowing with diamond stalactites. Pearls fell drop by drop, as subterranean waters filter in their caves. Edmond, amazed, wonderstruck, filled his pockets with the radiant gems and then returned to daylight, when he discovered that his prizes were all converted into common pebbles. He then endeavoured to re-enter these marvellous grottos, but then beheld them only in the distance; and now the way serpentined into countless paths, and then the entrance became invisible, and in vain did he tax his memory for the magic and mysterious word which opened the splendid caverns of Ali Baba to the Arabian fisherman. All was useless, the treasure disappeared, and had again reverted to the genii from whom for a moment he had hoped to carry it off.
The day came at length, and was almost as feverish as the night had been; but it brought reason to aid his imagination, and Dantès was then enabled to arrange a plan which had hitherto been vague and unsettled in his brain.
Night came, and with it the preparation for departure, and these preparations served to conceal Dantès’ agitation. He had by degrees assumed such authority over his companions that he was almost like a commander on board; and as his orders were always clear, distinct, and easy of execution, his comrades obeyed him with celerity and pleasure.
The old patron did not interfere, for he, too, had recognised the superiority of Dantès over the crew and himself. He saw in the young man his natural successor, and regretted that he had not a daughter that he might have bound Edmond to him by a distinguished alliance.
At seven o’clock in the evening all was ready, and at ten minutes past seven they doubled the lighthouse just as the beacon was kindled.
The sea was calm, and with a fresh breeze from the south-east they sailed beneath a bright blue sky, in which God also lighted up in turn his beacon lights, each of which is a world. Dantès told them that all hands might turn in and he would take the helm.
When the Maltese (for so they called Dantès) had said this it was sufficient, and all went to their cots contentedly. This frequently happened. Dantès, rejected by all the world, frequently experienced a desire for solitude, and what solitude is at the same time more complete, more poetical, than that of a bark floating isolated on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in the silence of immensity and under the eye of Heaven?
Now this solitude was peopled with his thoughts, the night lighted up by his illusions, and the silence animated by his anticipations. When the patron awoke, the vessel was hurrying on with every sail set, and every sail full with the breeze. They were making nearly ten knots an hour.
The isle of Monte Cristo loomed large in the horizon.
Edmond resigned the bark to the master’s care, and went and lay down in his hammock, but in spite of a sleepless night he could not close his eyes for a moment.
Two hours afterwards he came on deck as the boat was about to double the isle of Elba. They were just abreast of Mareciana, and beyond the flat but verdant isle of La Pianosa. The peak of Monte Cristo, reddened by the burning sun, was seen against the azure sky.
Dantès desired the helmsman to put down his helm in order to leave La Pianosa on the right hand, as he knew that he should thus decrease the distance by two or three knots.
About five o’clock in the evening the island was quite distinct, and everything on it was plainly perceptible, owing to that clearness of the atmosphere which is peculiar to the light which the rays of the sun cast at its setting.
Edmond gazed most earnestly at the mass of rocks which gave out all the variety of twilight colours from the brightest pink to the deepest blue, and from time to time his cheeks flushed, his brow became purple, and a mist passed over his eyes.
Never did gamester whose whole fortune is staked on one cast of the die, experience the anguish which Edmond felt in his paroxysms of hope. Night came, and at ten o’clock p.m. they anchored. The Young Amelia was the first at the rendezvous.
In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantès could not restrain his impetuosity. He was the first who jumped on shore, and had he dared he would, like Lucius Brutus, have “kissed his mother earth.” It was dark, but at eleven o’clock the moon rose in the midst of the ocean, whose every wave she silvered, and then, “ascending high,” played in floods of pale light on the rocky hills of this second Pelion.
The island was familiar to the crew of The Young Amelia; it was one of her halting-places. As to Dantès, he had passed it on his voyages to and from the Levant, but never touched at it.
He questioned Jacopo. “Where shall we pass the night?” he inquired.
“Why, on board the tartane,” replied the sailor.
“Should we not be better in the grottos?”
“What grottos?”
“Why, the grottos—caves of the island.”
“I do not know of any grottos,” replied Jacopo.
A cold damp sprang to Dantès’ brow.
“What! are there no grottos at Monte Cristo?” he asked.
“None.”
For a moment Dantès was speechless, then he remembered that these caves might have been filled up by some accident, or even stopped up for the sake of greater security by Cardinal Spada.
The point was then to discover the lost opening. It was useless to search at night, and Dantès therefore delayed all investigation until the morning. Besides, a signal made half a league out at sea, and to which The Young Amelia also replied by a similar signal, indicated that the moment was arrived for business.
The boat that now arrived, assured by the answering signal that all was right, soon came in sight, white and silent as a phantom, and cast anchor within a cable’s length of the shore.
Then the landing began. Dantès reflected, as he worked, on the shout of joy which with a single word he could produce from amongst all these men if he gave utterance to the one unchanging thought that pervaded his heart. But, far from disclosing this precious secret, he almost feared that he had already said too much, and by his restlessness and continual questions, his minute observations and evident preoccupation, had aroused suspicions. Fortunately, as regarded this circumstance, at least, with him the painful past reflected on his countenance an indelible sadness, and the glimmerings of gaiety seen beneath this cloud were indeed but transitory.
No one had the slightest suspicion; and when next day, taking a fowling-piece, powder, and shot, Dantès testified a desire to go and kill some of the wild goats that were seen springing from rock to rock, his wish was construed into a love of sport or a desire for solitude. However, Jacopo insisted on following him, and Dantès did not oppose this, fearing if he did so that he might incur distrust. Scarcely, however, had he gone a quarter of a league than, having killed a kid, he begged Jacopo to take it to his comrades and request them to cook it, and when ready to let him know by firing a gun. This, and some dried fruits, and a flask of the wine of Monte Pulciano, was the bill of fare.
Dantès went forwards, looking behind and round about him from time to time. Having reached the summit of a rock, he saw, a thousand feet beneath him, his companions, whom Jacopo had rejoined, and who were all busy preparing the repast, which Edmond’s skill as a marksman had augmented with a capital dish.
Edmond looked at them for a moment with the sad and soft smile of a man superior to his fellows.
“In two hours’ time,” said he, “these persons will depart richer by fifty piastres each to go and risk their lives again by endeavouring to gain fifty more such pieces. Then they will return with a fortune of six hundred francs and waste this treasure in some city with the pride of sultans and the insolence of nabobs. At this moment Hope makes me despise their riches, which seem to me contemptible. Yet, perchance tomorrow deception will so act on me that I shall,