Monte-Cristo's Daughter
You can't do this job with an unsteady hand. Brace up, brace up,
Bouche-de-Miel! What's that?"
There was a slight noise at the gate. Grasping his tremulous companion
by the arm, Siebecker hurriedly drew him behind a clump of small
chestnut trees. No sooner were they hidden than three masked men
cautiously opened the gate and came on tip-toe into the garden.
Waldmann, Peppino and Beppo had arrived and were ready to do their share
of the nefarious work. Siebecker and Bouche-de-Miel silently emerged
from their hiding-place and joined them.
Waldmann glanced about him, evidently satisfied.
"So far so good," said he, in an undertone. "We are all here on time. Do
not let us waste an instant. Have you steadied your nerves with plenty
of brandy, Bouche-de-Miel?"
"I'm all right," replied the latter, doggedly, though there was a
perceptible quiver in his voice as he spoke.
"He has just had another fit of fear," said Siebecker, disdainfully. "I
think we would do well to leave him with Peppino and Beppo to keep watch
in the garden! It won't be safe to take him with us into the house,
Waldmann!"
The leader went up to Bouche-de-Miel and gave him a rough shake.
"You are a coward!" said he, savagely. "That woman story you told us was
all bosh. You are afraid of meeting Monte-Cristo, as I saw very plainly
this morning!"
This taunt stung Bouche-de-Miel to the quick and restored to him all his
courage. He faced Waldmann unflinchingly and retorted:
"I am no coward and I am not afraid of Monte-Cristo!"
"Then what is the matter with, you?"
"That is my business, but it shan't damage this night's work. I will go
with you to the house and do my part as well as you or Siebecker. You
said not to waste an instant. What are you waiting for? Go on!"
"Do you swear to stand by us to the last whatever happens?"
"I swear it!"
"I will trust you."
"And you will have no reason to repent of your trust. If I meet
Monte-Cristo I will kill him as I would a mongrel cur! Does that satisfy
you?"
"How about your mysterious woman?"
Bouche-de-Miel could not repress a start, but he clenched his fists
firmly and replied, with an effort:
"Never mind her! She must take care of herself!"
"Who is she?"
"Never mind her, I say! If harm comes to her it will be her own fault!"
Waldmann appeared reassured; nevertheless he whispered in
Bouche-de-Miel's ear with a terrible earnestness that plainly showed he
meant what he said:
"I told you I would trust you, and I will. But if you weaken, if you
seek to act the traitor to save that woman, I will blow your brains out
where you stand!"
Bouche-de-Miel shrugged his shoulders.
"If I weaken, if I seek to betray you, shoot me on the spot! I give you
leave! But if you use your pistol, it will be on other game than me! Let
us to work!"
Leaving the two Italians on guard at the gate, Waldmann and Siebecker,
with Bouche-de-Miel between them, went stealthily towards the house,
walking on the grass that the sound of their footsteps might be muffled.
They kept well in the shadows of the trees, reaching the rear of the
mansion unobserved and without incident. Waldmann removed his shoes and
the others followed his example.
"Everything is silent," he whispered. "No doubt all the members of the
household, including the redoubtable Count himself, are fast asleep. We
shall have an easy thing of it."
He went upon the back porch and tried the door of the servants'
quarters. It had been carelessly left unlocked. He opened it and peered
within. Only darkness and silence there. He beckoned to his comrades;
they also came on the porch. Waldmann produced a dark lantern from under
his coat; the three robbers entered Monte-Cristo's house.
"The Count's study where he keeps his money is on the second floor,"
whispered Bouche-de-Miel. "We can reach it by going up the servants'
stairway over there."
He pointed across the small corridor in which they stood. Waldmann
cautiously opened his lantern and the narrow thread of light that came
from it revealed the stairway. The miscreants mounted it and, guided by
Bouche-de-Miel, who seemed to be thoroughly familiar with the
topography of the mansion, were soon in front of Monte-Cristo's study.
The door was ajar. Bouche-de-Miel glanced in, but instantly withdrew his
head, motioning Waldmann and Siebecker to look. They did so, and saw a
man asleep in an arm-chair; simultaneously a sharp click in the room
alarmed them; they clenched their teeth, set their lips firmly together
and drew their pistols. The sharp click was repeated, followed in rapid
succession by several others. It was the telegraphic instrument--the
news from Berlin had come!
Instantly the Count was wide awake. He leaped from his chair and ran to
the instrument, to the clicking of which he eagerly and intently
listened. The vast society of Prussian patriots had met. The delegates
had been long in arriving, for, although the utmost secrecy had been
used, the royal police had got wind of their presence in the capital and
of the proposed assemblage. Still, it was hoped that the meeting would
not be disturbed, as the rendezvous was in a secluded locality, of
which, it was thought, the authorities were not suspicious. Scarcely,
however, had the president taken his seat when the police poured in
through every door and window. All the patriots were arrested, save
Monte-Cristo's confederate, who by a lucky chance succeeded in deceiving
the myrmidons of the law.
The Count's brow clouded as he heard this startling intelligence ticked
off by the telegraphic instrument. He put his hand to his forehead at
the conclusion of the ominous message and staggered like a drunken man
back to his arm-chair, into which he sank. As he did so, Waldmann,
Siebecker and Bouche-de-Miel, who immediately rushed forward, seized him
and held him there with the strength of iron. Waldmann slipped a gag
into his mouth and Siebecker bound him firmly to the chair with a stout
cord he took from his pocket. The binding accomplished, the robbers
quitted their hold of the Count and turned in search of the plunder they
had come for--the millions of Monte-Cristo!
Suddenly there was a loud cry. It came from Bouche-de-Miel. The others
turned and looked at him, their pistols in their hands. He was staring
at a white-robed woman, who stood like a ghost in the open doorway of
the study. At that juncture another door opened and Ali, the faithful
Nubian, followed by all the valets of the household, sprang into the
room, falling upon the bewildered scoundrels ere they had recovered from
their surprise. There was a brief struggle, but the servants were
unarmed, and the robbers, disengaging themselves from the clutches of
their adversaries, kept them at bay with their pistols and slowly backed
from the apartment. In the conflict, however, Bouche-de-Miel's mask was
torn from his face, and his countenance was no sooner visible than the
white-robed woman ran towards him with outstretched arms, breathlessly
exclaiming:
"My father! my father!"
Bouche-de-Miel motioned her from him; then he moved as if to approach
her, urged on by a feeling he was altogether unable to master; but
Waldmann, still keeping his pistol pointed at Ali and his companions,
seized him by the arm with a grip of iron and drew him away. The foiled
robbers succeeded in making their escape from the house, and the garden.
The Count of Monte-Cristo had been unbound and ungagged by Ali when the
robbers had left the study. Alarmed by the unwonted noise and commotion,
Captain de Morcerf, Zuleika and Mlle. d' Armilly had appeared upon the
scene, but too late to witness the conflict with the miscreants. In a
few words the Count explained to them what had happened. Zuleika glanced
at Mlle. d' Armilly as if she suspected that the strange beggar of that
morning had something to do with this midnight invasion of their home;
Louise looked uneasy and agitated, but preserved a stony silence.
The white-robed woman still stood as if stupefied. Mlle. d' Armilly went
to her and asked, solicitously:
"Eugenie, what is the matter?"
This question aroused young Madame de Morcerf, for it was she, from her
stupor. She threw herself into a chair and covered her face with her
hands, moaning piteously:
"Oh! Louise! Louise! I have seen my father! He was one of the robbers!
It is terrible, terrible!"
Captain de Morcerf, who had gone to his wife's side and tenderly taken
her hand, gazed inquiringly at the Count.
"I saw the man she speaks of perfectly," said Monte-Cristo, in reply to
his look, "and he was certainly the Baron Danglars!"
CHAPTER XIII.
MORCERF'S ADVENTURE.
The Count of Monte-Cristo took no steps to have the miscreants who had
invaded the sanctity of his home tracked and apprehended; he did not
even instruct the Commissary of Police of the quarter in regard to what
had happened. He was entirely satisfied that the sole aim of the
wretches had been robbery, and, as that aim had been defeated, he did
not desire to court further publicity by putting the matter in the hands
of the authorities. One thing, however, gave the Count considerable
uneasiness, namely, the fact that Danglars had been one of the robbers.
He did not doubt that the former banker, whom he had financially wrecked
and forced to fly ignominiously from Paris in the past in pursuit of his
scheme of wholesale vengeance against the enemies of his youth, had
planned the robbery in order to gratify his burning thirst for revenge;
he also felt equally certain that Danglars meant further mischief, if he
could accomplish it, and that his presence in the city would be a
constant menace to his tranquillity and prosperity, nay, even to his
domestic happiness; but his feelings had undergone a radical change
since the old days of restless, inexorable retribution, and he now
pitied the man he had so ruthlessly overthrown as much as he had
formerly hated him. Danglars had fallen very low, indeed, to be the
companion and accomplice of midnight marauders, and the Count's very
soul ached as he thought to what depths of poverty and ignominy he had
been the means of reducing him. He would have sought him out amid the
dangerous criminal population of Paris, traced him to his den of
depravity and wretchedness, and offered him money and the means of
social rehabilitation had there been the slightest reason to hope that
he could thereby rescue the miserable man from the slough of iniquity
into which he was plunged, but he knew too well Danglars' implacable
character and deep-seated hatred against himself to attempt anything of
the kind. Should he penetrate into his haunts and meet him the result
could only be disastrous, for Danglars would take a fiendish delight in
betraying him to his desperate associates, who would not hesitate even
to murder him at his bidding, and the former banker was fully capable of
compassing his assassination in the most horrible fashion as a crowning
stroke of diabolical revenge. There was a time when Monte-Cristo valued
life very little, when he would gladly have accepted death as a welcome
avenue to endless rest and peace, but that time had passed; since then
he had contracted ties that bound him to existence with insurmountable
strength; he had now a family, was surrounded by beings he tenderly
loved and cherished, beings for whom he must live and over whose
destinies he must closely watch. He was wedded to Mercedes, who lavished
upon him in her maturity all the wealth of overwhelming affection she
had showered upon him before the fateful conspiracy that had consigned
him as the sailor Dantes to the dark, noisome dungeon of the Chateau d'
If and given her to the arms of Fernand, the Catalan. Haydee had
fluttered over the page of his stormy, agitated history, leaving him