The Count of Monte Cristo
question and answer, and the horses galloped off.
Danglars intended travelling to Venice, where he would receive one part
of his fortune, and then proceeding to Vienna, where he would find the
rest, he meant to take up his residence in the latter town, which he
had been told was a city of pleasure.
He had scarcely advanced three leagues out of Rome when daylight began
to disappear. Danglars had not intended starting so late, or he would
have remained; he put his head out and asked the postilion how long it
would be before they reached the next town. “_Non capisco_” (do not
understand), was the reply. Danglars bent his head, which he meant to
imply, “Very well.” The carriage again moved on.
“I will stop at the first posting-house,” said Danglars to himself.
He still felt the same self-satisfaction which he had experienced the
previous evening, and which had procured him so good a night’s rest. He
was luxuriously stretched in a good English calash, with double
springs; he was drawn by four good horses, at full gallop; he knew the
relay to be at a distance of seven leagues. What subject of meditation
could present itself to the banker, so fortunately become bankrupt?
Danglars thought for ten minutes about his wife in Paris; another ten
minutes about his daughter travelling with Mademoiselle d’Armilly; the
same period was given to his creditors, and the manner in which he
intended spending their money; and then, having no subject left for
contemplation, he shut his eyes, and fell asleep. Now and then a jolt
more violent than the rest caused him to open his eyes; then he felt
that he was still being carried with great rapidity over the same
country, thickly strewn with broken aqueducts, which looked like
granite giants petrified while running a race. But the night was cold,
dull, and rainy, and it was much more pleasant for a traveller to
remain in the warm carriage than to put his head out of the window to
make inquiries of a postilion whose only answer was “_Non capisco_.”
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Danglars therefore continued to sleep, saying to himself that he would
be sure to awake at the posting-house. The carriage stopped. Danglars
fancied that they had reached the long-desired point; he opened his
eyes and looked through the window, expecting to find himself in the
midst of some town, or at least village; but he saw nothing except what
seemed like a ruin, where three or four men went and came like shadows.
Danglars waited a moment, expecting the postilion to come and demand
payment with the termination of his stage. He intended taking advantage
of the opportunity to make fresh inquiries of the new conductor; but
the horses were unharnessed, and others put in their places, without
anyone claiming money from the traveller. Danglars, astonished, opened
the door; but a strong hand pushed him back, and the carriage rolled
on. The baron was completely roused.
“Eh?” he said to the postilion, “eh, _mio caro?_”
This was another little piece of Italian the baron had learned from
hearing his daughter sing Italian duets with Cavalcanti. But _mio caro_
did not reply. Danglars then opened the window.
“Come, my friend,” he said, thrusting his hand through the opening,
“where are we going?”
“_Dentro la testa!_” answered a solemn and imperious voice, accompanied
by a menacing gesture.
Danglars thought _dentro la testa_ meant, “Put in your head!” He was
making rapid progress in Italian. He obeyed, not without some
uneasiness, which, momentarily increasing, caused his mind, instead of
being as unoccupied as it was when he began his journey, to fill with
ideas which were very likely to keep a traveller awake, more especially
one in such a situation as Danglars. His eyes acquired that quality
which in the first moment of strong emotion enables them to see
distinctly, and which afterwards fails from being too much taxed.
Before we are alarmed, we see correctly; when we are alarmed, we see
double; and when we have been alarmed, we see nothing but trouble.
Danglars observed a man in a cloak galloping at the right hand of the
carriage.
“Some gendarme!” he exclaimed. “Can I have been intercepted by French
telegrams to the pontifical authorities?”
He resolved to end his anxiety. “Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“_Dentro la testa_,” replied the same voice, with the same menacing
accent.
Danglars turned to the left; another man on horseback was galloping on
that side.
“Decidedly,” said Danglars, with the perspiration on his forehead, “I
must be under arrest.” And he threw himself back in the calash, not
this time to sleep, but to think.
Directly afterwards the moon rose. He then saw the great aqueducts,
those stone phantoms which he had before remarked, only then they were
on the right hand, now they were on the left. He understood that they
had described a circle, and were bringing him back to Rome.
“Oh, unfortunate!” he cried, “they must have obtained my arrest.”
The carriage continued to roll on with frightful speed. An hour of
terror elapsed, for every spot they passed showed that they were on the
road back. At length he saw a dark mass, against which it seemed as if
the carriage was about to dash; but the vehicle turned to one side,
leaving the barrier behind and Danglars saw that it was one of the
ramparts encircling Rome.
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“_Mon dieu!_” cried Danglars, “we are not returning to Rome; then it is
not justice which is pursuing me! Gracious heavens; another idea
presents itself—what if they should be——”
His hair stood on end. He remembered those interesting stories, so
little believed in Paris, respecting Roman bandits; he remembered the
adventures that Albert de Morcerf had related when it was intended that
he should marry Mademoiselle Eugénie. “They are robbers, perhaps,” he
muttered.
Just then the carriage rolled on something harder than gravel road.
Danglars hazarded a look on both sides of the road, and perceived
monuments of a singular form, and his mind now recalled all the details
Morcerf had related, and comparing them with his own situation, he felt
sure that he must be on the Appian Way. On the left, in a sort of
valley, he perceived a circular excavation. It was Caracalla’s circus.
On a word from the man who rode at the side of the carriage, it
stopped. At the same time the door was opened. “_Scendi!_” exclaimed a
commanding voice.
Danglars instantly descended; although he did not yet speak Italian, he
understood it very well. More dead than alive, he looked around him.
Four men surrounded him, besides the postilion.
“_Di quà_,” said one of the men, descending a little path leading out
of the Appian Way. Danglars followed his guide without opposition, and
had no occasion to turn around to see whether the three others were
following him. Still it appeared as though they were stationed at equal
distances from one another, like sentinels. After walking for about ten
minutes, during which Danglars did not exchange a single word with his
guide, he found himself between a hillock and a clump of high weeds;
three men, standing silent, formed a triangle, of which he was the
centre. He wished to speak, but his tongue refused to move.
“_Avanti!_” said the same sharp and imperative voice.
This time Danglars had double reason to understand, for if the word and
gesture had not explained the speaker’s meaning, it was clearly
expressed by the man walking behind him, who pushed him so rudely that
he struck against the guide. This guide was our friend Peppino, who
dashed into the thicket of high weeds, through a path which none but
lizards or polecats could have imagined to be an open road.
Peppino stopped before a rock overhung by thick hedges; the rock, half
open, afforded a passage to the young man, who disappeared like the
evil spirits in the fairy tales. The voice and gesture of the man who
followed Danglars ordered him to do the same. There was no longer any
doubt, the bankrupt was in the hands of Roman banditti. Danglars
acquitted himself like a man placed between two dangerous positions,
and who is rendered brave by fear. Notwithstanding his large stomach,
certainly not intended to penetrate the fissures of the Campagna, he
slid down like Peppino, and closing his eyes fell upon his feet. As he
touched the ground, he opened his eyes.
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The path was wide, but dark. Peppino, who cared little for being
recognized now that he was in his own territories, struck a light and
lit a torch. Two other men descended after Danglars forming the
rearguard, and pushing Danglars whenever he happened to stop, they came
by a gentle declivity to the intersection of two corridors. The walls
were hollowed out in sepulchres, one above the other, and which seemed
in contrast with the white stones to open their large dark eyes, like
those which we see on the faces of the dead. A sentinel struck the
rings of his carbine against his left hand.
“Who comes there?” he cried.
“A friend, a friend!” said Peppino; “but where is the captain?”
“There,” said the sentinel, pointing over his shoulder to a spacious
crypt, hollowed out of the rock, the lights from which shone into the
passage through the large arched openings.
“Fine spoil, captain, fine spoil!” said Peppino in Italian, and taking
Danglars by the collar of his coat he dragged him to an opening
resembling a door, through which they entered the apartment which the
captain appeared to have made his dwelling-place.
“Is this the man?” asked the captain, who was attentively reading
Plutarch’s _Life of Alexander_.
“Himself, captain—himself.”
“Very well, show him to me.”
At this rather impertinent order, Peppino raised his torch to the face
of Danglars, who hastily withdrew that he might not have his eyelashes
burnt. His agitated features presented the appearance of pale and
hideous terror.
“The man is tired,” said the captain, “conduct him to his bed.”
“Oh,” murmured Danglars, “that bed is probably one of the coffins
hollowed in the wall, and the sleep I shall enjoy will be death from
one of the poniards I see glistening in the darkness.”
From their beds of dried leaves or wolf-skins at the back of the
chamber now arose the companions of the man who had been found by
Albert de Morcerf reading _Cæsar’s Commentaries_, and by Danglars
studying the _Life of Alexander_. The banker uttered a groan and
followed his guide; he neither supplicated nor exclaimed. He no longer
possessed strength, will, power, or feeling; he followed where they led
him. At length he found himself at the foot of a staircase, and he
mechanically lifted his foot five or six times. Then a low door was
opened before him, and bending his head to avoid striking his forehead
he entered a small room cut out of the rock. The cell was clean, though
empty, and dry, though situated at an immeasurable distance under the
earth. A bed of dried grass covered with goat-skins was placed in one
corner. Danglars brightened up on beholding it, fancying that it gave
some promise of safety.
“Oh, God be praised,” he said; “it is a real bed!”
This was the second time within the hour that he had invoked the name
of God. He had not done so for ten years before.
“_Ecco!_” said the guide, and pushing Danglars into the cell, he closed
the door upon him.
A bolt grated and Danglars was a prisoner. If there had been no bolt,
it would have been impossible for him to pass through the midst of the
garrison who held the catacombs of St. Sebastian, encamped round a
master whom our readers must have recognized as the famous Luigi Vampa.
Danglars, too, had recognized the bandit, whose existence he would not
believe when Albert de Morcerf mentioned him in Paris; and not only did
he recognize him, but the cell in which Albert had been confined, and