The Count of Monte Cristo
“I am,” replied Dantès, in bad Italian, “a Maltese sailor. We were
coming from Syracuse laden with grain. The storm of last night overtook
us at Cape Morgiou, and we were wrecked on these rocks.”
“Where do you come from?”
“From these rocks that I had the good luck to cling to while our
captain and the rest of the crew were all lost. I saw your vessel, and
fearful of being left to perish on the desolate island, I swam off on a
piece of wreckage to try and intercept your course. You have saved my
life, and I thank you,” continued Dantès. “I was lost when one of your
sailors caught hold of my hair.”
“It was I,” said a sailor of a frank and manly appearance; “and it was
time, for you were sinking.”
“Yes,” returned Dantès, holding out his hand, “I thank you again.”
“I almost hesitated, though,” replied the sailor; “you looked more like
a brigand than an honest man, with your beard six inches, and your hair
a foot long.”
Dantès recollected that his hair and beard had not been cut all the
time he was at the Château d’If.
“Yes,” said he, “I made a vow, to our Lady of the Grotto not to cut my
hair or beard for ten years if I were saved in a moment of danger; but
today the vow expires.”
“Now what are we to do with you?” said the captain.
“Alas, anything you please. My captain is dead; I have barely escaped;
but I am a good sailor. Leave me at the first port you make; I shall be
sure to find employment.”
“Do you know the Mediterranean?”
“I have sailed over it since my childhood.”
“You know the best harbors?”
“There are few ports that I could not enter or leave with a bandage
over my eyes.”
“I say, captain,” said the sailor who had cried “Courage!” to Dantès,
“if what he says is true, what hinders his staying with us?”
“If he says true,” said the captain doubtingly. “But in his present
condition he will promise anything, and take his chance of keeping it
afterwards.”
“I will do more than I promise,” said Dantès.
“We shall see,” returned the other, smiling.
“Where are you going?” asked Dantès.
“To Leghorn.”
“Then why, instead of tacking so frequently, do you not sail nearer the
wind?”
“Because we should run straight on to the Island of Rion.”
“You shall pass it by twenty fathoms.”
“Take the helm, and let us see what you know.”
The young man took the helm, felt to see if the vessel answered the
rudder promptly and seeing that, without being a first-rate sailor, she
yet was tolerably obedient.
“To the sheets,” said he. The four seamen, who composed the crew,
obeyed, while the pilot looked on. “Haul taut.”
They obeyed.
“Belay.” This order was also executed; and the vessel passed, as Dantès
had predicted, twenty fathoms to windward.
“Bravo!” said the captain.
“Bravo!” repeated the sailors. And they all looked with astonishment at
this man whose eye now disclosed an intelligence and his body a vigor
they had not thought him capable of showing.
“You see,” said Dantès, quitting the helm, “I shall be of some use to
you, at least during the voyage. If you do not want me at Leghorn, you
can leave me there, and I will pay you out of the first wages I get,
for my food and the clothes you lend me.”
“Ah,” said the captain, “we can agree very well, if you are
reasonable.”
“Give me what you give the others, and it will be all right,” returned
Dantès.
“That’s not fair,” said the seaman who had saved Dantès; “for you know
more than we do.”
“What is that to you, Jacopo?” returned the Captain. “Everyone is free
to ask what he pleases.”
“That’s true,” replied Jacopo; “I only make a remark.”
“Well, you would do much better to find him a jacket and a pair of
trousers, if you have them.”
“No,” said Jacopo; “but I have a shirt and a pair of trousers.”
“That is all I want,” interrupted Dantès. Jacopo dived into the hold
and soon returned with what Edmond wanted.
“Now, then, do you wish for anything else?” said the patron.
“A piece of bread and another glass of the capital rum I tasted, for I
have not eaten or drunk for a long time.” He had not tasted food for
forty hours. A piece of bread was brought, and Jacopo offered him the
gourd.
“Larboard your helm,” cried the captain to the steersman. Dantès
glanced that way as he lifted the gourd to his mouth; then paused with
hand in mid-air.
“Hollo! what’s the matter at the Château d’If?” said the captain.
A small white cloud, which had attracted Dantès’ attention, crowned the
summit of the bastion of the Château d’If. At the same moment the faint
report of a gun was heard. The sailors looked at one another.
“What is this?” asked the captain.
“A prisoner has escaped from the Château d’If, and they are firing the
alarm gun,” replied Dantès. The captain glanced at him, but he had
lifted the rum to his lips and was drinking it with so much composure,
that suspicions, if the captain had any, died away.
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“Pretty strong rum!” said Dantès, wiping his brow with his sleeve.
“At any rate,” murmured he, “if it be, so much the better, for I have
made a rare acquisition.”
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Under pretence of being fatigued, Dantès asked to take the helm; the
steersman, glad to be relieved, looked at the captain, and the latter
by a sign indicated that he might abandon it to his new comrade. Dantès
could thus keep his eyes on Marseilles.
“What is the day of the month?” asked he of Jacopo, who sat down beside
him.
“The 28th of February.”
“In what year?”
“In what year—you ask me in what year?”
“Yes,” replied the young man, “I ask you in what year!”
“You have forgotten then?”
“I got such a fright last night,” replied Dantès, smiling, “that I have
almost lost my memory. I ask you what year is it?”
“The year 1829,” returned Jacopo.
It was fourteen years, day for day, since Dantès’ arrest. He was
nineteen when he entered the Château d’If; he was thirty-three when he
escaped. A sorrowful smile passed over his face; he asked himself what
had become of Mercédès, who must believe him dead. Then his eyes
lighted up with hatred as he thought of the three men who had caused
him so long and wretched a captivity. He renewed against Danglars,
Fernand, and Villefort the oath of implacable vengeance he had made in
his dungeon.
This oath was no longer a vain menace; for the fastest sailor in the
Mediterranean would have been unable to overtake the little tartan,
that with every stitch of canvas set was flying before the wind to
Leghorn.
Chapter 22. The Smugglers
Dantès had not been a day on board before he had a very clear idea of
the men with whom his lot had been cast. Without having been in the
school of the Abbé Faria, the worthy master of _La Jeune Amélie_ (the
name of the Genoese tartan) knew a smattering of all the tongues spoken
on the shores of that large lake called the Mediterranean, from the
Arabic to the Provençal, and this, while it spared him interpreters,
persons always troublesome and frequently indiscreet, gave him great
facilities of communication, either with the vessels he met at sea,
with the small boats sailing along the coast, or with the people
without name, country, or occupation, who are always seen on the quays
of seaports, and who live by hidden and mysterious means which we must
suppose to be a direct gift of Providence, as they have no visible
means of support. It is fair to assume that Dantès was on board a
smuggler.
At first the captain had received Dantès on board with a certain degree
of distrust. He was very well known to the customs officers of the
coast; and as there was between these worthies and himself a perpetual
battle of wits, he had at first thought that Dantès might be an
emissary of these industrious guardians of rights and duties, who
perhaps employed this ingenious means of learning some of the secrets
of his trade. But the skilful manner in which Dantès had handled the
lugger had entirely reassured him; and then, when he saw the light
plume of smoke floating above the bastion of the Château d’If, and
heard the distant report, he was instantly struck with the idea that he
had on board his vessel one whose coming and going, like that of kings,
was accompanied with salutes of artillery. This made him less uneasy,
it must be owned, than if the new-comer had proved to be a customs
officer; but this supposition also disappeared like the first, when he
beheld the perfect tranquillity of his recruit.
Edmond thus had the advantage of knowing what the owner was, without
the owner knowing who he was; and however the old sailor and his crew
tried to “pump” him, they extracted nothing more from him; he gave
accurate descriptions of Naples and Malta, which he knew as well as
Marseilles, and held stoutly to his first story. Thus the Genoese,
subtle as he was, was duped by Edmond, in whose favor his mild
demeanor, his nautical skill, and his admirable dissimulation, pleaded.
Moreover, it is possible that the Genoese was one of those shrewd
persons who know nothing but what they should know, and believe nothing
but what they should believe.
In this state of mutual understanding, they reached Leghorn. Here
Edmond was to undergo another trial; he was to find out whether he
could recognize himself, as he had not seen his own face for fourteen
years. He had preserved a tolerably good remembrance of what the youth
had been, and was now to find out what the man had become. His comrades
believed that his vow was fulfilled. As he had twenty times touched at
Leghorn, he remembered a barber in St. Ferdinand Street; he went there
to have his beard and hair cut. The barber gazed in amazement at this
man with the long, thick and black hair and beard, which gave his head
the appearance of one of Titian’s portraits. At this period it was not
the fashion to wear so large a beard and hair so long; now a barber
would only be surprised if a man gifted with such advantages should
consent voluntarily to deprive himself of them. The Leghorn barber said
nothing and went to work.
When the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his chin was
completely smooth, and his hair reduced to its usual length, he asked
for a looking-glass. He was now, as we have said, three-and-thirty
years of age, and his fourteen years’ imprisonment had produced a great
transformation in his appearance.
Dantès had entered the Château d’If with the round, open, smiling face
of a young and happy man, with whom the early paths of life have been
smooth, and who anticipates a future corresponding with his past. This
was now all changed. The oval face was lengthened, his smiling mouth
had assumed the firm and marked lines which betoken resolution; his
eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with thought; his eyes
were full of melancholy, and from their depths occasionally sparkled
gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his complexion, so long kept
from the sun, had now that pale color which produces, when the features
are encircled with black hair, the aristocratic beauty of the man of
the north; the profound learning he had acquired had besides diffused
over his features a refined intellectual expression; and he had also
acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature, that vigor which a frame
possesses which has so long concentrated all its force within itself.
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To the elegance of a nervous and slight form had succeeded the solidity
of a rounded and muscular figure. As to his voice, prayers, sobs, and
imprecations had changed it so that at times it was of a singularly
penetrating sweetness, and at others rough and almost hoarse.
Moreover, from being so long in twilight or darkness, his eyes had
acquired the faculty of distinguishing objects in the night, common to
the hyena and the wolf. Edmond smiled when he beheld himself; it was