to address himself to the superior authorities was come, sprang forward with clasped hands.
The soldiers presented their bayonets, for they thought he was about to attack the inspector, and the latter recoiled two or three steps. Dantès saw he was represented as a dangerous prisoner. Then, infusing all the humility he possessed into his eyes and voice, he addressed the inspector, and sought to inspire him with pity.
The inspector listened attentively; then, turning to the governor, observed in a low tone:
"He will become religious — he is already more gentle; he is afraid, and retreated before the bayonets — madmen are not afraid of anything; I made some curious observations on this at Charenton."
Then, turning to the prisoner, "What do you demand?" said he.
"I ask what crime I have committed — I ask to be tried before my judges; and I ask, if I am guilty, to be shot; if innocent, to be set at liberty."
"Are you well fed?" said the inspector.
"I believe so — I know not; but that matters little. What matters really, not only to me, but to every functionary of justice, every member of the government, is, that an innocent man should languish in prison, the victim of an infamous denunciation, cursing his murderers."
"You are very humble to-day," remarked the governor. "You are not so always; the other day, for instance, when you tried to kill the turnkey."
"It is true, sir, and I beg his pardon; for he has always been very good to me; but I was mad."
"And you are not so any longer?"
"No! captivity has subdued, broken, annihilated me; I have been here so long."
"So long? — when were you arrested, then?" asked the inspector.
"The 28th of February, 1815, at half-past two in the afternoon."
"To-day is the 30th of June, 1816: why, it is but seventeen months."
"Only seventeen months!" replied Dantes. "Oh, you do not know what is seventeen months in prison! seventeen years, seventeen ages rather, especially to a man who, like me, had arrived at the summit of his ambition to a man who, like me, was on the point of marrying a woman he adored, who saw an honorable career open before him, and who loses all in an instant who sees his prospects destroyed, and is Ignorant of the fate of his affianced wife, and whether his aged father be still living! Seventeen months' captivity to a sailor accustomed to the air, the expanse, the immensity of the boundless ocean, is a worse punish ment than human crime ever merited. Have pity on me, then, and ask
