CHAPTER XXXIV
THE COLOSSEUM
RANZ had discovered a middle course, so that during the ride to the Colosseum they passed not a single ancient ruin; consequently, without any gradual preparation which could take from the colossal building a span's length of its gigantic proportions. The road selected was a continuation of the Via Sistina; then, by cutting off the right angle of the street in which stands Santa Maria Maggiore, and proceeding by the Via Urbana and San Pietro in Vincoli, the travelers would find themselves directly opposite the Colosseum.
This itinerary possessed another great advantage—that of leaving Franz at full liberty to indulge his deep reverie upon the subject of the story recounted by Pastrini, in which his mysterious host of the isle of Monte-Cristo was so strangely mixed up. Seated with folded arms in a corner of the carriage, he continued to ponder over the singular history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself an interminable number of questions touching its various circumstances, without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of them.
One fact more than the rest brought his friend "Sindbad the Sailor" back to his recollection, and that was the mysterious sort of intimacy that seemed to exist between the brigands and the sailors, and Pastrini's account of Vampa's having found refuge on board the vessels of smugglers and fishermen reminded Franz of the two Corsican bandits he had found supping so amicably with the crew of the little yacht, which had even deviated from its course and touched at Porto-Veechio for the sole purpose of landing them. The very name assumed by his host of Monte-Cristo, and again repeated by the landlord of the Hôtel de Londres, abundantly proved to him that his island friend was playing his philanthropic part equally on the shores of Piombino, Civita Vecchia,
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