The Count of Monte-Cristo/Volume 1/Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXV
THE UNKNOWN
AYLIGHT, for which Dantès had so waited with open eyes, again dawned. With the first beams of day Dantès rose, climbed, as on the previous evening, up the most elevated precipices of the island, to search the horizon around, but, as on previous evening, all was deserted.
Returning to the entrance of the cave, he raised the stone, filled his pockets with precious stones, put the box together as well as he could, covered with earth which he trod down, sprinkled fresh sand over the spot to give it everywhere a similar appearance; then, quitting the grotto, he replaced the stone, heaping on it large and small rocks, filling the interstices with earth, into which he planted wild myrtle and flowering thorn; then carefully watering these new plantations, he scrupulously effaced every trace of foot-mark and impatiently awaited the return of his companions. To wait at Monte-Cristo for the purpose of watching, as a dragon watches a useless treasure, over the most incalculable riches that had thus fallen into his possession satisfied not the cravings of his heart, which yearned to return to dwell among mankind, and to assume the rank, power, and influence which wealth, the first and greatest force at the disposal of man, alone can bestow.
On the sixth day the smugglers returned. From a distance Dantès recognized the cut and manner of sailing of La Jeune Amélie, and dragging himself, like wounded Philoctetes, toward the landing-place, he met his companions with an assurance that, although considerably better, he still suffered. He then inquired how they had fared in their trip. The smugglers had, indeed, been successful in landing their cargo, but they had scarcely done so when they received intelligence that a guardship had just quitted the port of Toulon, and was crowding all sail toward them; this obliged them to fly with all speed; when they could put lament the absence of Dantès, whose superior skill in the management of a vessel would have availed them so materially. In fact, the chasing vessel had almost overtaken them when night came on, and, by doubling the Cape of Corsica, they eluded pursuit. Upon the whole,
however, the trip had been sufficiently successful; while the crew, and particularly Jacopo, expressed regrets at Dantès not having been with them so as to be an equal sharer with themselves in the profits, amounting to no less a sum than fifty piastres each.
Edmond preserved his self-command, not even smiling at the enumeration of all the benefits he would have reaped had he been able to quit the isle; but, as La Jeune Amélie had merely come to Monte-Cristo to fetch him away, he embarked that same evening, and proceeded with the captain to Leghorn.
Arrived at Leghorn, he repaired to the house of a Jew, a dealer in precious stones, to whom he disposed of four of his smallest diamonds, for five thousand francs each. The Jew might have asked how a sailor became possessor of such objects; but he took good care not to do so, as he made a thousand francs on each.
The following day Dantès presented Jacopo with an entirely new vessel, accompanying the gift by one hundred piastres, that he might provide himself with a crew, upon conditions of his going to Marseilles for the purpose of inquiring after an old man named Louis Dantès, residing in the Allées de Meilhan, and also a young female called Mercédès, an inhabitant of the Catalan village.
Jacopo could scarcely believe his senses, but Dantès told him that he had merely been a sailor from whim, because his family did not allow him the money necessary for his support; but that on his arrival at Leghorn he had come into possession of a large fortune, left him by an uncle, whose sole heir he was. The superior education of Dantès gave an air of such probability to this statement that it never once occurred to Jacopo to doubt its accuracy.
The term for which Edmond had engaged to serve on board La Jeune Amélie having expired, Dantès took leave of the captain, who at first tried to retain him as one of the crew, but, having been told the history of the legacy, he ceased to importune him further.
The succeeding morning Jacopo set sail for Marseilles, with directions from Dantès to join him at the island of Monte-Cristo.
The same day Dantès departed without saying where he was going; he took leave of the crew of La Jeune Amélie after distributing a splendid gratuity, and of the captain with a promise to let him hear of him some day or other. Dantès went to Genoa.
At the moment of his arrival a small yacht was being tried in the bay, by order of an Englishman, who, having heard that the Genoese were the best builders of the Mediterranean, wanted a yacht built there. The price agreed upon with the Englishman was forty thousand francs. Dantès offered sixty thousand francs, upon condition of being allowed to take immediate possession of it. The Englishman had gone upon a tour through Switzerland, and was not expected back in less than three weeks or a month, by which time the builder reckoned upon being able to complete another. Dantès led the builder to a Jew, retired to a small back parlor, and the Jew counted out to the shipbuilder the sum of sixty thousand francs.
The builder then offered his services in providing a crew, but this Dantès declined with many thanks, saying he was accustomed to cruise about quite alone; the only thing the builder would oblige him in would be to contrive a secret closet in the cabin at his bed's head, the closet to
contain three divisions, so constructed as to be concealed from all himself. He gave the size of these divisions, which were executed next day.
Two hours afterward Dantès sailed from the port of Genoa, amid the gaze of a crowd curious to see the Spanish nobleman who preferred managing his vessel himself. He acquitted himself admirably; without quitting the tiller, he made his little vessel perform every movement he chose to direct: his bark seemed, indeed, possessed of intelligence, so promptly did it obey the slightest impulse given; and Dantès confessed to himself that the Genoese deserved their high reputation in the art of ship-building.
The spectators followed the little vessel with their eyes so long as it remained visible; they then turned their conjectures upon her probable destination. Some insisted she was making for Corsica; others, the isle of Elba; others offered bets to any amount that she was bound for Spain; others, to Africa; but no one thought of Monte-Cristo.
He arrived at the close of the second day; his bark had proved her self a first-class sailer, and had come the distance from Genoa in thirty-five hours. Dantès had carefully noted the general appearance of the shore, and, instead of landing at the usual place, he dropped anchor in the little creek. The isle was utterly deserted, no one seemed to have landed since he left it: his treasure was just as he had left it.
On the following morning he commenced the removal of his riches, and deposited it in the secret compartments of his hidden closet.
A week passed by. Dantès employed it in manœuvring his yacht round the island, studying it as a horseman studies his horse, till at the end of that time he was perfectly conversant with its good and bad qualities. The former Dantès proposed to augment, the latter to remedy.
Upon the eighth day of his being on the island he discerned a small vessel crowding all sail toward Monte-Cristo. He recognized the bark of Jacopo. He immediately signaled it. His signal was returned, and in two hours afterward the bark lay beside his yacht.
A mournful answer awaited each of Edmond's eager inquiries. Old Dantès was dead, and Mercédès had disappeared.
Dantès listened to these tidings with calmness; but, leaping ashore, he signified his desire to be quite alone. In a couple of hours he returned. Two of the men from Jacopo's bark came on board the yacht to assist in navigating it, and he commanded she should be steered direct to Marseilles. For his father's death he was prepared; but what became of Mercédès?
Without divulging his secret, Dantès could not give sufficiently clear instructions to an agent. There were, besides, other particulars he was desirous of ascertaining, and those were of a nature he alone could investigate. His looking-glass had assured him, during his stay at Leghorn, that he ran no risk of recognition; added to which, he had now the means of adopting any disguise he thought proper. One fine morning, then, his yacht, followed by the little bark, boldly entered the port of Marseilles, and anchored exactly opposite the memorable spot from whence, on a never-to-be-forgotten night, he had been put on board the boat for the Château d'If.
Dantès could not view without a shudder the gendarme who accompanied the health officers; but with that perfect self-possession he had acquired, Dantès presented an English passport he had obtained at Leghorn, and, by means of this document, found no difficulty in landing.
The first object that attracted the attention of Dantès, as he landed on the Cannebière, was one of the crew belonging to the Pharaon. This man had served under him, and furnished a sure test of the change in his appearance. Going straight toward him, he commenced a variety of questions, to which the man replied without a word or look implying his having the slightest idea of ever having seen before the individual with whom he was then conversing.
Giving the sailor a piece of money in return for his civility, Dantès proceeded onward; but ere he had gone many steps he heard the man loudly calling him to stop.
Dantès instantly turned to meet him.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the honest fellow, "but I believe you made a mistake: you intended to give me a two-franc piece, and see, you gave me a double Napoleon."
"Thank you, my good friend. I see that I have made a mistake; but by way of rewarding your honest spirit, I give you another double Napoleon, that you may drink to my health, with your messmates."
So extreme was the surprise of the sailor, that he was unable even to thank Edmond, whose receding figure he continued to gaze after, saying to himself, "Ah, that's one of those nabobs from India."
Dantès, meanwhile, continued his route. Each step he trod oppressed his heart with fresh emotion: his first and most indelible recollections were there: not a corner, not a street, not a crossing that he passed but seemed filled with dear and cherished reminiscences. At the end of the Rue de Noailles, a view of the Allées de Meilhan was obtained. At this spot his knees tottered under him, he had almost fallen beneath the wheels of a vehicle. Finally, he found himself at the door of the house in which his father had lived.
The nasturtiums and other plants, which his parent had delighted to train before his window, had all disappeared from the upper part of the house.
Leaning against a tree, he remained long gazing on those windows, then he advanced to the door, and inquired whether there were any chambers to be let. Though answered in the negative, he begged so earnestly to be permitted to visit those on the fifth floor, that the concierge went up to the present possessors and asked permission for a gentleman to be allowed to look at them. The tenants of the humble lodging were a young couple who had been scarcely married a week, and the sight sent a pang through his heart.
Nothing in the two small chambers recalled his father; the very paper was different, while the articles of antiquated furniture with which the rooms had been filled in Edmond's time had all disappeared; the four walls alone remained as he had left them.
The bed was placed as the former owner had been accustomed to have his; and, spite of his efforts to prevent it, the eyes of Edmond were suffused in tears as he reflected that on that spot his parent had expired, calling for his son.
The young couple gazed with astonishment at the sight of their
visitor's emotion, and the large tears which streamed down his immovable features; but they felt the sacredness of his grief, and kindly refrained from questioning him as to its cause, while, with instinctive delicacy, they left him to indulge his sorrow alone. When he withdrew from the scene of his painful recollections, they both accompanied him down-stairs, telling him that he could come again whenever he pleased, and that their poor dwelling should ever be open to him.
As Edmond passed the door of similar rooms on the fourth floor, he paused to inquire whether Caderousse the tailor still dwelt there; but he received for reply, that the man in question had got into difficulties, and at the present time kept a small inn on the route from Bellegarde to Beaucaire.
Having obtained the address of the person to whom the house in the Allées de Meilhan belonged, Dantès next proceeded thither, and, under the name of Lord Wilmore (the same appellation as that contained in his passport), purchased the small dwelling for the sum of 25,000 francs, at least 10,000 more than it was worth; but had its owner asked ten times the sum he did, it would unhesitatingly have been given.
The very same day the occupants of the apartments on the fifth floor of the house were informed by the notary who had arranged the transfer, that the new landlord gave them their choice of any of the rooms in the house, without the least increase of rent, upon condition of their giving him possession of the two chambers they inhabited.
This strange event occupied for a whole week the inhabitants of of the Allées de Meilhan, and caused a thousand guesses, not one of which came near the truth. But that which puzzled the brains of all was the circumstance of the same stranger who had visited the Allées de Meilhan being seen in the evening walking in the little village of the Catalans, and afterward observed to enter a poor fisherman's hut, and to pass more than an hour in inquiring after persons who had either been dead or gone away for more than fifteen or sixteen years.
But on the following day the family from whom all these particulars had been asked received a handsome present, consisting of an entirely new fishing-boat, with a full supply of excellent nets.
The honest fellows would gladly have poured out their thanks to their benefactor; but they had seen him, on quitting the hut, merely give some orders to a sailor, and then, springing lightly on horseback, quit Marseilles by the Porte d'Aix.
