sir,--help!"
This mournful appeal pierced the darkness. The door of the
back-staircase opened, then the side-gate of the garden, and Ali and his
master were on the spot with lights.
Chapter 83. The Hand of God.
Caderousse continued to call piteously, "Help, reverend sir, help!"
"What is the matter?" asked Monte Cristo.
"Help," cried Caderousse; "I am murdered!"
"We are here;--take courage."
"Ah, it's all over! You are come too late--you are come to see me die.
What blows, what blood!" He fainted. Ali and his master conveyed the
wounded man into a room. Monte Cristo motioned to Ali to undress him,
and he then examined his dreadful wounds. "My God!" he exclaimed, "thy
vengeance is sometimes delayed, but only that it may fall the more
effectually." Ali looked at his master for further instructions. "Bring
here immediately the king's attorney, M. de Villefort, who lives in the
Faubourg St. Honore. As you pass the lodge, wake the porter, and send
him for a surgeon." Ali obeyed, leaving the abbe alone with Caderousse,
who had not yet revived.
When the wretched man again opened his eyes, the count looked at him
with a mournful expression of pity, and his lips moved as if in prayer.
"A surgeon, reverend sir--a surgeon!" said Caderousse.
"I have sent for one," replied the abbe.
"I know he cannot save my life, but he may strengthen me to give my
evidence."
"Against whom?"
"Against my murderer."
"Did you recognize him?"
"Yes; it was Benedetto."
"The young Corsican?"
"Himself."
"Your comrade?"
"Yes. After giving me the plan of this house, doubtless hoping I should
kill the count and he thus become his heir, or that the count would kill
me and I should be out of his way, he waylaid me, and has murdered me."
"I have also sent for the procureur."
"He will not come in time; I feel my life fast ebbing."
"Wait a moment," said Monte Cristo. He left the room, and returned
in five minutes with a phial. The dying man's eyes were all the time
riveted on the door, through which he hoped succor would arrive.
"Hasten, reverend sir, hasten! I shall faint again!" Monte Cristo
approached, and dropped on his purple lips three or four drops of the
contents of the phial. Caderousse drew a deep breath. "Oh," said he,
"that is life to me; more, more!"
"Two drops more would kill you," replied the abbe.
"Oh, send for some one to whom I can denounce the wretch!"
"Shall I write your deposition? You can sign it."
"Yes, yes," said Caderousse; and his eyes glistened at the thought of
this posthumous revenge. Monte Cristo wrote:--
"I die, murdered by the Corsican Benedetto, my comrade in the galleys at
Toulouse, No. 59."
"Quick, quick!" said Caderousse, "or I shall be unable to sign it."
Monte Cristo gave the pen to Caderousse, who collected all his strength,
signed it, and fell back on his bed, saying: "You will relate all the
rest, reverend sir; you will say he calls himself Andrea Cavalcanti. He
lodges at the Hotel des Princes. Oh, I am dying!" He again fainted. The
abbe made him smell the contents of the phial, and he again opened his
eyes. His desire for revenge had not forsaken him.
"Ah, you will tell all I have said, will you not, reverend sir?"
"Yes, and much more."
"What more will you say?"
"I will say he had doubtless given you the plan of this house, in the
hope the count would kill you. I will say, likewise, he had apprised the
count, by a note, of your intention, and, the count being absent, I read
the note and sat up to await you."
"And he will be guillotined, will be not?" said Caderousse. "Promise me
that, and I will die with that hope."
"I will say," continued the count, "that he followed and watched you the
whole time, and when he saw you leave the house, ran to the angle of the
wall to conceal himself."
"Did you see all that?"
"Remember my words: 'If you return home safely, I shall believe God has
forgiven you, and I will forgive you also.'"
"And you did not warn me!" cried Caderousse, raising himself on his
elbows. "You knew I should be killed on leaving this house, and did not
warn me!"
"No; for I saw God's justice placed in the hands of Benedetto, and
should have thought it sacrilege to oppose the designs of providence."
"God's justice! Speak not of it, reverend sir. If God were just, you
know how many would be punished who now escape."
"Patience," said the abbe, in a tone which made the dying man shudder;
"have patience!" Caderousse looked at him with amazement. "Besides,"
said the abbe, "God is merciful to all, as he has been to you; he is
first a father, then a judge."
"Do you then believe in God?" said Caderousse.
"Had I been so unhappy as not to believe in him until now," said Monte
Cristo, "I must believe on seeing you." Caderousse raised his clinched
hands towards heaven.
"Listen," said the abbe, extending his hand over the wounded man, as
if to command him to believe; "this is what the God in whom, on your
death-bed, you refuse to believe, has done for you--he gave you health,
strength, regular employment, even friends--a life, in fact, which a man
might enjoy with a calm conscience. Instead of improving these gifts,
rarely granted so abundantly, this has been your course--you have given
yourself up to sloth and drunkenness, and in a fit of intoxication have
ruined your best friend."
"Help!" cried Caderousse; "I require a surgeon, not a priest; perhaps
I am not mortally wounded--I may not die; perhaps they can yet save my
life."
"Your wounds are so far mortal that, without the three drops I gave you,
you would now be dead. Listen, then."
"Ah," murmured Caderousse, "what a strange priest you are; you drive the
dying to despair, instead of consoling them."
"Listen," continued the abbe. "When you had betrayed your friend God
began not to strike, but to warn you. Poverty overtook you. You had
already passed half your life in coveting that which you might have
honorably acquired; and already you contemplated crime under the excuse
of want, when God worked a miracle in your behalf, sending you, by my
hands, a fortune--brilliant, indeed, for you, who had never possessed
any. But this unexpected, unhoped-for, unheard-of fortune sufficed
you no longer when you once possessed it; you wished to double it, and
how?--by a murder! You succeeded, and then God snatched it from you, and
brought you to justice."
"It was not I who wished to kill the Jew," said Caderousse; "it was La
Carconte."
"Yes," said Monte Cristo, "and God,--I cannot say in justice, for his
justice would have slain you,--but God, in his mercy, spared your life."
"Pardieu, to transport me for life, how merciful!"
"You thought it a mercy then, miserable wretch! The coward who feared
death rejoiced at perpetual disgrace; for like all galley-slaves, you
said, 'I may escape from prison, I cannot from the grave.' And you said
truly; the way was opened for you unexpectedly. An Englishman visited
Toulon, who had vowed to rescue two men from infamy, and his choice
fell on you and your companion. You received a second fortune, money and
tranquillity were restored to you, and you, who had been condemned to a
felon's life, might live as other men. Then, wretched creature, then you
tempted God a third time. 'I have not enough,' you said, when you had
more than you before possessed, and you committed a third crime, without
reason, without excuse. God is wearied; he has punished you." Caderousse
was fast sinking. "Give me drink," said he: "I thirst--I burn!" Monte
Cristo gave him a glass of water. "And yet that villain, Benedetto, will
escape!"
"No one, I tell you, will escape; Benedetto will be punished."
"Then, you, too, will be punished, for you did not do your duty as a
priest--you should have prevented Benedetto from killing me."
"I?" said the count, with a smile which petrified the dying man, "when
you had just broken your knife against the coat of mail which protected
my breast! Yet perhaps if I had found you humble and penitent, I might
have prevented Benedetto from killing you; but I found you proud and
blood-thirsty, and I left you in the hands of God."
"I do not believe there is a God," howled Caderousse; "you do not
believe it; you lie--you lie!"
"Silence," said the abbe; "you will force the last drop of blood from
your veins. What! you do not believe in God when he is striking you
dead? you will not believe in him, who requires but a prayer, a word, a
tear, and he will forgive? God, who might have directed the assassin's
dagger so as to end your career in a moment, has given you this quarter
of an hour for repentance. Reflect, then, wretched man, and repent."
"No," said Caderousse, "no; I will not repent. There is no God; there is
no providence--all comes by chance."--
"There is a providence; there is a God," said Monte Cristo, "of whom you
are a striking proof, as you lie in utter despair, denying him, while I
stand before you, rich, happy, safe and entreating that God in whom you
endeavor not to believe, while in your heart you still believe in him."
"But who are you, then?" asked Caderousse, fixing his dying eyes on the
count. "Look well at me!" said Monte Cristo, putting the light near his
face. "Well, the abbe--the Abbe Busoni." Monte Cristo took off the wig
which disfigured him, and let fall his black hair, which added so
much to the beauty of his pallid features. "Oh?" said Caderousse,
thunderstruck, "but for that black hair, I should say you were the
Englishman, Lord Wilmore."
"I am neither the Abbe Busoni nor Lord Wilmore," said Monte Cristo;
"think again,--do you not recollect me?" Those was a magic effect in
the count's words, which once more revived the exhausted powers of the
miserable man. "Yes, indeed," said he; "I think I have seen you and
known you formerly."
"Yes, Caderousse, you have seen me; you knew me once."
"Who, then, are you? and why, if you knew me, do you let me die?"
"Because nothing can save you; your wounds are mortal. Had it been
possible to save you, I should have considered it another proof of God's
mercy, and I would again have endeavored to restore you, I swear by my
father's tomb."
"By your father's tomb!" said Caderousse, supported by a supernatural
power, and half-raising himself to see more distinctly the man who had
just taken the oath which all men hold sacred; "who, then, are you?"
The count had watched the approach of death. He knew this was the last
struggle. He approached the dying man, and, leaning over him with a calm
and melancholy look, he whispered, "I am--I am"--And his almost closed
lips uttered a name so low that the count himself appeared afraid to
hear it. Caderousse, who had raised himself on his knees, and stretched
out his arm, tried to draw back, then clasping his hands, and raising
them with a desperate effort, "O my God, my God!" said he, "pardon me
for having denied thee; thou dost exist, thou art indeed man's father
in heaven, and his judge on earth. My God, my Lord, I have long despised
thee! Pardon me, my God; receive me, O my Lord!" Caderousse sighed
deeply, and fell back with a groan. The blood no longer flowed from his
wounds. He was dead.
"One!" said the count mysteriously, his eyes fixed on the corpse,
disfigured by so awful a death. Ten minutes afterwards the surgeon and
the procureur arrived, the one accompanied by the porter, the other by
Ali, and were received by the Abbe Busoni, who was praying by the side
of the corpse.
Chapter 84. Beauchamp.
The daring attempt to rob the count was the topic of conversation
throughout Paris for the next fortnight. The dying man had signed a
deposition declaring Benedetto to be the assassin. The police had orders
to make the strictest search for the murderer. Caderousse's knife, dark
lantern, bunch of keys, and clothing, excepting the waistcoat, which
could not be found, were deposited at the registry; the corpse was
conveyed to the morgue. The count told every one that this adventure had
happened during his absence at Auteuil, and that he only knew what
was related by the Abbe Busoni, who that evening, by mere chance, had
requested to pass the night in his house, to examine some valuable books
in his library. Bertuccio alone turned pale whenever Benedetto's name
was mentioned in his presence, but there was no reason why any one
should notice his doing so. Villefort, being called on to prove
the crime, was preparing his brief with the same ardor that he was
accustomed to exercise when required to speak in criminal cases.
But three weeks had already passed, and the most diligent search had
been unsuccessful; the attempted robbery and the murder of the robber
by his comrade were almost forgotten in anticipation of the approaching
marriage of Mademoiselle Danglars to the Count Andrea Cavalcanti. It was
expected that this wedding would shortly take place, as the young
man was received at the banker's as the betrothed. Letters had been
despatched to M. Cavalcanti, as the count's father, who highly approved
of the union, regretted his inability to leave Parma at that time, and
