suffered enough surely! Have pity on me, and do for me what I am unable
to do for myself."
As Dantes (his eyes turned in the direction of the Chateau d'If) uttered
this prayer, he saw off the farther point of the Island of Pomegue a
small vessel with lateen sail skimming the sea like a gull in search of
prey; and with his sailor's eye he knew it to be a Genoese tartan.
She was coming out of Marseilles harbor, and was standing out to sea
rapidly, her sharp prow cleaving through the waves. "Oh," cried Edmond,
"to think that in half an hour I could join her, did I not fear being
questioned, detected, and conveyed back to Marseilles! What can I do?
What story can I invent? under pretext of trading along the coast, these
men, who are in reality smugglers, will prefer selling me to doing a
good action. I must wait. But I cannot---- I am starving. In a few hours
my strength will be utterly exhausted; besides, perhaps I have not been
missed at the fortress. I can pass as one of the sailors wrecked last
night. My story will be accepted, for there is no one left to contradict
me."
As he spoke, Dantes looked toward the spot where the fishing-vessel had
been wrecked, and started. The red cap of one of the sailors hung to a
point of the rock and some timbers that had formed part of the vessel's
keel, floated at the foot of the crag. In an instant Dantes' plan was
formed. He swam to the cap, placed it on his head, seized one of the
timbers, and struck out so as to cut across the course the vessel was
taking.
"I am saved!" murmured he. And this conviction restored his strength.
He soon saw that the vessel, with the wind dead ahead, was tacking
between the Chateau d'If and the tower of Planier. For an instant he
feared lest, instead of keeping in shore, she should stand out to sea;
but he soon saw that she would pass, like most vessels bound for Italy,
between the islands of Jaros and Calaseraigne. However, the vessel and
the swimmer insensibly neared one another, and in one of its tacks
the tartan bore down within a quarter of a mile of him. He rose on the
waves, making signs of distress; but no one on board saw him, and the
vessel stood on another tack. Dantes would have shouted, but he knew
that the wind would drown his voice.
It was then he rejoiced at his precaution in taking the timber,
for without it he would have been unable, perhaps, to reach the
vessel--certainly to return to shore, should he be unsuccessful in
attracting attention.
Dantes, though almost sure as to what course the vessel would take, had
yet watched it anxiously until it tacked and stood towards him. Then
he advanced; but before they could meet, the vessel again changed her
course. By a violent effort he rose half out of the water, waving his
cap, and uttering a loud shout peculiar to sailers. This time he was
both seen and heard, and the tartan instantly steered towards him. At
the same time, he saw they were about to lower the boat.
An instant after, the boat, rowed by two men, advanced rapidly towards
him. Dantes let go of the timber, which he now thought to be useless,
and swam vigorously to meet them. But he had reckoned too much upon his
strength, and then he realized how serviceable the timber had been to
him. His arms became stiff, his legs lost their flexibility, and he was
almost breathless.
He shouted again. The two sailors redoubled their efforts, and one of
them cried in Italian, "Courage!"
The word reached his ear as a wave which he no longer had the strength
to surmount passed over his head. He rose again to the surface,
struggled with the last desperate effort of a drowning man, uttered a
third cry, and felt himself sinking, as if the fatal cannon shot were
again tied to his feet. The water passed over his head, and the sky
turned gray. A convulsive movement again brought him to the surface. He
felt himself seized by the hair, then he saw and heard nothing. He had
fainted.
When he opened his eyes Dantes found himself on the deck of the tartan.
His first care was to see what course they were taking. They were
rapidly leaving the Chateau d'If behind. Dantes was so exhausted that
the exclamation of joy he uttered was mistaken for a sigh.
As we have said, he was lying on the deck. A sailor was rubbing his
limbs with a woollen cloth; another, whom he recognized as the one who
had cried out "Courage!" held a gourd full of rum to his mouth; while
the third, an old sailer, at once the pilot and captain, looked on with
that egotistical pity men feel for a misfortune that they have escaped
yesterday, and which may overtake them to-morrow.
A few drops of the rum restored suspended animation, while the friction
of his limbs restored their elasticity.
"Who are you?" said the pilot in bad French.
"I am," replied Dantes, in bad Italian, "a Maltese sailor. We were
coming from Syracuse laden with grain. The storm of last night overtook
us at Cape Morgion, 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 Dantes. "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 Dantes, 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." Dantes recollected that his hair and beard had not been
cut all the time he was at the Chateau 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
to-day 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 Dantes,
"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 Dantes.
"We shall see," returned the other, smiling.
"Where are you going?" asked Dantes.
"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 sailer, 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 Dantes
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 Dantes, 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
Dantes.
"That's not fair," said the seaman who had saved Dantes; "for you know
more than we do."
"What is that to you, Jacopo?" returned the Captain. "Every one 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 Dantes. 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. Dantes 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 Chateau d'If?" said the captain.
A small white cloud, which had attracted Dantes' attention, crowned the
summit of the bastion of the Chateau 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 Chateau d'If, and they are firing
the alarm gun," replied Dantes. 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.
"At any rate," murmured he, "if it be, so much the better, for I have
made a rare acquisition." Under pretence of being fatigued, Dantes 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. Dantes 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 Dantes, 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 Dantes' arrest. He was nineteen when he entered the Chateau d'If;
he was thirty-three when he escaped. A sorrowful smile passed over his
face; he asked himself what had become of Mercedes, 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 sailer 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.
Dantes 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 Abbe Faria, the worthy master of The Young Amelia (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 Provencal, 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 Dantes was on board a smuggler.
At first the captain had received Dantes 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 Dantes 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 Dantes had handled the lugger had
entirely reassured him; and then, when he saw the light plume of smoke
floating above the bastion of the Chateau 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,
