The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated, Alexandre Dumas [ereader with android .TXT] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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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. Dantès 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.
Dantès, 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 sailors. 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. Dantès 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 Dantès found himself on the deck of the tartan. His first care was to see what course they were taking. They were rapidly leaving the Château d’If behind. Dantès 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 sailor, 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 tomorrow.
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 Dantès, in bad Italian, “a Maltese sailor. We were coming from Syracuse laden with grain. The storm of last night overtook us at Cape Morgiou, 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 Dantès. “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 Dantès, 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.”
Dantès recollected that his hair and beard had not been cut all the time he was at the Château 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 today 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 Dantès, “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 Dantès.
“We shall see,” returned the other, smiling.
“Where are you going?” asked Dantès.
“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 sailor, 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 Dantès 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 Dantès, 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 Dantès.
“That’s not fair,” said the seaman who had saved Dantès; “for you know more than we do.”
“What is that to you, Jacopo?” returned the Captain. “Everyone 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 Dantès. 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. Dantès 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 Château d’If?” said the captain.
A small white cloud, which had attracted Dantès’ attention, crowned the summit of the bastion of the Château 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 Château d’If, and they are firing the alarm gun,” replied Dantès. 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.
“Pretty strong rum! “ said Dantès, wiping his brow with his sleeve.
“At any rate,” murmured he, “if it be, so much the better, for I have made a rare acquisition.”
Under pretence of being fatigued, Dantès 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. Dantès 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 Dantès, 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 Dantès’ arrest. He was nineteen when he entered the Château d’If; he was thirty-three when he escaped. A sorrowful smile passed over his face; he asked himself what had become of Mercédès, 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 sailor 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.
Dantès 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 Abbé Faria, the worthy master of La Jeune Amélie (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 Provençal, 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 Dantès was on board a smuggler.
At first the captain had received Dantès 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 Dantès 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 Dantès had handled the lugger had entirely reassured him; and then, when he saw the light plume of smoke floating above the bastion of the Château 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, and held stoutly to his first story. Thus the Genoese, subtle as he was, was duped by Edmond, in whose favor his mild demeanor, his nautical skill, and his admirable dissimulation, pleaded. Moreover, it is possible that the Genoese was one
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