Part 5 (1/2)
”He said he had heard of you before.”
”That will do, Alexis; I have all the information I require.”
The fisherman again touched his cap, and, making a low bow, took his departure.
Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Monte-Cristo would not have been disturbed by the presence of bandits so near the Island of Salmis, but it became an altogether different thing when those bandits were led by Benedetto.
A month pa.s.sed, but in it nothing occurred calculated to break the tranquillity of the Count and his family. The bandits had not reappeared and Benedetto had given no sign of life. The faithful Ali no longer deemed it necessary to maintain his precautions against surprise, and the strict watch that had been kept up day and night ever since the conflict in the almond grove was abandoned. Haydee, Zuleika and Esperance resumed their usual mode of life, having apparently dismissed the robbers from their minds, while even Monte-Cristo seemed free from all uneasiness.
One night, while the Count was writing at a late hour in the library, he yielded to fatigue and fell asleep over his papers. His slumber was troubled with a strange and vivid dream.
A man in the picturesque garb of a Greek peasant, and wearing a mask on his face, suddenly stood before him, with his arms folded upon his breast. Monte-Cristo saw him distinctly, though unable to stir either hand or foot. The singular visitant surveyed the Count long and steadily. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but as to his ident.i.ty the sleeper could form no idea. At last he slowly removed the mask, and recognition was instantaneous. The man was Danglars. He raised his right hand, and, pointing with his forefinger at the Count, said deliberately, with a hiss like some venomous serpent:
”Edmond Dantes, there is a bitter account open between us, and I am here to force you to a bitter settlement!”
The light of the huge lamp, suspended from the ceiling, fell full upon Danglars' countenance; it was as bloodless as that of a corpse, and the eyes shone with a remorseless, vindictive glare. The banker continued in the same hissing tone, his words penetrating to the very marrow of the slumberer's bones:
”Count of Monte-Cristo, for by that name it still pleases you to be called, listen to me. By the most ingenious and fiendish combinations possible for a human being to contrive, you wrecked my fortune and with it my hopes. You drove me ignominiously from Paris; in Rome you caused me to be starved and robbed by Luigi Vampa and his brigands; then with the malevolent magnanimity of an arch-demon you sent me forth into the world a fugitive and an outcast. Count of Monte-Cristo, Edmond Dantes, low-born sailor of Ma.r.s.eilles, modern Mephistopheles as you are, I will be even with you! You have had your vengeance; now you shall feel mine!
Here in the Grecian Archipelago, on the Island of Salmis, I will torture you through your dearest affections, and grind you to dust beneath my heel!”
As Danglars finished, his features changed and became those of Villefort, while his Greek peasant's garb was transformed into the sombre habiliments of the Procureur du Roi. Villefort's face wore the look of madness, but there was a freezing calmness in his voice as he said:
”Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte-Cristo, gaze upon the ruin you have made.
Through you I was dragged down from my high position, exposed, humiliated and deprived of reason. But although the mere wreck of my former self, I am not utterly powerless, as you shall learn to your cost. You raised up my infamous son, Benedetto, to be the instrument of my destruction. Now, he shall work yours, and avenge his unhappy father!”
The apparition paused, sighed deeply, and then resumed in a tone of still greater menace:
”Count of Monte-Cristo, look well to your beloved wife, Haydee, look well to your heroic son, Esperance, look well to your darling daughter, Zuleika, for this night they are in frightful danger! Look well to your fabulous riches, for they are threatened; look well to your stately and magnificent palace, for already the element that shall devour it is noiselessly and stealthily at work! Count of Monte-Cristo, farewell!”
A heart-rending shriek rang in the sleeper's ears, a mighty flash dazzled his eyes, and, with a grim smile upon his pallid countenance, Villefort vanished.
Monte-Cristo awoke with a quick start and pa.s.sed his hand across his forehead, as if dazed; then he leaped to his feet and glanced breathlessly about him. Danglars and Villefort had been only the idle coinage of his brain, but the heart-rending shriek, the mighty flash, they were, indeed, stern realities--the shriek was Haydee's, and the flash was fire!
”My G.o.d!” cried Monte-Cristo, standing for an instant rooted to the spot, ”can it be possible that this dream is the truth after all, and that I am even now to feel the vengeance of those two men?”
He sprang into the s.p.a.cious hall that was as light as day, and, as he did so, the figure of a man rushed by him--it was Benedetto, and in his hand he held a long knife dripping with blood. The Count turned and pursued him, s.n.a.t.c.hing a dagger from a table as he ran. At the door leading to the lawn, he grasped him firmly by the shoulder and held him.
”Murderer!” he shouted, ”whose blood is that upon your knife?”
”The blood of Haydee, the Greek slave!” hissed Benedetto, with a glare of ferocious triumph, ”the blood of Haydee, your wife! Edmond Dantes, I am even with you!”
Monte-Cristo struck at the a.s.sa.s.sin with his dagger, but Benedetto eluded the blow, and raising his own weapon inflicted a frightful gash upon the Count's cheek.
A terrible struggle ensued. Monte-Cristo was possessed of wonderful strength and activity, but in both these respects the two desperate antagonists seemed fairly matched. Three times did the Count bury his dagger in Benedetto's body, but, though the a.s.sa.s.sin's blood gushed copiously from his wounds, he continued to fight with the utmost determination. At length the men grappled in a supreme, deadly effort, but Monte-Cristo, making a false step, slipped on the blood-spattered marble floor, and Benedetto, with the quickness of thought, hurling him backward, freed himself and bounding through the open doorway vanished in the darkness beyond.
The Count uttered a groan of despair as he saw Haydee's self-confessed murderer escape him, and staggered to his feet; the fierce conflict with Benedetto had exhausted him, and he stood for an instant panting and breathless. The shrieks had now grown fainter and the hall was full of smoke. During all this time neither Ali nor any of the servants under him had appeared, a circ.u.mstance that, to Monte-Cristo, seemed inexplicable. He, however, did not pause to give it thought, but dashed up the stairway and strove to reach his wife's apartment; blinding, stifling clouds of smoke, through which penetrated the glare of the conflagration, drove him back again and again, but he renewed his attempts to force a pa.s.sage with undaunted energy and courage. Finally, compressing his lips and holding his nostrils with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, he gave a headlong plunge, and succeeded in reaching Haydee's door; it was open, displaying a scene that caused the Count's heart to sink within him; the whole chamber was one sea of flame; fiery tongues, like so many writhing and hissing serpents, were licking and consuming the costly tapestry, the richly carved furniture and the magnificent objects of art; the curtains of the bed were blazing, and upon the couch lay the senseless form of the wife of Monte-Cristo, the pallor of her faultless countenance contrasting painfully with the ruddy glow of the devouring element. In Haydee's breast was a gaping wound, from which her life blood was slowly oozing in ruby drops.
Rendered utterly reckless by the terrible sight, the Count madly rushed to the couch, tore his beloved Haydee from it, and, clasping her tightly against his bosom, staggered into the corridor with his precious burden. There the smoke had increased in volume and density, but, summoning all his resolution and endurance to his aid, he plunged through it, and finally was successful in reaching the library.