Hard though he tried and fertile though his imagination was, he could not find any other means of reaching the island except to get someone to take him there.
Dantès was still racked by doubt when one evening the master, who had great confidence in him and was very anxious to retain his services as a member of the crew, took his arm and led him to a tavern in the Via del Oglio, where the cream of the smuggling profession in Leghorn was accustomed to meet.
This is where affairs along the coast were usually discussed. Dantès had already been to this maritime exchange two or three times and, at the sight of these bold buccaneers – the product of a coast of some two thousand leagues in circumference – he had wondered what power a man might wield if his will could manage to direct all these divergent or united threads.
This time, an important matter was under discussion. There was a ship loaded with Turkish carpets and cloth from the Levant and Kashmir. They had to find some neutral ground on which the exchange could take place, before bringing these goods to the coast of France. The bounty was so large that, if they were successful, each man should have fifty or sixty piastres.
The master of the Jeune-Amélie proposed disembarking on the island of Monte Cristo: since it was deserted and there were no soldiers or Customs men on it, it seemed to have been set down in the midst of the sea in the days of the pagan Olympus by Mercury, God of Tradesmen and Thieves – two sorts of people whom we consider separate, if not entirely distinct, but whom Antiquity appears to have classed together.
At the name of Monte Cristo, Dantès trembled with joy. He got up to hide his emotion and paced round the smoke-filled tavern, in which every dialect of the known world was blended into a single lingua franca.
When he returned to the discussion, it had been decided that they would land on Monte Cristo, setting off on this expedition the following night. Edmond was consulted and he confirmed that the island offered the greatest possible security and that, if they were to succeed, great enterprises needed to be undertaken promptly.
So the plan was adhered to, and it was agreed that they would get under way the following evening, meaning, if they had a calm sea and a favourable wind, that the day after next they would find themselves in the waters off the shore of the neutral island.
XXIII
THE ISLAND OF MONTE CRISTO
At last, by one of those unexpected chances which sometimes happen to people on whom misfortune has exhausted its ingenuity, Dantès was going to reach his goal by a simple, natural means and set foot on his island without arousing any suspicion. Only one night separated him from this long-awaited departure.
That night was one of the least restful that Dantès had ever spent. In the course of it he ran over every good and bad eventuality in his mind: if he closed his eyes, he saw Cardinal Spada’s letter written in blazing letters on the wall; if he fell asleep for a moment, the most insane dreams raced around his skull. He was going down into caves paved with emeralds, with walls of ruby and diamond stalactites. Pearls fell drop by drop in place of the water that habitually filters through the ground.
Edmond, delighted, wondering, filled his pockets with precious stones, then clambered up into the daylight, only to find them turned into nothing but ordinary rocks. Then he tried to get back into the marvellous caverns which he had only glimpsed, but the path twisted into infinite spirals and the entrance had become invisible. He searched through his tired brain for the mysterious, magic word that had opened the wonderful caves of Ali Baba to the Arab fisherman; but all in vain. The vanished treasure had reverted to the ownership of the genii of the earth, from whom he had momentarily hoped to ravish it.
Daylight found him almost as feverish as he had been at night, but it also brought logic to assist imagination, and Dantès managed to draw up a plan that had, until now, been only vaguely outlined in his mind.
With evening came the preparations for departure. These preparations gave Dantès an opportunity to hide his anxiety. Bit by bit, he had acquired an authority over his companions that allowed him to give orders as though he were the captain of the vessel; and since his orders were always clear, precise and easy to carry out, the crew obeyed him not only promptly but with pleasure.
The old seaman let him do as he pleased: he too had recognized Dantès’ superiority both to the others and to himself. He saw the young man as his natural successor and regretted that he did not have a daughter so that he might bind Edmond to him in that way.
At seven o’clock all was ready, and at ten past they rounded the lighthouse, just as it was being lit.
The sea was calm, with a fresh wind from the south-east. They were sailing under a clear sky in which God too was progressively putting on His lights, each another world. Dantès announced that everyone could go to bed and that he would take over the helm. When the Maltese – as they called him – made such an announcement, that was enough for everyone and they all went easily to bed.
This sometimes happened: from time to time, Dantès, driven out of solitude into the world, felt an imperative need for solitude. And what solitude is more vast and more poetic than that of a ship sailing alone on the sea, in the darkness of night and the silence of infinity, under the eye of the Lord?
This time his solitude was peopled with thoughts, the night illuminated by his dreams and the silence riven with his promises.
When the master woke up, the ship was proceeding under full sail; there was not an inch of canvas that was not swollen by the wind. They were travelling at more than two and a half leagues an hour. The island of Monte Cristo was rising before them on the horizon.
Edmond handed the ship back to its owner and went to take his turn in his hammock. Despite a night without sleep, he could not shut his eyes for an instant.
Two hours later, he returned on deck. The ship was just rounding Elba. They were abreast of Mareciana and had just passed the flat green island of La Pianosa. The blazing summit of Monte Cristo could be seen, reaching into the heavens.
Dantès ordered the helmsman to turn to port, so that they would leave La Pianosa on their right. He had reckoned that this manoeuvre would shorten the distance by two or three knots.
Around five in the evening, they could see the whole of the island. Every detail of it was clear, thanks to that clarity of the air which is peculiar to the light of the dying sun. Edmond gazed hungrily on the mass of rocks as they passed through all the colours of sunset, from bright pink to dark blue. From time to time, he flushed warmly, his forehead became congested and a purple haze crossed before his eyes. No gambler whose whole fortune is staked on a single roll of the dice has ever experienced the agony that Edmond did in his paroxysms of hope.
Night fell. At ten o’clock they dropped anchor. The Jeune-Amélie was the first to reach the rendez-vous.
Despite his usual self-control, Dantès could not contain himself. He was the first to leap on shore and, if he had dared, he would have kissed the soil like Brutus.
It was pitch black; but at eleven o’clock the moon rose over the sea, throwing a silver light on every crest; then, as it rose higher, its rays began to tumble in white cascades of light over the piled rocks of this other Pelion.1
The crew of the Jeune-Amélie were familiar with the island; it was one of their usual points of call. Dantès, on the other hand, had recognized it from each of his voyages to the Near East, but had never stopped off here.
He questioned Jacopo.
‘Where are we going to spend the night?’
‘On board, of course,’ the sailor replied.
‘Wouldn’t we be better in the caves?’
‘What caves?’
‘The ones on the island.’
‘I don’t know any caves,’ Jacopo said.
A cold sweat broke out on Dantès’ forehead.
‘There are no caves on Monte Cristo?’ he asked.
‘No.’
For a moment he was stunned, then he thought that the caves might have been filled in by some acc
ident or even been blocked by Cardinal Spada himself, as an extra precaution.
The main thing, in that case, would be to find the lost entrance. There was no point in looking at night, so Dantès put off his search until the next day. In any case, a signal displayed by a boat some half a league out to sea, to which the Jeune-Amélie responded immediately with the same, showed that the time had come to set to work.
The second ship, reassured by the signal which told the late arrival that it was safe to make land, soon appeared, white and silent as a ghost, and dropped anchor, a cable’s length from the shore. The transfer of goods began immediately.
As he worked, Dantès thought of the shout of joy that he could have brought from all these men with a single word if he had spoken aloud the thought that hummed incessantly in his ears and in his heart. But, far from revealing the marvellous secret, he was already afraid he might have said too much or that, by his coming and going, his repeated questions, his minute observations and his constant preoccupation, he might have aroused some suspicion. It was fortunate, at least in these circumstances, that an unhappy past had stamped his features with an indelible air of sadness and that one could perceive only brief flashes of the lights of merriment hovering beneath this cloud.
No one suspected anything and when, the next day, Dantès took a gun, some shot and powder, and said he would like to go and shoot one or two of the wild goats that could be seen leaping from rock to rock, his expedition was ascribed purely to love of hunting and a desire for solitude. Only Jacopo insisted on following him. Dantès did not want to object, fearing that any reluctance to take a companion with him might awaken suspicion. But they had gone hardly a quarter of a league when, seizing the opportunity to shoot a kid, he told Jacopo to take it back to the crew, suggesting that they should cook it, then signal to him that it was ready for him to share, by firing a shot. Some dry fruit and a flagon of Montepulciano would complete the meal.
Dantès continued, turning from time to time. Reaching the summit of a rock, he saw his companions a thousand feet below him; Jacopo had just joined them and they were already engaged in preparing a dinner which, thanks to Edmond’s skill, now had a main dish. He watched them for a moment with a sad, gentle smile of superiority.
‘In two hours,’ he said, ‘these men will leave, richer by fifty piastres, and proceed to risk their lives to gain fifty more. Finally, when they have six hundred livres, they will go and squander this fortune in some town or other, as proud as sultans and as arrogant as nabobs. Today, hope means that I despise their wealth, which seems to me like the most abject poverty; tomorrow, perhaps disappointment may mean that I shall be forced to consider that abject poverty as the height of happiness… Oh! no,’ he cried, ‘it cannot be. The wise, the infallible Faria cannot have been mistaken on this one point. In any event, better to die than to go on living this sordid and base existence.’
So Dantès, who three months earlier had wanted nothing except freedom, felt already not free enough, but wanted wealth. It was not the fault of Dantès, but of God who, while limiting the power of man, has created in him infinite desires! Meanwhile Dantès had approached the place where he supposed the caves to be situated, going along a road hidden between two walls of rock and down a path cut by the torrent, which, in all likelihood, no human foot had ever trodden. Following the line of the shore and examining everything minutely, he thought he could see on certain rocks marks which had been made by human hands.
Time casts its mossy mantle over physical objects and a mantle of forgetfulness on non-physical ones, and it seemed to have respected these marks, made with some regularity, probably with the aim of tracing a route; but occasionally they disappeared under great bunches of myrtle, heavy with flowers, or under clinging lichens. Edmond would then have to push aside the branches or lift the moss to discover the clues that led him into this new labyrinth. In any case, these marks had given Edmond hope. Why should it not be the cardinal who had made them, so that, in the event of some misfortune which he could not have imagined so absolute, they could serve to guide his nephew? This solitary place seemed designed for a man who wished to hide a treasure. But could these treacherous marks have attracted eyes other than those for which they were intended; had the dark and wonderful island guarded its marvellous secret faithfully?
Arriving at a point only about sixty yards from the port, but still hidden from his companions by the rocks, Edmond thought that the scratches had come to an end; but they did not lead to any kind of cave. The only point to which they seemed to direct him was a large round rock settled on a solid base. Edmond thought that, instead of having reached the end of the trail, he might, on the contrary, be only at the beginning, so he decided to take the opposite course and retrace his steps.
Meanwhile his companions had been preparing dinner, getting water from the spring, carrying bread and fruit ashore and cooking the kid. Just as they were taking it off its improvised spit, they saw Edmond leaping from rock to rock, as light and daring as a chamois; so they fired a shot as a signal to him. The huntsman immediately changed direction and ran back to them. But, just as they were all watching him as he leapt through the air – and accusing him of pushing his skill beyond the limits of caution – as if to justify their fears, Edmond lost his footing. They saw him totter on the peak of a rock, cry out and disappear.
All of them dashed forward at once, because they were all fond of Edmond, despite his superiority; but it was Jacopo who arrived first.
He found Edmond lying on the ground, covered in blood and almost unconscious: he must have tumbled from a height of twelve to fifteen feet. They put a few drops of rum in his mouth, and this medicine, which had already proved so effective with him, had the same result the second time.
Edmond re-opened his eyes, complained of a sharp pain in the knee, a great weight on his head and an unbearable stabbing in the small of the back. They tried to carry him to the beach, but when they touched him, even though Jacopo was directing operations, he groaned and said that he did not feel strong enough to be moved.
Of course, there was no question of him taking food, but he insisted that the others, not having the same reason as he did to fast, should go back to their dinner. For himself, he declared that he only needed a little rest and that they would find him better when they returned. Old sea-dogs do not stand on ceremony: the sailors were hungry and the smell of kid was wafting up to them, so they did not wait to be asked twice.
An hour later they returned. All that Edmond had managed to do was to drag himself about ten yards so that he was leaning against the mossy rock. But the pain, instead of lessening, actually seemed to have increased. The old master, who was obliged to leave that morning so that he could put off his cargo on the frontier of France and Piedmont, between Nice and Fréjus, insisted that Dantès try to get up. Dantès made a superhuman effort to comply, but every time fell back, pale and groaning.
‘His back is broken,’ the master whispered. ‘No matter, he’s a good comrade and we can’t abandon him. Let’s try to carry him to the tartan.’
But Dantès announced that he would rather die where he was than suffer the terrible pain that he felt at the slightest movement.
‘Well, then,’ said the master, ‘whatever happens, it will not be said that we left a good comrade like yourself without help. We’ll delay our departure until this evening.’
This suggestion astonished the sailors, though none of them opposed it; on the contrary. The master was a man of such rigid ideas that this was the first time they had seen him give up a project, or even delay it. But Dantès did not want such a serious breach of the ship’s rules to be made on his behalf.
‘No, no,’ he told the master. ‘I was clumsy and it is right that I should suffer for my own carelessness. Leave me a small supply of biscuits, a gun, powder and shot to kill goats – or even to defend myself – and a pickaxe so that I can build some kind of house, in case you are too long in returning to fetch me.’
‘Y
ou will starve,’ said the master.
‘Better that,’ Edmond answered, ‘than to suffer the unspeakable pain that I feel at the slightest movement.’
The master turned to look at the ship, swaying at anchor in the little harbour with its sails partly set, ready to head out to sea as soon as the rest of its canvas had been raised.
‘What can we do, Maltese?’ he said. ‘We cannot abandon you here, but we can’t stay, either.’
‘Leave, leave!’ Dantès cried.
‘We’ll be gone for at least a week, and even then we shall have to turn off course to pick you up.’
‘Listen,’ said Dantès, ‘if, two or three days from now, you meet some fishing boat or other that is sailing near here, let them know about me and I shall pay them twenty-five piastres to take me back to Leghorn. If you don’t pass any such vessel, then come back yourselves.’
The master shook his head.
‘Listen, Monsieur Baldi,’ Jacopo told the master, ‘there’s a way to settle all this. You leave and I’ll stay with the patient and take care of him.’
‘Would you give up your share in the bounty,’ Edmond said, ‘to stay with me?’
‘Willingly.’
‘You are a fine lad, Jacopo,’ said Edmond. ‘God will reward you for your goodwill. But I don’t need anyone, thank you. In a day or two I shall be rested, and I expect to find some excellent herbs in these rocks which will cure my wounds.’
A strange smile passed over Dantès’ face and he shook Jacopo’s hand warmly; but he was unshaken in his resolve to remain, and to remain alone.
The smugglers left Edmond what he wanted and walked off, looking back several times and warmly waving goodbye; Edmond replied with only one hand, as though he could not move the rest of his body.
Then, when they had gone, he muttered, with a laugh: ‘It’s strange that one should find such proof of affection and acts of devotion among men of that kind.’