pursue him, and he has suddenly taken refuge in the islands, at
Giglio, Guanouti, or Monte Cristo; and when they hunt for him
there, he reappears suddenly at Albano, Tivoli, or La Riccia."
"And how does he behave towards travellers?"
"Alas! his plan is very simple. It depends on the distance he
may be from the city, whether he gives eight hours, twelve hours,
or a day wherein to pay their ransom; and when that time has
elapsed he allows another hour's grace. At the sixtieth minute of
this hour, if the money is not forthcoming, he blows out the
prisoner's brains with a pistol-shot, or plants his dagger in his
heart, and that settles the account."
"Well, Albert," inquired Franz of his companion, "are you still
disposed to go to the Colosseum by the outer wall?"
"Quite so," said Albert, "if the way be picturesque." The clock
struck nine as the door opened, and a coachman appeared.
"Excellencies," said he, "the coach is ready."
"Well, then," said Franz, "let us to the Colosseum."
"By the Porta del Popolo or by the streets, your
excellencies?"
"By the streets, morbleu, by the streets!" cried Franz.
"Ah, my dear fellow," said Albert, rising, and lighting his
third cigar, "really, I thought you had more courage." So saying,
the two young men went down the staircase, and got into the
carriage.Franz had so managed his route, that during the ride to the
Colosseum they passed not a single ancient ruin, so that no
preliminary impression interfered to mitigate the colossal
proportions of the gigantic building they came to admire. The road
selected was a continuation of the Via Sistina; then by cutting off
the right angle of the street in which stands Santa Maria Maggiore
and proceeding by the Via Urbana and San Pietro in Vincoli, the
travellers would find themselves directly opposite the Colosseum.
This itinerary possessed another great advantage, — that of leaving
Franz at full liberty to indulge his deep reverie upon the subject
of Signor Pastrini's story, in which his mysterious host of Monte
Cristo was so strangely mixed up. Seated with folded arms in a
corner of the carriage, he continued to ponder over the singular
history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself an
interminable number of questions touching its various circumstances
without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of them.
One fact more than the rest brought his friend "Sinbad the Sailor"
back to his recollection, and that was the mysterious sort of
intimacy that seemed to exist between the brigands and the sailors;
and Pastrini's account of Vampa's having found refuge on board the
vessels of smugglers and fishermen, reminded Franz of the two
Corsican bandits he had found supping so amicably with the crew of
the little yacht, which had even deviated from its course and
touched at Porto-Vecchio for the sole purpose of landing them. The
very name assumed by his host of Monte Cristo and again repeated by
the landlord of the Hotel de Londres, abundantly proved to him that
his island friend was playing his philanthropic part on the shores
of Piombino, Civita-Vecchio, Ostia, and Gaeta, as on those of
Corsica, Tuscany, and Spain; and further, Franz bethought him of
having heard his singular entertainer speak both of Tunis and
Palermo, proving thereby how largely his circle of acquaintances
extended.Palermo, proving thereby how largely his circle of acquaintances
extended.
But however the mind of the young man might be absorbed in these
reflections, they were at once dispersed at the sight of the dark
frowning ruins of the stupendous Colosseum, through the various
openings of which the pale moonlight played and flickered like the
unearthly gleam from the eyes of the wandering dead. The carriage
stopped near the Meta Sudans; the door was opened, and the young
men, eagerly alighting, found themselves opposite a cicerone, who
appeared to have sprung up from the ground, so unexpected was his
appearance.
The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they had
paid two conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this
abundant supply of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone, who
seizes upon you directly you set foot in your hotel, and never
quits you while you remain in the city, there is also a special
cicerone belonging to each monument — nay, almost to each part of a
monument. It may, therefore, be easily imagined there is no
scarcity of guides at the Colosseum, that wonder of all ages, which
Martial thus eulogizes: "Let Memphis cease to boast the barbarous
miracles of her pyramids, and the wonders of Babylon be talked of
no more among us; all must bow to the superiority of the gigantic
labor of the Caesars, and the many voices of Fame spread far and
wide the surpassing merits of this incomparable monument."
As for Albert and Franz, they essayed not to escape from their
ciceronian tyrants; and, indeed, it would have been so much the
more difficult to break their bondage, as the guides alone are
permitted to visit these monuments with torches in their hands.
Thus, then, the young men made no attempt at resistance, but
blindly and confidingly surrendered themselves into the care and
custody of their conductors. Albert had already made seven or eight
similar excursions to the Colosseum, while his less favored
companion trod for the first time in his life the classic groundcompanion trod for the first time in his life the classic ground
forming the monument of Flavius Vespasian; and, to his credit be it
spoken, his mind, even amid the glib loquacity of the guides, was
duly and deeply touched with awe and enthusiastic admiration of all
he saw; and certainly no adequate notion of these stupendous ruins
can be formed save by such as have visited them, and more
especially by moonlight, at which time the vast proportions of the
building appear twice as large when viewed by the mysterious beams
of a southern moonlit sky, whose rays are sufficiently clear and
vivid to light the horizon with a glow equal to the soft twilight
of an eastern clime. Scarcely, therefore, had the reflective Franz
walked a hundred steps beneath the interior porticoes of the ruin,
than, abandoning Albert to the guides (who would by no means yield
their prescriptive right of carrying their victims through the
routine regularly laid down, and as regularly followed by them, but
dragged the unconscious visitor to the various objects with a
pertinacity that admitted of no appeal, beginning, as a matter of
course, with the Lions' Den, and finishing with Caesar's
"Podium,"), to escape a jargon and mechanical survey of the wonders
by which he was surrounded, Franz ascended a half-dilapidated
staircase, and, leaving them to follow their monotonous round,
seated himself at the foot of a column, and immediately opposite a
large aperture, which permitted him to enjoy a full and undisturbed
view of the gigantic dimensions of the majestic ruin.
Franz had remained for nearly a quarter of an hour perfectly
hidden by the shadow of the vast column at whose base he had found
a resting-place, and from whence his eyes followed the motions of
Albert and his guides, who, holding torches in their hands, had
emerged from a vomitarium at the opposite extremity of the
Colosseum, and then again disappeared down the steps conducting to
the seats reserved for the Vestal virgins, resembling, as they