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."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 withMercedes, 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.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