with the air of one long acquainted with each nook or corner. Nor,
although preceding the party, did he once mistake one door for
another, or commit the smallest error when choosing any particular
corridor or staircase to conduct him to a place or suite of rooms
he desired to visit. Ali was his principal attendant during this
nocturnal survey. Having given various orders to Bertuccio relative
to the improvements and alterations he desired to make in the
house, the Count, drawing out his watch, said to the attentive
Nubian, "It is half-past eleven o'clock; Haidee will soon he here.
Have the French attendants been summoned to await her coming?" Ali
extended his hands towards the apartments destined for the fair
Greek, which were so effectually concealed by means of a tapestried
entrance, that it would have puzzled the most curious to have
divined their existence. Ali, having pointed to the apartments,
held up three fingers of his right hand, and then, placing it
beneath his head, shut his eyes, and feigned to sleep. "I
understand," said Monte Cristo, well acquainted with Ali's
pantomime; "you mean to tell me that three female attendants await
their new mistress in her sleeping-chamber." Ali, with considerable
animation, made a sign in the affirmative.
"Madame will be tired to-night," continued Monte Cristo, "and
will, no doubt, wish to rest. Desire the French attendants not to
weary her with questions, but merely to pay their respectful duty
and retire. You will also see that the Greek servants hold no
communication with those of this country." He bowed. Just at that
moment voices were heard hailing the concierge. The gate opened, a
carriage rolled down the avenue, and stopped at the steps. The
count hastily descended, presented himself at the already opened
carriage door, and held out his hand to a young woman, completely
enveloped in a green silk mantle heavily embroidered with gold. She
raised the hand extended towards her to her lips, and kissed itraised the hand extended towards her to her lips, and kissed it
with a mixture of love and respect. Some few words passed between
them in that sonorous language in which Homer makes his gods
converse. The young woman spoke with an expression of deep
tenderness, while the count replied with an air of gentle gravity.
Preceded by Ali, who carried a rose-colored flambeau in his hand,
the new-comer, who was no other than the lovely Greek who had been
Monte Cristo's companion in Italy, was conducted to her apartments,
while the count retired to the pavilion reserved for himself. In
another hour every light in the house was extinguished, and it
might have been thought that all its inmates slept.About two o'clock the following day a calash, drawn by a pair of
magnificent English horses, stopped at the door of Monte Cristo and
a person, dressed in a blue coat, with buttons of a similar color,
a white waistcoat, over which was displayed a massive gold chain,
brown trousers, and a quantity of black hair descending so low over
his eyebrows as to leave it doubtful whether it were not artificial
so little did its jetty glossiness assimilate with the deep
wrinkles stamped on his features — a person, in a word, who,
although evidently past fifty, desired to be taken for not more
than forty, bent forwards from the carriage door, on the panels of
which were emblazoned the armorial bearings of a baron, and
directed his groom to inquire at the porter's lodge whether the
Count of Monte Cristo resided there, and if he were within. While
waiting, the occupant of the carriage surveyed the house, the
garden as far as he could distinguish it, and the livery of
servants who passed to and fro, with an attention so close as to be
somewhat impertinent. His glance was keen but showed cunning rather
than intelligence; his lips were straight, and so thin that, as
they closed, they were drawn in over the teeth; his cheek-bones
were broad and projecting, a never-failing proof of audacity and
craftiness; while the flatness of his forehead, and the enlargement
of the back of his skull, which rose much higher than his large and
coarsely shaped ears, combined to form a physiognomy anything but
prepossessing, save in the eyes of such as considered that the
owner of so splendid an equipage must needs be all that was
admirable and enviable, more especially when they gazed on the
enormous diamond that glittered in his shirt, and the red ribbon
that depended from his button-hole.
The groom, in obedience to his orders, tapped at the window of
the porter's lodge, saying, "Pray, does not the Count of Monte
Cristo live here?"
"His excellency does reside here," replied the concierge; "but"Cristo live here?"
"His excellency does reside here," replied the concierge; "but"
— added he, glancing an inquiring look at Ali. Ali returned a sign
in the negative. "But what?" asked the groom.
"His excellency does not receive visitors to-day."
"Then here is my master's card, — the Baron Danglars. You will
take it to the count, and say that, although in haste to attend the
Chamber, my master came out of his way to have the honor of calling
upon him."
"I never speak to his excellency," replied the concierge; "the
valet de chambre will carry your message." The groom returned to
the carriage. "Well?" asked Danglars. The man, somewhat
crest-fallen by the rebuke he had received, repeated what the
concierge had said. "Bless me," murmured Baron Danglars, "this must
surely be a prince instead of a count by their styling him
`excellency,' and only venturing to address him by the medium of
his valet de chambre. However, it does not signify; he has a letter
of credit on me, so I must see him when he requires his money."
Then, throwing himself back in his carriage, Danglars called out
to his coachman, in a voice that might be heard across the road,
"To the Chamber of Deputies."
Apprised in time of the visit paid him, Monte Cristo had, from
behind the blinds of his pavilion, as minutely observed the baron,
by means of an excellent lorgnette, as Danglars himself had
scrutinized the house, garden, and servants. "That fellow has a
decidedly bad countenance," said the count in a tone of disgust, as
he shut up his glass into its ivory case. "How comes it that all do
not retreat in aversion at sight of that flat, receding,
serpent-like forehead, round, vulture-shaped head, and sharp-hooked
nose, like the beak of a buzzard? Ali," cried he, striking at the
same time on the brazen gong. Ali appeared. "Summon Bertuccio,"
said the count. Almost immediately Bertuccio entered the apartment.
"Did your excellency desire to see me?" inquired he. "I did,"
replied the count. "You no doubt observed the horses standing a few