Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/293

Rh and a mist passed over his eyes. Never did gamester whose whole fortune is staked on one cast of the die experience the anguish which Edmond felt in his paroxysms of hope.

Night came, and at ten o'clock they anchored. La Jeune Amélie was the first at the rendezvous. In spite of his usual command over himself, Dantès could not restrain his impetuosity. He was the first who jumped on shore; and had he dared, he would, like Lucius Brutus, have "kissed his mother earth." It was dark; but at eleven o'clock the moon rose in the midst of the ocean, whose every wave she silvered, and then, "ascending high," played in floods of pale light on the rocky hills of this second Pelion.

The island was familiar to the crew of La Jeune Amélie,—it was one of her halting-places. As to Dantès, he had passed it on his voyages to and from the Levant, but never touched at it. He questioned Jacopo.

"Where shall we pass the night?" he inquired.

"Why, on board the tartan," replied the sailor.

"Should we not be better in the grottoes."

"What grottoes?"

"Why, the grottoes—caves of the island."

"I do not know of any grottoes," replied Jacopo.

A cold damp sprang to Dantès' brow.

"What! are there no grottoes at Monte-Cristo?" he asked.

"None."

For a moment Dantès was speechless; then he remembered that these caves might have been filled up by some accident, or even stopped up, for the sake of greater security, by Cardinal Spada. The point was, then, to discover the lost opening. It was useless to search at night, and Dantès therefore delayed all investigation until the morning. Besides, a signal made half a league out at sea, to which La Jeune Amélie replied by a similar signal, indicated that the moment had arrived for business.

The boat that now arrived, assured by the answering signal that all was right, soon came in sight, white and silent as a phantom, and cast anchor within a cable's length of shore.

Then the landing began. Dantès reflected as he worked on the shout of joy which, with a single word, he could produce from amongst all these men, if he gave utterance to the one unchanging thought that was whispering in his ear and in his heart; but, far from disclosing this precious secret, he almost feared that he had already said too much, and by his restlessness and continual questions, his minute observations and evident preoccupation, had aroused suspicions. Fortunately, as regarded this circumstance at least, with him the painful past reflected on his countenance an indelible sadness; and the glimmer-