Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/314

294 managing his vessel himself. He acquitted himself admirably; without quitting the tiller, he made his little vessel perform every movement he chose to direct: his bark seemed, indeed, possessed of intelligence, so promptly did it obey the slightest impulse given; and Dantès confessed to himself that the Genoese deserved their high reputation in the art of ship-building.

The spectators followed the little vessel with their eyes so long as it remained visible; they then turned their conjectures upon her probable destination. Some insisted she was making for Corsica; others, the isle of Elba; others offered bets to any amount that she was bound for Spain; others, to Africa; but no one thought of Monte-Cristo.

He arrived at the close of the second day; his bark had proved her self a first-class sailer, and had come the distance from Genoa in thirty-five hours. Dantès had carefully noted the general appearance of the shore, and, instead of landing at the usual place, he dropped anchor in the little creek. The isle was utterly deserted, no one seemed to have landed since he left it: his treasure was just as he had left it.

On the following morning he commenced the removal of his riches, and deposited it in the secret compartments of his hidden closet.

A week passed by. Dantès employed it in manœuvring his yacht round the island, studying it as a horseman studies his horse, till at the end of that time he was perfectly conversant with its good and bad qualities. The former Dantès proposed to augment, the latter to remedy.

Upon the eighth day of his being on the island he discerned a small vessel crowding all sail toward Monte-Cristo. He recognized the bark of Jacopo. He immediately signaled it. His signal was returned, and in two hours afterward the bark lay beside his yacht.

A mournful answer awaited each of Edmond's eager inquiries. Old Dantès was dead, and Mercédès had disappeared.

Dantès listened to these tidings with calmness; but, leaping ashore, he signified his desire to be quite alone. In a couple of hours he returned. Two of the men from Jacopo's bark came on board the yacht to assist in navigating it, and he commanded she should be steered direct to Marseilles. For his father's death he was prepared; but what became of Mercédès?

Without divulging his secret, Dantès could not give sufficiently clear instructions to an agent. There were, besides, other particulars he was desirous of ascertaining, and those were of a nature he alone could investigate. His looking-glass had assured him, during his stay at Leghorn, that he ran no risk of recognition; added to which, he had now the means of adopting any disguise he thought proper. One fine