Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 1).djvu/60

40 Fernand filled Caderousse's glass, who, toper as he was, lifted his hand from the paper and seized the glass.

The Catalan watched him until Caderousse, almost overcome by this fresh assault on his senses, rested, or rather allowed his glass to fall upon the table.

"Well!" resumed the Catalan, as he saw the final glimmer of Cade rousse's reason vanishing before the last glass of wine.

"Well, then, I should say, for instance," resumed Danglars, "that if after a voyage such as Dantès has just made, and in which he touched at Naples and the isle of Elba, some one were to denounce him to the king's procureur as a Bonapartist agent"

"I will denounce him!" exclaimed the young man, hastily.

"Yes, but they will make you then sign your declaration, and confront you with him you have denounced; I will supply you with the means of supporting your accusation, I am quite sure. But Dantès cannot remain forever in prison, and one day or other he will leave it, and the day when he comes out, woe betide him who was the cause of his incarceration!"

"Oh, I should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek a quarrel with me."

"Yes, and Mercédès! Mercédès, who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved Edmond!"

"True!" said Fernand.

"No! no!" continued Danglars; "if we resolve on such a step, it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and simply write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recog nized) a little denunciation like this."

And Danglars, uniting practice with theory, wrote with his left hand, and in a back-hand that had no analogy to his usual writing, the following lines, which he handed to Fernand, and which Fernand read on in undertone:

"The Procureur du Roi is informed by a friend of the throne and religion that one Edmond Dantes, mate of the ship Pharaon, arrived this morning from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been intrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper, and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist Committee, in Paris.

"Proof of this crime will be found on arresting him, for the letter will be found upon him, or at his father's, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon."

"Very good," resumed Danglars; "now your revenge looks like com mon sense, for in no way can it revert to yourself, and the matter will thus work its own way; there is nothing to do now but fold the letter