Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/248

230 whom I took for a descendant of Tullia or Poppaea, whilst I was simply the object of the attentions of a contadine, and I say contadine to avoid saying peasant-girl. What I know is, that, like a fool, a greater fool than he of whom I spoke just now, I mistook for this peasant a young bandit of fifteen or sixteen, with a beardless chin and slim waist, and who, just as I was about to imprint a chaste salute on his lips, placed a pistol to my head, and, aided by seven or eight others, led, or rather dragged me, to the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian, where I found a highly educated chief of brigands perusing Caesar's 'Commentaries,' and who deigned to leave off reading to inform me that unless the next morning, before six o'clock, four thousand piastres were paid in to his account at his banker's, at a quarter-past six I should have ceased to exist. The letter is still to be seen, for it is in Franz d'Epinay's posses sion, signed by me, and with a postcript of M. Luigi Vampa. This is all I know, but I know not, M. le Comte, how you contrived to inspire with such respect the bandits of Rome, who have so little respect for anything. I assure you, Franz and I were lost in admiration."

"Nothing more simple," returned the count. "I had known the famous Vampa for more than ten years. When he was quite a child and only 'a shepherd, I gave him, for having shown me the way to a place, some pieces of gold; he, in order to repay me, gave me a poniard, the hilt of which he had carved with his own hand, and which you may have seen in my collection of arms. In after years, whether he had for gotten this interchange of presents, which ought to have cemented our friendship, or whether he did not recollect me, he sought to take me, but, on the contrary, it was I who captured him and a dozen of his band. I might have handed him over to Roman justice, which is some what expeditious, and which would have been still more so with him; but I did nothing of the sort I suffered him and his band to depart."

"With the condition that they should sin no more," said Beauchamp, laughing. "I see they kept their promise."

"No, monsieur," returned Monte-Cristo, "upon the simple condition that they should respect myself and my friends. Perhaps what I am about to say may seem strange to you, who believe in social order, and vaunt humanity and your duty to your neighbor, but I never seek to protect society who does not protect me, and whom I will even say, in general, occupies itself about me only to injure me; and thus giving them a low place in my esteem, and preserving a neutrality toward them, it is society and my neighbor who are indebted to me."

"Bravo!" cried Chateau-Renaud; "you are the first man I ever met sufficiently courageous to preach egotism. Bravo! M. le Comte, bravo!"

"It is frank, at least," said Morrel. "But I am sure that M. le Comte