Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/290

272 Villefort; I fully believed that when he went out in the night he would be forced to traverse the whole of the garden alone."

"And," asked the count, "did you ever know the name of this woman?"

"No, excellency," returned Bertuccio; "you will see I had no time to learn it."

"Go on."

"That evening," continued Bertuccio, "I could have killed the procureur du roi; but as I was not sufficiently master of the localities, I fearful of not killing him on the spot, and that, should his cries give the alarm, I could not escape, I put it off till the next occasion, and in order that nothing should escape me, I took a chamber looking into the street along which ran the wall of the garden. Three days after, about seven o'clock in the evening, I saw a servant on horseback leave the house at full gallop, and take the road that led to Sevres, I conjectured he was going to Versailles, and I was not deceived. Three hours after, the man returned covered with dust, his errand was performed: and ten minutes after, another man on foot, muffled in a mantle, opeed the little door of the garden, which he closed after him. I descended rapidly; although I had not seen Villefort's face, I recognized him by the beating of my heart. I crossed the street, and stopped at a post placed at the angle of the wall, and by means of which I had once before looked into the garden.

"This time I did not content myself with looking, but I took my knife out of my pocket, felt that the point was sharp, and sprang over the wall. My first care was to run to the door; he had left the key in it, taking the simple precaution of turning it twice in the lock. Nothing, then, preventing my escape by this means, I examined the localities. The garden formed a long square; a ten-ace of smooth turf extended in the middle, and at the corners were tufts of trees with thick and massy foliage, that mingled with the shrubs and flowers. In order to go from the door to the house, or from the house to the door, M. de Villefort was compelled to pass by one of these clumps.

"It was the end of September; the wind blew violently. The faint glimpses of the pale moon, hidden at every instant by the masses of dark clouds that were sweeping across the sky, whitened the gravel walks that led to the house, but were unable to pierce the obscurity of the thick shrubberies, in which a man could conceal himself without any fear of discovery. I hid myself in the one nearest to the path Villefort must take; and scarcely was I there when, amidst the gusts of wind, I fancied I heard groans; but you know, or rather you do not know, M. le Comte, that he who is about to commit an assassination