Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 4).djvu/184

166 "Probabilities are deceptive."

"But I deal in certainties; he is the best servant over whom you have the power of life and death."

"Do you possess that right over Bertuccio?"

"Yes."

There are words which close a conversation as if with an iron door; such was the count's "yes."

The whole journey was performed with equal rapidity; the thirty-two horses, dispersed at seven stages, arrived in eight hours. In the middle of the night they arrived at the gate of a beautiful park. The porter was in attendance; he had been apprised by the groom of the last stage of the count's approach. It was half-past two in the morning when Morcerf was conducted to his apartments, where a bath and supper were prepared. The servant who had traveled at the back of the carriage waited on him; Baptistin, who rode in front, attended the count.

Albert bathed, took his supper, and went to bed. All night he was lulled by the melancholy noise of the swell of the sea. On rising, he went to his window, which opened on a terrace, having the sea, that is, immensity in front, and at the back a pretty park bounded by a small forest. In a creek lay a little sloop, with a narrow hull and high masts, bearing on its flag the Monte-Cristo arms, which were a mountain or, on a sea azure, with a cross gules in chief which might be an allusion to his name that recalled Calvary, the mount rendered by our Lord's passion more precious than gold, and to the degrading cross which his blood had rendered holy; or it might be some personal remembrance of suffering and regeneration buried in the night of this mysterious personage's past life.

Around the schooner lay a number of small fishing-boats belonging to the fishermen of the neighboring village, as humble subjects awaiting orders from their queen. There, as in every spot where Monte-Cristo stopped, if but for two days, all was organized for comfort; life at once became easy.

Albert found in his anteroom two guns, with all the accoutrements for hunting; a higher room, on the ground-floor, containing all the ingenious instruments which the English—great fishers, because they are patient and lazy—have not yet induced the conservative fishers of France to adopt. The day passed in pursuing those exercises in which Monte-Cristo excelled; they killed a dozen pheasants in the park, as many trout in the stream, dined in a turret overlooking the ocean, and took tea in the library.