Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/242

222 of some town, or at least village; but he saw nothing but a kind of ruin, whence three or four men went and came like shadows.

Danglars waited for a moment, expecting the postilion to come and demand payment, having finished his stage. He intended taking advantage of the opportunity to make fresh inquiries of the new conductor; but the horses were unharnessed, and others put in their places, without any one claiming money from the traveler. Danglars, astonished, opened the door; but a strong hand pushed him back, and the carriage rolled on. The baron was completely roused.

"Eh!" he said to the postilion, "eh, mio caro?"

This was another little piece of Italian the baron had learned from hearing his daughter sing Italian duets with Cavalcanti. But mio caro replied not. Danglars then opened the window.

"Come, my friend," he said, thrusting his hand through the opening, "where are we going?"

"Dentro la testa!" answered a solemn and imperious voice, accompanied by a menacing gesture.

Danglars thought dentro la testa meant "Put in your head!" He was making rapid progress in Italian. He obeyed, not without some uneasiness, which, momentarily increasing, caused his mind, instead of being as unoccupied as it was when he began his journey, to fill with ideas which were very likely to keep a traveler awake, more especially one in such a situation as Danglars. His eyes acquired that quality which in the first moment of strong emotion enables them to see distinctly, and which afterward fails from being too much taxed. Before we are alarmed, we see correctly; when we are alarmed, we see double; and when we have been alarmed, we see nothing but trouble. Danglars observed a man in a cloak galloping at the right hand of the carriage.

"Some gendarme!" he exclaimed. "Can I have been signaled by the French telegraphs to the pontifical authorities?"

He resolved to end his anxiety. "Where are you leading me?" he asked.

"Dentro la testa," replied the same voice, with the same menacing accent.

Danglars turned to the left; another man on horseback was galloping on that side.

"Decidedly!" said Danglars, with a perspiration on his forehead, "I must be taken." And he threw himself back in the calèche, not this time to sleep, but to think.

Directly afterward the moon rose. He then saw the great aqueducts, those stone phantoms which he had before remarked, only then they