Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 5).djvu/258

238 "Why do you offer me four millions for what is worth five millions? This is a kind of usury, banker, I do not understand."

"Take all, then—take all, I tell you, and kill me!"

"Come, come, calm yourself. You will excite your blood, and that would produce an appetite it would require a million a day to satisfy. Be more economical."

"But when I have no more money left to pay you?" asked the infuriated Danglars.

"Then you must suffer hunger."

"Suffer hunger?" said Danglars, becoming pale.

"Most likely," replied Vampa, coolly.

"But you say you do not wish to kill me?"

"No."

"And yet you will let me perish with hunger?"

"Ah, that is a different thing."

"Well, then, wretches!" cried Danglars, "I will defy your infamous calculations!—I would rather die at once! You may torture, torment, kill me, but you shall not have my signature again!"

"As your excellency pleases," said Vampa, as he left the cell.

Danglars, raving, threw himself on the goat-skin. Who could these men be? Who was the invisible chief? What could be his projects toward him? And why, when every one else was allowed to be ransomed, might he not also be? Oh, yes! certainly a speedy, sudden death would be a fine means of deceiving these remorseless enemies, who appeared to pursue him with such incomprehensible vengeance. But to die? For the first time in his life Danglars contemplated death with a mixture of dread and desire; the time had come when the implacable specter which exists in the mind of every human creature arrested his sight, and called out, with every pulsation of his heart, "Thou shalt die!"

Danglars resembled a wild beast, which first flies, then despairs, and at last, by the very force of desperation, succeeds in escaping. Danglars meditated an escape; but the walls were solid rock, a man was sitting reading at the only outlet to the cell, and behind that man figures armed with guns continually passed. His resolution not to sign lasted two days, after which he offered a million for some food. They sent him a magnificent supper, and took his million.

From this time the life of the wretched prisoner was a perpetual oscillation; he suffered so much that he resolved to suffer no longer, but to yield to all his exigencies. At the end of twelve days, after having made a splendid dinner, he reckoned his accounts, and found he had only fifty thousand francs left. Then a strange reaction took place: he