Chapter 22 The Smugglers
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DANTииS HAD NOT been a day on board
before he had a very clear idea of the men with whom his lot had been
cast. Without having been in the school of the Abbиж Faria, the worthy master of The Young Amelia (the
name of the Genoese tartan) knew a smattering of all the tongues spoken on
the shores of that large lake called the Mediterranean, from the Arabic to
the Proven?al, and this, while it spared him interpreters, persons always
troublesome and frequently indiscreet, gave him great facilities of
communication, either with the vessels he met at sea, with the small boats
sailing along the coast, or with the people without name, country, or
occupation, who are always seen on the quays of seaports, and who live by
hidden and mysterious means which we must suppose to be a direct gift of
providence, as they have no visible means of support. It is fair to assume
that Dantииs
was on board a smuggler. At
first the captain had received Dantииs
on board with a certain degree of distrust. He was very well known to the
customs officers of the coast; and as there was between these worthies and
himself a perpetual battle of wits, he had at first thought that Dantииs might be an emissary of these
industrious guardians of rights and duties, who perhaps employed this
ingenious means of learning some of the secrets of his trade. But the
skilful manner in which Dantииs
had handled the lugger had entirely reassured him; and then, when he saw
the light plume of smoke floating above the bastion of the Chateau d'If,
and heard the distant report, he was instantly struck with the idea that
he had on board his vessel one whose coming and going, like that of kings,
was accompanied with salutes of artillery. This made him less uneasy, it
must be owned, than if the new-comer had proved to be a customs officer;
but this supposition also disappeared like the first, when he beheld the
perfect tranquillity of his recruit. Edmond
thus had the advantage of knowing what the owner was, without the owner
knowing who he was; and however the old sailor and his crew tried to
"pump" him, they extracted nothing more from him; he gave
accurate descriptions of Naples and Malta, which he knew as well as
Marseilles, and held stoutly to his first story. Thus the Genoese, subtle
as he was, was duped by Edmond, in whose favor his mild demeanor, his
nautical skill, and his admirable dissimulation, pleaded. Moreover, it is
possible that the Genoese was one of those shrewd persons who know nothing
but what they should know, and believe nothing but what they should
believe. In
this state of mutual understanding, they reached Leghorn. Here Edmond was
to undergo another trial; he was to find out whether he could recognize
himself, as he had not seen his own face for fourteen years. He had
preserved a tolerably good remembrance of what the youth had been, and was
now to find out what the man had become. His comrades believed that his
vow was fulfilled. As he had twenty times touched at Leghorn, he
remembered a barber in St. Ferdinand Street; he went there to have his
beard and hair cut. The barber gazed in amazement at this man with the
long, thick and black hair and beard, which gave his head the appearance
of one of Titian's portraits. At this period it was not the fashion to
wear so large a beard and hair so long; now a barber would only be
surprised if a man gifted with such advantages should consent voluntarily
to deprive himself of them. The Leghorn barber said nothing and went to
work. When
the operation was concluded, and Edmond felt that his chin was completely
smooth, and his hair reduced to its usual length, he asked for a
hand-glass. He was now, as we have said, three-and-thirty years of age,
and his fourteen years' imprisonment had produced a great transformation
in his appearance. Dantииs had entered the Chateau d'If
with the round, open, smiling face of a young and happy man, with whom the
early paths of life have been smooth. and who anticipates a future
corresponding with his past. This was now all changed. The oval face was
lengthened, his smiling mouth had assumed the firm and marked lines which
betoken resolution; his eyebrows were arched beneath a brow furrowed with
thought; his eyes were full of melancholy, and from their depths
occasionally sparkled gloomy fires of misanthropy and hatred; his
complexion, so long kept from the sun, had now that pale color which
produces, when the features are encircled with black hair, the
aristocratic beauty of the man of the north; the profound learning he had
acquired had besides diffused over his features a refined intellectual
expression; and he had also acquired, being naturally of a goodly stature,
that vigor which a frame possesses which has so long concentrated all its
force within itself. To
the elegance of a nervous and slight form had succeeded the solidity of a
rounded and muscular figure. As to his voice, prayers, sobs, and
imprecations had changed it so that at times it was of a singularly
penetrating sweetness, and at others rough and almost hoarse. Moreover,
from being so long in twilight or darkness, his eyes had acquired the
faculty of distinguishing objects in the night, common to the hyena and
the wolf. Edmond smiled when he beheld himself: it was impossible that his
best friend--if, indeed, he had any friend left--could recognize him; he
could not recognize himself. The
master of The Young Amelia, who was very desirous of retaining amongst his
crew a man of Edmond's value, had offered to advance him funds out of his
future profits, which Edmond had accepted. His next care on leaving the
barber's who had achieved his first metamorphosis was to enter a shop and
buy a complete sailor's suit--a garb, as we all know, very simple, and
consisting of white trousers, a striped shirt, and a cap. It was in this
costume, and bringing back to Jacopo the shirt and trousers he had lent
him, that Edmond reappeared before the captain of the lugger, who had made
him tell his story over and over again before he could believe him, or
recognize in the neat and trim sailor the man with thick and matted beard,
hair tangled with seaweed, and body soaking in seabrine, whom he had
picked up naked and nearly drowned. Attracted by his prepossessing
appearance, he renewed his offers of an engagement to Dantииs; but Dantииs, who had his own projects,
would not agree for a longer time than three months. The
Young Amelia had a very active crew, very obedient to their captain, who
lost as little time as possible. He had scarcely been a week at Leghorn
before the hold of his vessel was filled with printed muslins, contraband
cottons, English powder, and tobacco on which the excise had forgotten to
put its mark. The master was to get all this out of Leghorn free of
duties, and land it on the shores of Corsica, where certain speculators
undertook to forward the cargo to France. They sailed; Edmond was again
cleaving the azure sea which had been the first horizon of his youth, and
which he had so often dreamed of in prison. He left Gorgone on his right
and La Pianosa on his left, and went towards the country of Paoli and
Napoleon. The next morning going on deck, as he always did at an early
hour, the patron found Dantииs leaning against the bulwarks gazing with intense
earnestness at a pile of granite rocks, which the rising sun tinged with
rosy light. It was the Island of Monte Cristo. The Young Amelia left it
three-quarters of a league to the larboard, and kept on for Corsica. Dantииs thought, as they passed so
closely to the island whose name was so interesting to him, that he had
only to leap into the sea and in half an hour be at the promised land. But
then what could he do without instruments to discover his treasure,
without arms to defend himself? Besides, what would the sailors say? What
would the patron think? He must wait. Fortunately,
Dantииs
had learned how to wait; he had waited fourteen years for his liberty, and
now he was free he could wait at least six months or a year for wealth.
Would he not have accepted liberty without riches if it had been offered
to him? Besides, were not those riches chimerical?--offspring of the brain
of the poor Abbиж Faria, had they not died with
him? It is true, the letter of the Cardinal Spada was singularly
circumstantial, and Dantииs
repeated it to himself, from one end to the other, for he had not
forgotten a word. Evening
came, and Edmond saw the island tinged with the shades of twilight, and
then disappear in the darkness from all eyes but his own, for he, with
vision accustomed to the gloom of a prison, continued to behold it last of
all, for he remained alone upon deck. The next morn broke off the coast of
Aleria; all day they coasted, and in the evening saw fires lighted on
land; the position of these was no doubt a signal for landing, for a
ship's lantern was hung up at the mast-head instead of the streamer, and
they came to within a gunshot of the shore. Dantииs
noticed that the captain of The Young Amelia had, as he neared the land,
mounted two small culverins, which, without making much noise, can throw a
four ounce ball a thousand paces or so. But
on this occasion the precaution was superfluous, and everything proceeded
with the utmost smoothness and politeness. Four shallops came off with
very little noise alongside the lugger, which, no doubt, in
acknowledgement of the compliment, lowered her own shallop into the sea,
and the five boats worked so well that by two o'clock in the morning all
the cargo was out of The Young Amelia and on terra firma. The same night,
such a man of regularity was the patron of The Young Amelia, the profits
were divided, and each man had a hundred Tuscan livres, or about eighty
francs. But the voyage was not ended. They turned the bowsprit towards
Sardinia, where they intended to take in a cargo, which was to replace
what had been discharged. The second operation was as successful as the
first, The Young Amelia was in luck. This new cargo was destined for the
coast of the Duchy of Lucca, and consisted almost entirely of Havana
cigars, sherry, and Malaga wines. There
they had a bit of a skirmish in getting rid of the duties; the excise was,
in truth, the everlasting enemy of the patron of The Young Amelia. A
customs officer was laid low, and two sailors wounded; Dantииs was one of the latter, a ball
having touched him in the left shoulder. Dantииs was almost glad of this affray, and almost pleased
at being wounded, for they were rude lessons which taught him with what
eye he could view danger, and with what endurance he could bear suffering.
He had contemplated danger with a smile, and when wounded had exclaimed
with the great philosopher, "Pain, thou art not an evil." He
had, moreover. looked upon the customs officer wounded to death, and,
whether from heat of blood produced by the encounter, or the chill of
human sentiment, this sight had made but slight impression upon him. Dantииs was on the way he desired to follow, and was
moving towards the end he wished to achieve; his heart was in a fair way
of petrifying in his bosom. Jacopo, seeing him fall, had believed him
killed, and rushing towards him raised him up, and then attended to him
with all the kindness of a devoted comrade. This
world was not then so good as Doctor Pangloss believed it, neither was it
so wicked as Dantииs
thought it, since this man, who had nothing to expect from his comrade but
the inheritance of his share of the prize-money, manifested so much sorrow
when he saw him fall. Fortunately, as we have said, Edmond was only
wounded, and with certain herbs gathered at certain seasons, and sold to
the smugglers by the old Sardinian women, the wound soon closed. Edmond
then resolved to try Jacopo, and offered him in return for his attention a
share of his prize-money, but Jacopo refused it indignantly. As
a result of the sympathetic devotion which Jacopo had from the first
bestowed on Edmond, the latter was moved to a certain degree of affection.
But this sufficed for Jacopo, who instinctively felt that Edmond had a
right to superiority of position--a superiority which Edmond had concealed
from all others. And from this time the kindness which Edmond showed him
was enough for the brave seaman. Then
in the long days on board ship, when the vessel, gliding on with security
over the azure sea, required no care but the hand of the helmsman, thanks
to the favorable winds that swelled her sails, Edmond, with a chart in his
hand, became the instructor of Jacopo, as the poor Abbиж Faria had been his tutor. He pointed out to him the
bearings of the coast, explained to him the variations of the compass, and
taught him to read in that vast book opened over our heads which they call
heaven, and where God writes in azure with letters of diamonds. And when
Jacopo inquired of him, "What is the use of teaching all these things
to a poor sailor like me?" Edmond replied, "Who knows? You may
one day be the captain of a vessel. Your fellow-countryman, Bonaparte,
became emperor." We had forgotten to say that Jacopo was a Corsican. Two
months and a half elapsed in these trips, and Edmond had become as skilful
a coaster as he had been a hardy seaman; he had formed an acquaintance
with all the smugglers on the coast, and learned all the Masonic signs by
which these half pirates recognize each other. He had passed and re-passed
his Island of Monte Cristo twenty times, but not once had he found an
opportunity of landing there. He then formed a resolution. As soon as his
engagement with the patron of The Young Amelia ended, he would hire a
small vessel on his own account--for in his several voyages he had amassed
a hundred piastres--and under some pretext land at the Island of Monte
Cristo. Then he would be free to make his researches, not perhaps entirely
at liberty, for he would be doubtless watched by those who accompanied
him. But in this world we must risk something. Prison had made Edmond
prudent, and he was desirous of running no risk whatever. But in vain did
he rack his imagination; fertile as it was, he could not devise any plan
for reaching the island without companionship. Dantииs was tossed about on these
doubts and wishes, when the patron, who had great confidence in him, and
was very desirous of retaining him in his service, took him by the arm one
evening and led him to a tavern on the Via del' Oglio, where the leading
smugglers of Leghorn used to congregate and discuss affairs connected with
their trade. Already Dantииs
had visited this maritime Bourse two or three times, and seeing all these
hardy free-traders, who supplied the whole coast for nearly two hundred
leagues in extent, he had asked himself what power might not that man
attain who should give the impulse of his will to all these contrary and
diverging minds. This time it was a great matter that was under
discussion, connected with a vessel laden with Turkey carpets, stuffs of
the Levant, and cashmeres. It was necessary to find some neutral ground on
which an exchange could be made, and then to try and land these goods on
the coast of France. If the venture was successful the profit would be
enormous, there would be a gain of fifty or sixty piastres each for the
crew. The
patron of The Young Amelia proposed as a place of landing the Island of
Monte Cristo, which being completely deserted, and having neither soldiers
nor revenue officers, seemed to have been placed in the midst of the ocean
since the time of the heathen Olympus by Mercury, the god of merchants and
robbers, classes of mankind which we in modern times have separated if not
made distinct, but which antiquity appears to have included in the same
category. At the mention of Monte Cristo Dantииs started with joy; he rose to conceal his emotion,
and took a turn around the smoky tavern, where all the languages of the
known world were jumbled in a lingua franca. When he again joined the two
persons who had been discussing the matter, it had been decided that they
should touch at Monte Cristo and set out on the following night. Edmond,
being consulted, was of opinion that the island afforded every possible
security, and that great enterprises to be well done should be done
quickly. Nothing then was altered in the plan, and orders were given to
get under weigh next night, and, wind and weather permitting, to make the
neutral island by the following day. |
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