第 二十二 章 · The Smugglers

Dantès 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 Abbé Faria, the worthy master of _La Jeune Amélie_ (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 Provençal, 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 Dantès was on board a

smuggler.

At first the captain had received Dantès 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 Dantès 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 Dantès had handled the

lugger had entirely reassured him; and then, when he saw the light

plume of smoke floating above the bastion of the Château 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 looking-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.

Dantès had entered the Château 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.

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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 _La Jeune Amélie_, 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 Dantès; but Dantès, who had his own projects, would not

agree for a longer time than three months.

_La Jeune Amélie_ 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 Dantès 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.

_La Jeune Amélie_ left it three-quarters of a league to the larboard

and kept on for Corsica. Dantès 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, Dantès 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 Abbé Faria, had they not

died with him? It is true, the letter of the Cardinal Spada was

singularly circumstantial, and Dantès repeated it to himself, from one

end to the other, for he had not forgotten a word.

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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. Dantès

noticed that the captain of _La Jeune Amélie_ 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 _La Jeune Amélie_ and on _terra

firma_. The same night, such a man of regularity was the patron of _La

Jeune Amélie_, 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, _La Jeune Amélie_ 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 _La Jeune

Amélie_. A customs officer was laid low, and two sailors wounded;

Dantès was one of the latter, a ball having touched him in the left

shoulder. Dantès 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.

Dantès 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 Dantès 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

Abbé 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 _La Jeune Amélie_ 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.

Dantès 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

Dantès 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 _La Jeune Amélie_ 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 Dantès 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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