The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (54 page)

‘So you suspect that this fire indicates unwelcome company?’

‘That’s what we must find out,’ said Gaetano, keeping his eyes fixed on the terrestrial star.

‘How can we do that?’

‘You’ll see.’

At this, Gaetano had a few words with his comrades and, after they had talked for five minutes, they carried out a manoeuvre which allowed them instantly to reverse their course. In this way they were sailing back in the direction from which they had come and, a few moments later, the fire disappeared, hidden behind some outcrop on the land.

At this, the pilot altered course yet again with the rudder, and the little boat came visibly closer to the island, until it was only some fifty yards off-shore. Gaetano lowered the sail and the boat remained stationary.

All this had taken place in the most profound silence; indeed, since the change of course not a word had been spoken on board.

Gaetano, having suggested the expedition, had taken full responsibility for it on himself. The four sailors kept peering at him, preparing the oars and evidently getting ready to row to shore which, thanks to the darkness, was not difficult.

As for Franz, he was inspecting his weapons with the characteristic sang-froid we have mentioned. He had two double-barrelled guns and a rifle, which he loaded. Then he cocked them and waited.

Meanwhile the master had taken off his shirt and jacket, and secured his trousers around his waist; as he was barefoot, he had no shoes or stockings to remove. Once dressed – or, rather, undressed – like this, he put his finger to his lips to show that they should observe complete silence and, after slipping gently into the sea, swam towards the shore, but so cautiously that they could not hear the slightest sound. His path could be followed only by the phosphorescent trail he left in his wake. Soon even this disappeared, and it was clear that Gaetano had reached land.

For half an hour everyone on the boat remained motionless. Then the same luminous furrow reappeared near the shore and came towards them. In a moment, with two strokes, Gaetano was alongside.

‘Well?’ Franz and the four sailors asked simultaneously.

‘Well,’ said Gaetano, ‘they are Spanish smugglers, and they only have with them two Corsican bandits.’

‘What are two Corsican bandits doing with Spanish smugglers?’

‘Bless my soul!’ said Gaetano, in tones of the most sincere Christian
charity. ‘We are here to help one another, Excellency. Bandits are often hard-pressed on land by the gendarmes or the carabinieri, so they find a boat with good fellows like us in it. They come and request the hospitality of our floating house. How can one refuse to succour a poor devil with men on his tail? We take him in and, for greater safety, put out to sea. This costs us nothing and it saves the life – or, at least, the freedom – of one of our fellow men who, as it happens, acknowledges the service we have done him by showing us a good spot to put off our cargo where it is safe from prying eyes.’

‘Oh, I see!’ said Franz. ‘And are you a bit of a smuggler yourself, then, my dear Gaetano?’

‘What do you expect, Excellency!’ he replied with an indescribable smile. ‘One does a bit of everything. A man must live.’

‘So you know where you stand with the present inhabitants of Monte Cristo?’

‘More or less. We sailors are like freemasons, we recognize one another by certain signs.’

‘And you think we shall have nothing to fear if we disembark here in our turn?’

‘Nothing at all. Smugglers are not thieves.’

‘But what about the two Corsican bandits?’ Franz insisted, trying to allow for every possibility.

‘Good Lord!’ said Gaetano. ‘It’s not their fault if they’re bandits, it’s the fault of the authorities.’

‘How can that be?’

‘Of course! They are being hunted down because they made their bones, nothing more. As if revenge wasn’t in a Corsican’s nature…’

‘What do you mean by “making their bones”? Having killed someone?’ Franz asked, still curious.

‘I mean killing an enemy,’ said the master. ‘That’s quite different.’

‘Well then,’ the young man said, ‘let’s go and ask for the hospitality of these smugglers and bandits. Will they welcome us?’

‘No doubt at all.’

‘How many of them are there?’

‘Four, Excellency; with the two bandits, that makes six.’

‘Just the same as us, in fact. And if these gentlemen should prove unfriendly, then we are in a position to keep them at bay. So, one last time, let’s land on Monte Cristo.’

‘Yes, Excellency. But will you allow me to take a few extra precautions?’

‘What, my good fellow! Be as wise as Nestor and as cautious as Ulysses. I not only allow it, I beg you.’

‘Silence!’ said Gaetano; and they all fell silent.

For someone like Franz, who considered everything in its true light, the situation, while not dangerous, still gave pause for serious thought. He was here, in the most profound darkness, in the middle of the sea, with sailors who did not know him and who had no reason to be loyal to him; who, moreover, knew that he had a few thousand francs in his belt and who had ten times examined his guns, at least with curiosity, if not envy: they were fine pieces. In addition to that, escorted by only these men, he was about to land on an island which certainly had a very religious name, but which appeared to offer Franz no greater hospitality than Calvary did to Christ, in view of the smugglers and the bandits. Then those stories of scuttled ships, which he had thought exaggerated by day-light, seemed more believable in the dark. So, caught between this – perhaps imaginary – double danger, he did not take his eyes off the men or his hand off the rifle.

During this time, the sailors had once more raised their sails and resumed their previous course. Through the darkness, Franz, whose eyes were already becoming somewhat accustomed to it, could see the granite giant beside which the boat was sailing; then finally, as they came round a rock for the second time, he saw the fire burning more brightly than ever, and around it five or six seated figures.

The light extended some hundred yards across the sea. Gaetano sailed just outside its reach, keeping the boat in the unlit darkness beyond. Then, when he was directly across from the bonfire, he turned the bow towards it and sailed boldly into the circle of light, singing a fisherman’s song and taking the main part himself, while the crew joined in with the chorus.

At the first words of the song the men sitting around the fire got up and walked across to the landing-stage, keeping a close watch on the approaching boat so as to assess its size and intentions. They soon appeared to have satisfied themselves and went back to their places around the fire, where a kid was roasting – apart from one, who remained, standing on the shore.

When the boat was about twenty yards from land, the man on
the shore mechanically gestured with his carbine, like a sentry greeting a returning patrol, and shouted: ‘Who goes there?’ in Sardinian
patois
.

Franz cocked his repeating rifle unemotionally.

At this, Gaetano exchanged a few words with the man, which Franz could not understand, though they clearly concerned him.

‘Does Your Excellency wish to be named,’ the master asked, ‘or would he prefer to go incognito?’

‘My name must be entirely unknown to these men,’ Franz said. ‘So just tell them that I am a Frenchman who is travelling for his own amusement.’

When Gaetano had communicated this to him, the sentry gave an order to one of the men sitting at the fire; he immediately got up and disappeared among the rocks.

There was a silence. Everyone appeared preoccupied with his own affairs: Franz with the landing, the sailors with their sails, the smugglers with their kid; but, in the midst of this apparent lack of curiosity, they were observing one another.

The man who had gone away suddenly came back, from the opposite direction to the one in which he had gone. He nodded to the sentry, who turned to them and said merely:
‘S’accommodi.’

This Italian
‘s’accommodi’
is untranslatable. It means at once: come, come in, welcome, make yourself at home, you are the master. It’s like the Turkish phrase in Molière’s play which astonished the Bourgeois Gentilhomme
⁴
by all the meanings that it could contain.

The sailors did not wait to be asked twice. With four strokes of the oars they brought the boat to shore. Gaetano jumped on to the beach, whispered a few more words to the sentry, and his crew then came down one after the other. Finally it was Franz’s turn.

He had one of his guns slung across his shoulder, Gaetano had the other and one of the sailors was holding the rifle. His dress had something of both the artist and the dandy, which aroused no suspicion in his hosts, and consequently no unease.

The boat was tied up on the shore and they started to walk around, looking for a suitable place to camp; but the direction in which they were walking was not to the liking of the smuggler who was acting as sentry, because he shouted to Gaetano: ‘No, not over there, please.’

Gaetano mumbled some excuse and, without argument, went
over to the other side, while two sailors went to fetch lighted torches so that they could see their way.

They went for about thirty yards then stopped on a little esplanade entirely surrounded by rocks, in each of which a kind of seat had been hollowed, not unlike small sentry-boxes where the guard can sit down. Around them, in patches of soil, grew some dwarf oaks and thick clumps of myrtle. Franz lowered a torch and recognized, from a pile of ashes, that he was not the first person to notice the comfort of this spot, which must be one of the usual stopping-places of random visitors to Monte Cristo.

He stopped worrying about any incident that might occur. Once on dry land, and having seen the mood of his hosts which, if not friendly, was at least one of indifference, all his anxieties had vanished; with the smell of roast kid coming from the nearby camp, anxiety had changed to appetite.

He mentioned this to Gaetano, who said that nothing was easier than to make supper when they had bread, wine and six partridge in the boat, and a fire to prepare them.

‘Moreover,’ he added, ‘if Your Excellency is so tempted by the smell of that kid, I can go and offer our neighbours two of our birds for a slice of their beast.’

‘Do it, Gaetano, do it,’ said Franz. ‘You are a born negotiator.’

Meanwhile the sailors had pulled up handfuls of heather and made firewood from myrtle and green oak branches, then set fire to it, so that they had quite a fine blaze going.

Franz was waiting impatiently, sniffing the smell of roasting kid, when the master came back with an anxious look about him.

‘What now?’ asked Franz. ‘Have they refused our offer?’

‘On the contrary,’ Gaetano replied. ‘Their chief, on learning that you were a young Frenchman, has invited you to dine with him.’

‘Well, well,’ said Franz, ‘this chief is a most civil man and I see no reason to refuse, all the more so as I’m bringing my own contribution to the meal.’

‘It’s not that: there is more than enough to eat. But he is imposing an unusual condition on your visiting his home.’

‘His home! Does he have a house here, then?’

‘No, but I am assured that he has a very comfortable home, nonetheless.’

‘Do you know this chief?’

‘I have heard speak of him.’

‘Good things or bad?’

‘Both.’

‘Well, dammit, what is this condition?’

‘That you should let your eyes be bandaged and not remove the blindfold until you are told you can do so.’

Franz read what he could into Gaetano’s face to discover what was behind this suggestion. Gaetano read his thoughts.

‘The devil!’ he said.

‘I know, it needs thinking about.’

‘What would you do in my place?’ the young man asked.

‘I’ve got nothing to lose. I’d go.’

‘You would agree?’

‘Yes, if only out of curiosity.’

‘So this chief can show us something unusual?’

‘Listen,’ Gaetano said, lowering his voice, ‘I don’t know if what they say is true…’ He paused and looked around to make sure they were not overheard.

‘What do they say?’

‘They say that the chief lives in a subterranean abode beside which the Pitti Palace is a mere trifle.’

‘What a dream!’ Franz said, sitting down again.

‘Oh, it’s not a dream, it’s a reality! Cama, pilot of the
Saint-Ferdinand
, went in there one day and came out completely dazzled, saying that such treasures only exist in fairy-stories.’

‘You know,’ said Franz, ‘what you are telling me sounds as if you were trying to lure me into the caves of Ali Baba.’

‘I am only saying what I was told, Excellency.’

‘So you advise me to accept?’

‘That I’m not saying! Your Excellency will do as he pleases. I should not like to advise him in such circumstances.’

Franz thought for a few moments, realized that such a rich man could not feel any envy for him, as he had only a few thousand francs with him and, since he could see nothing coming of this but an excellent dinner, accepted. Gaetano went back with his answer.