LXXVII. Haydée.

LXXVII

Haydée.

Scarcely had the count's horses turned the corner of the boulevard, when Albert turned back toward the count, bursting into a laugh too loud not to be a little forced.

“Well,” said he, “I shall ask you, as King Charles IX asked Catherine de Medici after St. Bartholomew, how do you think I played my little part?”

“What do you mean?” asked Monte Cristo.

“Why, about the installation of my rival at Monsieur Danglars’s….”

“What rival?”

“Bless me! what rival? your protégé, Monsieur Andrea Cavalcanti!”

“Oh, no bad jokes, vicomte; I do not protect Monsieur Andrea, at least not with Monsieur Danglars.”

“And that is the reproach I should address to you, if the young man needed protection. But, happily for me, he can do without it.”

“What! you think he is paying court?”

“I assure you: he rolls the eyes of a suitor and modulates the tones of a lover; he aspires to the hand of the proud Eugénie. Why, I have just made a verse! Word of honor, it is not my fault. No matter, I repeat it: he aspires to the hand of the proud Eugénie.”

“What matters it, if all thoughts are of you?”

“Do not say that, my dear count; I am being roughly handled on both sides.”

“How, on both sides?”

“Certainly: Mademoiselle Eugénie scarcely answered me, and Mademoiselle d’Armilly, her confidante, did not answer me at all.”

“Yes, but the father adores you,” said Monte Cristo.

“He? why, on the contrary, he has thrust a thousand daggers into my heart; daggers that retired into the handle, it is true, daggers of tragedy, but which he believed were only too real.”

“Jealousy indicates affection.”

“Yes, but I am not jealous.”

“He is, then.”

“Of whom? of Debray?”

“No, of you.”

“Of me? I wager that within a week he has shut the door in my face.”

“You are mistaken, my dear vicomte.”

“A proof?”

“Do you want one?”

“Yes.”

“I am charged to beg the Count de Morcerf to make a definitive advance to the baron.”

“From whom?”

“From the baron himself.”

“Oh!” said Albert, with all the coaxingness of which he was capable, “you will not do that, will you, my dear count?”

“You are mistaken, Albert; I shall do it, since I have promised.”

“Come,” said Albert, with a sigh, “it seems you are absolutely bent on marrying me.”

“I am bent on being on good terms with every one; but, by the way, I no longer see Debray at the baroness’s.”

“There is a quarrel.”

“With the lady?”

“No, with the gentleman.”

“Then he has noticed something?”

“Ah, a good joke!”

“You think he suspected it?” said Monte Cristo, with a charming naïveté.

“Why, where do you come from, my dear count?”

“From the Congo, if you like.”

“That is not far enough.”

“Do I know your Parisian husbands?”

“Why, my dear count, husbands are the same everywhere; the moment you have studied the individual in any one country, you know the race.”

“But then what cause could have quarreled Danglars and Debray? They seemed to understand each other so well,” said Monte Cristo, with a renewal of naïveté.

“Ah, there! we are getting into the mysteries of Isis, and I am not initiated. When Monsieur Cavalcanti junior is of the family, you can ask him that.”

The carriage stopped.

“Here we are,” said Monte Cristo; “it is only half-past ten, come up.”

“Willingly.”

“My carriage shall take you home.”

“No, thanks; my cab must have followed us.”

“Indeed, there it is,” said Monte Cristo, leaping to the ground.

Both entered the house; the salon was lighted, and they went in.

“You will make us some tea, Baptistin,” said Monte Cristo.

Baptistin went out without uttering a word. Two seconds after, he reappeared with a tray all prepared, and which, like the collations in fairy scenes, seemed to rise from the ground.

“Really,” said Morcerf, “what I admire in you, my dear count, is not your wealth, perhaps there are richer men than you; it is not your wit, Beaumarchais had no more, but he had as much; it is your manner of being served, without a word in reply, to the minute, to the second, as if one guessed, by the way you ring, what you wish to have, and as if what you wish to have were always quite ready.”

“What you say is a little true. My habits are known. For instance, you shall see: do you not wish to do something while drinking your tea?”

“By Jove, I wish to smoke.”

Monte Cristo approached the bell and struck one blow.

At the end of a second, a private door opened, and Ali appeared with two chibouques filled with excellent latakia.

“It is marvelous,” said Morcerf.

“But no, it is quite simple,” resumed Monte Cristo; “Ali knows that in taking tea or coffee I usually smoke: he knows that I ordered tea, he knows that I came in with you, he hears me call him, he guesses the cause, and as he is of a country where hospitality is exercised chiefly with the pipe, instead of one chibouque he brings two.”

“Certainly, that is an explanation like another; but it is none the less true that there is only you… Oh! but what is that I hear?”

And Morcerf inclined toward the door through which were indeed entering sounds corresponding to those of a guitar.

“Faith, my dear vicomte, you are devoted to music this evening; you escape from Mademoiselle Danglars’s piano only to fall into Haydée’s guzla.”

“Haydée! what an adorable name! Then there are women really called Haydée elsewhere than in Lord Byron’s poems?”

“Certainly; Haydée is a very rare name in France, but quite common in Albania and Epirus; it is as if you were to say, for example, chastity, modesty, innocence; it is a kind of baptismal name, as your Parisians say.”

“Oh, how charming!” said Albert; “how I should like to see our Frenchwomen called Mademoiselle Goodness, Mademoiselle Silence, Mademoiselle Christian Charity! I say, if Mademoiselle Danglars, instead of being called Claire-Marie-Eugénie, as she is named, were called Mademoiselle Chastity-Modesty-Innocence Danglars, peste, what an effect that would make in a publication of banns!”

“Fool!” said the count; “do not jest so loud, Haydée might hear you.”

“And she would be angry?”

“No,” said the count, with his haughty air.

“Is she a good person?” asked Albert.

“It is not goodness, it is duty: a slave does not give vent against her master.”

“Come now! do not jest yourself. Are there still slaves?”

“Doubtless, since Haydée is mine.”

“Indeed, you do nothing and have nothing like any one else, you. Slave of the Count of Monte Cristo! that is a position in France. From the way you handle gold, it must be a place worth a hundred thousand crowns a year.”

“A hundred thousand crowns! the poor child has possessed more than that; she came into the world lying on treasures beside which those of the Thousand and One Nights are but a trifle.”

“Then she is really a princess?”

“You have said it, and even one of the greatest of her country.”

“I had suspected it. But how did a great princess become a slave?”

“How did Dionysius the Tyrant become a schoolmaster? the chance of war, my dear vicomte, the caprice of fortune.”

“And her name is a secret?”

“For every one, yes; but not for you, dear vicomte, who are my friend, and who will be silent, will you not, if you promise me to be silent?”

“Oh! word of honor!”

“You know the history of the pacha of Janina?”

“Of Ali-Tebelin? doubtless, since it is in his service my father made his fortune.”

“That is true, I had forgotten.”

“Well, what is Haydée to Ali-Tebelin?”

“His daughter, simply.”

“What! the daughter of Ali-Pacha?”

“And of the beautiful Vasiliki.”

“And she is your slave?”

“Oh, my God, yes.”

“How so?”

“Why, one day when I was passing through the market at Constantinople, I bought her.”

“It is splendid! With you, my dear count, one does not live, one dreams. Now, listen, what I am going to ask you is very indiscreet.”

“Say on.”

“But since you go out with her, since you take her to the Opera….”

“After?”

“I may well venture to ask you that?”

“You may venture to ask me anything.”

“Well, my dear count, present me to your princess.”

“Willingly, but on two conditions.”

“I accept them beforehand.”

“The first, that you will never confide this introduction to any one.”

“Very well,” (Morcerf extended his hand) “I swear it.”

“The second, that you will not tell her that your father served hers.”

“I swear it again.”

“Admirably, vicomte, you will remember these two oaths, will you not?”

“Oh!” said Albert.

“Very well. I know you for a man of honor.”

The count struck the bell again; Ali reappeared.

“Tell Haydée,” said he, “that I am coming to take coffee with her, and make her understand that I ask permission to present her one of my friends.”

Ali bowed and went out.

“So, it is agreed, no direct questions, dear vicomte. If you wish to know anything, ask me, and I will ask her.”

“It is agreed.”

Ali reappeared for the third time and held up the curtain, to indicate to his master and Albert that they might pass.

“Let us enter,” said Monte Cristo.

Albert passed a hand through his hair and curled his mustache; the count took his hat, put on his gloves, and preceded Albert into the apartment which was guarded, like an advanced sentinel, by Ali, and which was defended, like a post, by the three French chamber-women commanded by Myrtho.

Haydée awaited them in the first room, which was the salon, with large eyes dilated by surprise; for it was the first time that any man other than Monte Cristo had penetrated to her. She was seated on a sofa, in a corner, her legs crossed beneath her, and had, so to speak, made herself a nest in the richest striped and embroidered silks of the Orient. Near her was the instrument whose sounds had betrayed her; she was charming thus.

On perceiving Monte Cristo, she raised herself with that double smile of daughter and mistress which belonged to her alone; Monte Cristo went to her and offered her his hand, on which, as usual, she pressed her lips.

Albert had remained near the door, under the sway of that strange beauty he saw for the first time, and of which no idea could be formed in France.

“Whom do you bring me?” said the young girl to Monte Cristo, in Romaic; “a brother, a friend, a mere acquaintance, or an enemy?”

“A friend,” said Monte Cristo, in the same language.

“His name?”

“Count Albert; it is the same I drew from the hands of the bandits, at Rome.”

“In what language do you wish me to speak to him?”

Monte Cristo turned toward Albert:

“Do you know modern Greek?” he asked the young man.

“Alas!” said Albert, “not even ancient Greek, my dear count; Homer and Plato never had a poorer, and I might even say a more disdainful, pupil.”

“Then,” said Haydée, proving by the question she herself asked that she had just heard Monte Cristo’s question and Albert’s answer, “I will speak in French or in Italian, if indeed my lord wishes me to speak.”

Monte Cristo reflected an instant:

“You shall speak in Italian,” said he.

Then, turning to Albert:

“It is a pity you do not understand modern or ancient Greek, which Haydée speaks both admirably; the poor child will be forced to speak to you in Italian, which may perhaps give you a false idea of her.”

He made a sign to Haydée.

“Be welcome, friend, who comest with my lord and master,” said the young girl, in excellent Tuscan, with that soft Roman accent which makes the language of Dante as sonorous as the language of Homer; “Ali! coffee and pipes!”

And Haydée made a sign with her hand to Albert to approach, while Ali withdrew to execute the orders of his young mistress.

Monte Cristo pointed out to Albert two folding-stools, and each went to fetch his own to draw it near a kind of guéridon, of which a narguilé formed the center, and which was loaded with natural flowers, drawings, and music albums.

Ali reentered, bringing the coffee and the chibouques; as for Monsieur Baptistin, that part of the apartment was forbidden him.

Albert pushed away the pipe presented by the Nubian.

“Oh, take it, take it,” said Monte Cristo; “Haydée is almost as civilized as a Parisian: the Havana is disagreeable to her, because she does not like bad odors; but Oriental tobacco is a perfume, you know.”

Ali went out.

The cups of coffee were prepared; only, for Albert, a sugar-bowl had been added. Monte Cristo and Haydée took the Arabian liquor in the Arab fashion, that is to say, without sugar.

Haydée stretched out her hand and took with the tips of her little pink and slender fingers the Japan porcelain cup, which she raised to her lips with the naïve pleasure of a child who drinks or eats a thing it loves.

At the same time two women entered, bearing two other trays loaded with ices and sherbets, which they deposited on two little tables destined for that use.

“My dear host, and you, signora,” said Albert, in Italian, “excuse my stupor. I am quite bewildered, and it is natural enough; here I find the Orient, the real Orient, not, unhappily, such as I have seen it, but such as I have dreamed it in the heart of Paris; but a moment ago I heard omnibuses roll and the bells of the lemonade-vendors tinkle. Oh, signora!… that I knew not how to speak Greek, your conversation joined to this fairy-like surroundings would compose for me an evening I should never forget.”

“I speak Italian well enough to talk with you, sir,” said Haydée, tranquilly; “and I will do my best, if you love the Orient, to make you find it here.”

“Of what can I speak?” asked Albert, in a low voice, of Monte Cristo.

“Why, of all you wish: of her country, of her youth, of her recollections; then, if you prefer, of Rome, Naples, or Florence.”

“Oh!” said Albert, “it would not be worth while having a Greek before one to talk to her of all that one would say to a Parisian; let me talk to her of the Orient.”

“Do, my dear Albert; it is the conversation most agreeable to her.”

Albert turned toward Haydée.

“At what age did the signora leave Greece?” asked he.

“At five years,” replied Haydée.

“And do you remember your country?” asked Albert.

“When I close my eyes, I see again all I have seen. There are two kinds of sight: the sight of the body and the sight of the soul. The sight of the body may sometimes forget, but that of the soul always remembers.”

“And what is the most distant time you can remember?”

“I could scarcely walk; my mother, who is called Vasiliki (Vasiliki means royal, added the young girl, raising her head), my mother took me by the hand, and, both covered with a veil, after putting all the gold we possessed at the bottom of the purse, we went to ask alms for the prisoners, saying:

‘He who gives to the poor lends to the Eternal.’[*]

* Proverb XIX.

“Then, when our purse was full, we returned to the palace, and, without saying anything to my father, we sent all that money which had been given us, taking us for poor women, to the egoumenos[*] of the convent, who distributed it among the prisoners.

* In Greek, priest, abbot (Note of the corrector.)

“And at that time, what age were you?”

“Three years,” said Haydée.

“Then you remember all that happened around you since the age of three?”

“All.”

“Count,” said Morcerf, in a low voice, to Monte Cristo, “you ought to allow the signora to relate to us something of her history. You forbade me to speak to her of my father, but perhaps she will speak of him to me, and you have no idea how happy I should be to hear his name issue from so pretty a mouth.”

Monte Cristo turned toward Haydée, and, by a sign of the eyebrow which indicated to her to pay the greatest attention to the recommendation he was about to make, he said to her in Greek:

Greek: Word for word: “Thy father’s fate, but not the traitor’s name, nor the treason, relate to us.”

Haydée uttered a long sigh, and a dark cloud passed over her pure brow.

“What do you say to her?” asked Morcerf, in a low voice.

“I repeat to her that you are a friend, and that she has nothing to conceal from you.”

“So,” said Albert, “this old pilgrimage for the prisoners is your first recollection; what is the other?”

“The other? I see myself in the shade of the sycamores, near a lake whose trembling mirror I still perceive through the foliage; against the oldest and thickest, my father was seated on cushions, and I, a weak child, while my mother lay at his feet, played with his white beard which fell on his breast, and with the cangiar with the diamond hilt passed through his girdle; then, from time to time, an Albanian came to him and said a few words to which I paid no attention, and to which he replied in the same tone of voice: ‘Kill!’ or, ‘Spare!’”

“It is strange,” said Albert, “to hear such things issue from the mouth of a young girl, elsewhere than on a stage, and while saying: This is no fiction. And,” asked Albert, “how, with this poetic horizon, how, with this marvelous distance, do you find France?”

“I think it is a fine country,” said Haydée; “but I see France as it is, for I see it with a woman’s eyes, while it seems to me, on the contrary, that my country, which I have seen only with a child’s eyes, is always enveloped in a luminous or somber mist, according as my eyes make of it a sweet native land or a place of bitter sufferings.”

“So young, signora,” said Albert, yielding, in spite of himself, to the power of banality, “how could you have suffered?”

Haydée turned her eyes toward Monte Cristo, who, with an imperceptible sign, murmured:

Εἰπέ[*]

* Tell.

“Nothing composes the depths of the soul like early recollections, and, apart from the two I have just told you, all the recollections of my youth are sad.”

“Speak, speak, signora,” said Albert; “I swear to you that I listen to you with an inexpressible happiness.”

Haydée smiled sadly.

“You wish then that I pass to my other recollections?” said she.

“I entreat you,” said Albert.

“Well, I was four years old when, one evening, I was awakened by my mother. We were at the palace of Janina; she took me from the cushions where I was resting, and, on opening my eyes, I saw hers filled with great tears.

“She carried me away without speaking.

“On seeing her weep, I was about to weep too.

“‘Silence, child!’ said she.

“Often, despite maternal consolations or threats, capricious like all children, I continued to cry; but, this time, there was in the voice of my poor mother such an intonation of terror, that I was silent on the instant.

“She bore me rapidly away.

“I then saw that we were descending a wide staircase; before us, all my mother’s women, carrying coffers, bags, ornaments, jewels, purses of gold, descended the same staircase, or rather precipitated themselves down it.

“Behind the women came a guard of twenty men, armed with long muskets and pistols, and clad in that costume which you have known in France since Greece became a nation again.

“There was something sinister, believe me,” added Haydée, shaking her head and growing pale at the mere memory, “in that long file of slaves and women half-stupefied with sleep, or at least I so fancied it, I, who perhaps believed the others asleep because I was but half awake.

“In the staircase ran gigantic shadows which the resin torches made tremble on the vaults.

“‘Make haste!’ said a voice at the end of the gallery.

“That voice made every one bend, as the wind passing over the plain bends a field of wheat.

“Myself, it made me start.

“That voice was my father’s.

“He walked last, clad in his splendid habits, holding in his hand his carbine which your emperor had given him; and, leaning on his favorite Selim, he pushed us before him like a shepherd his bewildered flock.

“My father,” said Haydée, raising her head, “was an illustrious man whom Europe has known under the name of Ali-Tebelin, pacha of Janina, and before whom Turkey trembled.”

Albert, without knowing why, shuddered on hearing these words pronounced with an indefinable accent of loftiness and dignity; it seemed to him that something dark and frightful shone in the eyes of the young girl, when, like a pythoness evoking a specter, she awakened the memory of that bloody figure whose terrible death made him appear gigantic to the eyes of contemporary Europe.

“Soon,” continued Haydée, “the march stopped; we were at the foot of the staircase and on the edge of a lake. My mother pressed me to her bounding bosom, and I saw, two paces behind, my father throwing uneasy glances on all sides.

“Before us extended four marble steps, and at the foot of the last step a skiff floated.

“From where we were, one saw rising in the middle of a lake a black mass; it was the kiosk whither we were going.

“That kiosk seemed to me at a considerable distance, perhaps because of the darkness.

“We descended into the skiff. I remember that the oars made no noise in touching the water; I leaned forward to look at them: they were wrapped with the girdles of our Palicares.

“There were, besides the rowers, in the skiff, only women, my father, my mother, Selim, and I.

“The Palicares had remained on the edge of the lake, kneeling on the last step, and making, in case they should be pursued, a rampart of the three others.

“Our skiff went like the wind.

“‘Why does the skiff go so fast?’ I asked my mother.

“‘Hush! my child,’ said she, ‘it is because we are fleeing.’

“I did not understand. Why did my father flee, he the all-powerful, he before whom others usually fled, he who had taken for his device:

_They hate me, therefore they fear me?_

“Indeed, it was a flight that my father effected on the lake. He has since told me that the garrison of the castle of Janina, wearied with long service….”

Here Haydée fixed her expressive gaze on Monte Cristo, whose eye quitted hers no more. The young girl continued, therefore, slowly, like one who invents or suppresses.

“You were saying, signora,” resumed Albert, who paid the greatest attention to this narrative, “that the garrison of Janina, wearied with long service….”

“Had treated with the seraskier Kourchid, sent by the sultan to seize my father; it was then that my father had taken the resolution to retire, after having sent to the sultan a Frank officer, in whom he had full confidence, into the asylum which he had long prepared for himself, and which he called _kataphygion_, that is to say, his refuge.”

“And that officer,” asked Albert, “do you remember his name, signora?”

Monte Cristo exchanged with the young girl a glance rapid as lightning, and which remained unnoticed by Morcerf.

“No,” said she, “I do not remember it; but perhaps later I shall recall it, and I will tell it.”

Albert was about to pronounce his father’s name, when Monte Cristo gently raised his finger as a sign of silence; the young man remembered his oath and was silent.

“It was toward this kiosk that we sailed.

“A ground-floor adorned with arabesques, bathing its terraces in the water, and a first story looking on the lake, this is all that the palace offered visible to the eye.

“But below the ground-floor, extending into the island, was a subterranean vault, a vast cavern, whither we were conducted, my mother, I, and our women, and where, forming a single heap, lay sixty thousand purses and two hundred barrels; there were in these purses twenty-five millions in gold, and in the barrels thirty thousand pounds of powder.

“Near these barrels stood Selim, that favorite of my father of whom I have spoken to you; he watched day and night, a lance in his hand, at the end of which shone a lighted match; he had orders to blow up all, kiosk, guards, pacha, women, and gold, at the first sign from my father.

“I remember that our slaves, knowing this dreadful neighborhood, passed days and nights in praying, weeping, and moaning.

“As for me, I always see the young soldier with the pale complexion and the black eye; and when the angel of death shall descend toward me, I am sure I shall recognize Selim.

“I could not tell how long we remained thus: at that time I did not yet know what time was; sometimes, but rarely, my father sent for us, my mother and me, on the terrace of the palace; those were my hours of pleasure, I who saw in the vault only groaning shadows and the flaming lance of Selim. My father, seated before a large opening, fixed a somber gaze on the depths of the horizon, interrogating every black spot that appeared on the lake, while my mother, half lying near him, leaned her head on his shoulder, and I, playing at his feet, admiring, with those astonishments of childhood which still enlarge objects, the escarpments of Pindus, which rose on the horizon, the castles of Janina, issuing white and angular from the blue waters of the lake, the immense tufts of dark verdure, attached like lichens to the rocks of the mountain, which from afar seemed mosses, and which near at hand are gigantic firs and immense myrtles.

“One morning, my father sent for us; we found him tolerably calm, but paler than usual.

“‘Have patience, Vasiliki, to-day all will be ended; to-day arrives the firman of the master, and my fate will be decided. If the pardon is complete, we shall return triumphantly to Janina; if the news is bad, we shall flee to-night.’

“‘But if they will not let us flee?’ said my mother.

“‘Oh, be tranquil,’ replied Ali, smiling; ‘Selim and his lighted lance answer for them. They would have me dead, but not on condition of dying with me.’

“My mother replied only by sighs to these consolations, which did not come from my father’s heart.

“She prepared for him the iced water he drank every instant, for, since his retreat into the kiosk, he was burned by an ardent fever; she perfumed his white beard and lighted the chibouque whose smoke he sometimes followed distractedly with his eyes for whole hours, as it volatilized in the air.

“Suddenly he made so brusque a movement that I was seized with fear.

“Then, without turning his eyes from the point which fixed his attention, he asked for his spyglass.

“My mother handed it to him, paler than the stucco against which she leaned.

“I saw my father’s hand tremble.

“‘A skiff!… two!… three!…’ murmured my father; ‘four!…’

“And he rose, seizing his arms, and pouring, I remember, powder into the pans of his pistols.

“‘Vasiliki,’ said he to my mother, with a visible thrill, ‘here is the instant which will decide our fate; in half an hour we shall know the answer of the sublime emperor; withdraw into the vault with Haydée.’

“‘I will not leave you,’ said Vasiliki; ‘if you die, my master, I wish to die with you.’

“‘Go to Selim!’ cried my father.

“‘Farewell, lord!’ murmured my mother, obedient and bent double as by the approach of death.

“‘Take Vasiliki away,’ said my father to his Palicares.

“But I, whom they forgot, ran to him and stretched out my hands toward him; he saw me, and, leaning toward me, he pressed my forehead with his lips.

“Oh, that kiss, it was the last, and it is still there on my brow.

“In descending, we distinguished through the trellises of the terrace the skiffs which grew larger on the lake, and which, lately like black dots, already seemed birds skimming the surface of the waves.

“Meanwhile, in the kiosk, twenty Palicares, seated at my father’s feet and hidden by the woodwork, watched with bloody eye the arrival of those boats, and held ready their long muskets inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver: numerous cartridges were strewn on the floor; my father looked at his watch and walked with anguish.

“This is what struck me when I left my father after the last kiss I had received from him.

“We crossed, my mother and I, the subterranean vault. Selim was still at his post; he smiled on us sadly. We went to seek cushions on the other side of the cavern, and came to sit near Selim: in great perils, devoted hearts seek each other, and, child as I was, I felt instinctively that a great misfortune hung over our heads.”

Albert had often heard related, not by his father, who never spoke of it, but by strangers, the last moments of the vizier of Janina; he had read different accounts of his death; but this history, become living in the person and by the voice of the young girl, this living accent and this lamentable elegy, penetrated him at once with an inexpressible charm and horror.

As for Haydée, wholly given up to these terrible recollections, she had ceased for an instant to speak; her brow, like a flower which bends on a stormy day, had inclined on her hand, and her eyes, vaguely lost, seemed still to see on the horizon the verdant Pindus and the blue waters of the lake of Janina, a magic mirror reflecting the dark picture she was sketching.

Monte Cristo looked at her with an indefinable expression of interest and pity.

“Continue, my daughter,” said the count, in the Romaic language.

Haydée raised her brow, as if the sonorous words Monte Cristo had just pronounced had drawn her from a dream, and she resumed:

“It was four o’clock in the evening; but though the day was pure and brilliant without, we were, we, plunged in the shadow of the vault.

“A single gleam shone in the cavern, like a star trembling at the bottom of a black sky: it was Selim’s match. My mother was a Christian, and she prayed.

“Selim repeated from time to time these consecrated words:

“‘God is great!’

“However, my mother had still some hope. In descending, she thought she recognized the Frank who had been sent to Constantinople, and in whom my father had full confidence, for he knew that the soldiers of the French sultan are usually noble and generous. She advanced a few steps toward the staircase and listened.

“‘They approach,’ said she; ‘provided they bring peace and life.’

“‘What do you fear, Vasiliki?’ replied Selim, with his voice so sweet and so proud at once; ‘if they bring not peace, we will give them death.’

“And he revived the flame of his lance with a gesture which made him resemble the Dionysus of ancient Crete.

“But I, who was so childish and so naïve, was afraid of that courage which I found fierce and senseless, and I was terrified at that frightful death in air and flame.

“My mother felt the same impressions, for I felt her shudder.

“‘My God! my God, mamma!’ cried I, ‘are we going to die?’

“And at my voice the weeping and prayers of the slaves redoubled.

“‘Child,’ said Vasiliki to me, ‘God preserve you from coming to desire that death which you fear to-day!’

“Then in a low voice:

“‘Selim,’ said she, ‘what is the master’s order?’

“‘If he sends me his poniard, it is that the sultan refuses to receive him to grace, and I fire; if he sends me his ring, it is that the sultan pardons him, and I surrender the powder-magazine.’

“‘Friend,’ resumed my mother, ‘when the master’s order arrives, if it is the poniard he sends, instead of killing us both by that death which terrifies us, we will offer you our throats and you shall kill us with that poniard.’

“‘Yes, Vasiliki,’ replied Selim, tranquilly.

“Suddenly we heard loud cries; we listened: they were cries of joy; the name of the Frank who had been sent to Constantinople resounded repeated by our Palicares; it was evident that he brought back the answer of the sublime emperor, and that the answer was favorable.

“And you do not remember that name?” said Morcerf, quite ready to aid the memory of the narrator.

Monte Cristo made him a sign.

“I do not remember it,” replied Haydée.

“The noise redoubled; nearer steps resounded; they were descending the steps of the vault.

“Selim prepared his lance.

“Soon a shadow appeared in the bluish twilight formed by the day-rays penetrating to the entrance of the vault.

“‘Who art thou?’ cried Selim. ‘But, whoever thou art, advance not another step.’

“‘Glory to the sultan!’ said the shadow. ‘All grace is accorded to the vizier Ali; and not only has he his life safe, but his fortune and goods are restored to him.’

“My mother uttered a cry of joy and pressed me to her heart.

“‘Stop!’ said Selim, seeing that she was already springing to go out; ‘you know I must have the ring.’

“‘That is just,’ said my mother, and she fell on her knees, raising me toward heaven, as if, while praying to God for me, she wished still to lift me toward Him.”

And, for the second time, Haydée stopped, overcome by an emotion such that the sweat rolled on her pale brow, and her strangled voice seemed unable to pass her arid throat.

Monte Cristo poured a little iced water into a glass, and presented it to her, saying, with a softness in which pierced a shade of command:

“Courage, my daughter!”

Haydée wiped her eyes and brow, and continued:

“Meanwhile, our eyes, accustomed to the obscurity, had recognized the pacha’s envoy: he was a friend.

“Selim had recognized him; but the brave young man knew but one thing: to obey!

“‘In what name comest thou?’ said he.

“‘I come in the name of our master, Ali-Tebelin.’

“‘If thou comest in the name of Ali, thou knowest what thou shouldst deliver to me?’

“‘Yes,’ said the envoy, ‘and I bring thee his ring.’

“At the same time he raised his hand above his head; but he was too far and it was not light enough for Selim to distinguish and recognize, from where we were, the object he presented to him.

“‘I do not see what thou holdest,’ said Selim.

“‘Approach,’ said the messenger, ‘or I will approach, I.’

“‘Neither one nor the other,’ replied the young soldier; ‘deposit, where thou art, and under that ray of light, the object thou showest me, and withdraw until I have seen it.’

“‘Be it so,’ said the messenger.

“And he withdrew after having deposited the sign of recognition at the indicated spot.

“And our hearts palpitated: for the object seemed to us indeed to be a ring. Only, was it my father’s ring?

“Selim, still holding in his hand his lighted match, came to the opening, bowed radiantly under the ray of light, and picked up the sign.

“‘The master’s ring,’ said he, kissing it; ‘it is well!’

“And overturning the match against the ground, he stepped on it and extinguished it.

“The messenger uttered a cry of joy and clapped his hands. At this signal, four soldiers of the seraskier Kourchid ran up, and Selim fell pierced with five blows of the poniard. Each had given his.

“And yet, drunk with their crime, though still pale with fear, they rushed into the vault, seeking everywhere if there were fire, and rolling on the sacks of gold.

“Meanwhile my mother seized me in her arms, and, agile, bounding by windings known to us alone, she reached a concealed staircase of the kiosk, in which reigned a frightful tumult.

“The lower halls were entirely filled by Kourchid’s Tchodoars, that is to say, by our enemies.

“At the moment when my mother was about to push the little door, we heard resound, terrible and menacing, the voice of the pacha.

“My mother glued her eye to the chinks of the planks; an opening happened to be before mine, and I looked.

“‘What do you want?’ said my father to men who held a paper with characters of gold in their hands.

“‘What we want,’ answered one of them, ‘is to communicate to thee the will of His Highness. Seest thou this firman?’

“‘I see it,’ said my father.

“‘Well, read; it demands thy head.’

“My father burst into a laugh more frightful than a threat would have been; he had not yet ceased, when two pistol-shots had parted from his hands and killed two men.

“The Palicares, who were lying all around my father, face to the floor, then rose and fired; the chamber filled with noise, flame, and smoke.

“Instantly the fire began on the other side, and the balls came to pierce the planks all around us.

“Oh! how beautiful he was, how great, the vizier Ali-Tebelin, my father, amid the balls, the scimitar in hand, his face black with powder! How his enemies fled!

“‘Selim! Selim!’ he cried, ‘guardian of the fire, do thy duty!’

“‘Selim is dead!’ replied a voice which seemed to issue from the depths of the kiosk, ‘and thou, my lord Ali, art lost!’

“At the same time a dull detonation was heard, and the floor flew in splinters all around my father.

“The Tchodoars fired through the floor. Three or four Palicares fell struck from below upward by wounds which plowed their whole bodies.

“My father roared, thrust his fingers through the bullet-holes and tore up a whole plank.

“But at the same time, through that opening, twenty musket-shots burst forth, and the flame, issuing like from the crater of a volcano, caught the hangings, which it devoured.

“Amid all this awful tumult, amid those terrible cries, two reports more distinct than all, two cries more piercing above all cries, froze me with terror. Those two explosions had stricken my father mortally, and it was he who had uttered those two cries.

“However, he remained standing, clinging to a window. My mother shook the door to go and die with him; but the door was fastened within.

“All around him, the Palicares writhed in the convulsions of agony; two or three, who were unwounded or slightly wounded, sprang through the windows. At the same time the whole floor cracked, broken beneath. My father fell on one knee; at the same moment twenty arms were extended, armed with sabers, pistols, poniards, twenty blows struck at once a single man, and my father disappeared in a whirlwind of fire, fed by those roaring demons as if hell had opened beneath his feet.

“I felt myself roll to the earth: it was my mother, who sank down in a swoon.”

Haydée let fall both arms, uttering a groan and looking at the count, as if to ask him if he were satisfied with her obedience.

The count rose, came to her, took her hand, and said to her, in remark:

“Rest thee, dear child, and take courage, thinking that there is a God who punishes traitors.”

“That is a frightful history, count,” said Albert, quite alarmed at Haydée’s paleness; “and I reproach myself now with having been so cruelly indiscreet.”

“It is nothing,” replied Monte Cristo.

Then, placing his hand on the young girl’s head:

“Haydée,” continued he, “is a courageous woman; she has sometimes found relief in the recital of her sorrows.”

“Because, my lord,” said the young girl, quickly, “because my sorrows recall to me thy benefits.”

Albert looked at her with curiosity, for she had not yet related what he most desired to know, that is to say, how she had become the count’s slave.

Haydée saw at once, in the count’s looks and in Albert’s, the same desire expressed.

She continued:

“When my mother recovered her senses,” said she, “we were before the seraskier.

“‘Kill me,’ said she, ‘but spare the honor of the widow of Ali.’

“‘It is not to me you must address yourself,’ said Kourchid.

“‘To whom, then?’

“‘It is to thy new master.’

“‘Who is he?’

“‘Here he is.’

“And Kourchid showed us one of those who had most contributed to my father’s death,” continued the young girl, with a dark anger.

“Then,” asked Albert, “you became the property of this man?”

“No,” replied Haydée; “he dared not keep us, he sold us to slave-merchants who were going to Constantinople. We crossed Greece, and arrived dying at the imperial gate, encumbered with curious people who made way to let us pass, when suddenly my mother follows with her eyes the direction of their looks, utters a cry, and falls, showing me a head above that gate.

“Below that head were written these words:

‘This is the head of Ali-Tebelin, pacha of Janina.’

“I tried, weeping, to raise my mother: she was dead!

“I was taken to the bazaar; a rich Armenian bought me, had me instructed, gave me masters, and when I was thirteen years old sold me to Sultan Mahmoud.”

“To whom,” said Monte Cristo, “I ransomed her, as I told you, Albert, for that emerald like the one in which I put my haschish pastilles.”

“Oh! thou art good, thou art great, my lord,” said Haydée, kissing Monte Cristo’s hand; “and I am very happy to belong to thee!”

Albert had remained quite bewildered at what he had just heard.

“Finish your cup of coffee,” said the count to him; “the story is ended.”

“Stories of the world, in your language.”