“Is this the man?” asked the captain, who was attentively reading Plutarch’s “Life of Alexander.”
“Himself, captain – himself.”
“Very well, show him to me.”
At this rather impertinent order, Peppino raised his torch to Danglars’ face, who hastily withdrew, that he might not have his eyelashes burned. His agitated features presented the appearance of pale and hideous terror.
“The man is tired,” said the captain, “conduct him to his bed.”
“Oh!” murmured Danglars, “that bed is probably one of the coffins hollowed in the wall, and the sleep I shall enjoy will be death from one of the poniards I see glistening in the shade.”
From the depths of the hall were now seen to rise from their beds of dried leaves or wolf-skins the companions of the man who had been found by Albert de Morcerf reading “Caesar’s Commentaries,” and by Danglars studying the “Life of Alexander.” The banker uttered a groan and followed his guide; he neither supplicated nor exclaimed. He no longer possessed strength, will, power, or feeling; he followed where they led him. At length, he found himself at the foot of a staircase, and he mechanically lifted his foot five or six times. Then a low door was opened before him, and bending his head to avoid striking his forehead, he entered a small room cut out of the rock. The cell was clean, though naked; and dry, though situated at an immeasurable distance under the earth. Danglars, on beholding it, brightened, fancying it a type of safety.
“Oh, God be praised!” he said; “it is a real bed!”
This was the second time within the hour that he had invoked the name of God. He had not done so for ten years before.
“Ecco!” said the guide, and pushing Danglars into the cell, he closed the door upon him.
A bolt grated; Danglars was a prisoner; besides, had there been no bolt, it would have been impossible for him to pass through the midst of the garrison who held the catacombs of Saint Sebastian, encamped round a master whom our readers must have recognized as the famous Luigi Vampa.
Danglars, too, had recognized the bandit, whose existence he would not believe when Albert de Morcerf mentioned him in Paris; and not only did he recognize him, but also the cell in which Albert had been confined, and which was probably kept for the accommodation of strangers. These recollections were dwelt upon with some pleasure by Danglars, and restored him to some degree of tranquillity. Since the bandits had not dispatched him at once, he felt that they would not kill him at all. They had arrested him for the purpose of robbery, and as he had only a few louis about him, he doubted not he would be ransomed.
He remembered that Morcerf had been taxed at four thousand crowns; and as he considered himself of much greater importance than Morcerf, he fixed his own price at eight thousand crowns: eight thousand crowns amounted to forty-eight thousand livres: he would then have about five million fifty thousand francs. With this sum he could manage to keep out of difficulties. Therefore, tolerably secure in being able to extricate himself from his position, provided he were not rated at the unreasonable sum of five million fifty thousand francs, he stretched himself on his bed, and, after turning round two or three times, fell asleep with the tranquillity of the hero whose life Luigi Vampa was studying.