Chapter 22 The Smugglers.

Chapter 22  The Smugglers.

 

Dantes 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 Abbe 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 Provencal, 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

Dantes was on board a smuggler.

 

At first the captain had received Dantes 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 Dantes 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

Dantes 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. Dantes 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 Dantes; but Dantes, 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

Dantes 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.

 

Dantes 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, Dantes 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 Abbe Faria, had they not

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

was singularly circumstantial, and Dantes 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. Dantes 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; Dantes was one of the latter,

a ball having touched him in the left shoulder. Dantes 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. Dantes 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 Dantes 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 Abbe

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.

 

Dantes 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 Dantes 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 Dantes 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.