“What is that?” he inquired.
“Look at it,” said the abbé, with a smile.
“I have looked at it with all possible attention,” said Dantès, “and I only see a half-burnt paper on which are traces of Gothic characters traced with peculiar kind of ink.”
“This paper, my friend,” said Faria, “I may now avow to you, since I have proved you,—this paper is my treasure, of which, from this day forth, one half belongs to you.”
A cold damp started to Dantès’ brow. Until this day,—and what a space of time!—he had avoided talking to the abbé of this treasure, the source whence accusation of madness against the poor abbé was derived. With his instinctive delicacy Edmond had preferred avoiding any touch on this painful chord, and Faria had been equally silent. He had taken the silence of the old man for a return to reason, and now these few words uttered by Faria, after so painful a crisis, seemed to announce a serious relapse of mental alienation.
“Your treasure?” stammered Dantès. Faria smiled.
“Yes,” said he. “You are, indeed, a noble heart, Edmond; and I see by your paleness and your shudder what is passing in your heart at this moment. No, be assured, I am not mad. This treasure exists, Dantès; and if I have not been allowed to possess it you will. Yes—you. No one would listen to me or believe me because they thought me mad; but you, who must know that I am not, listen to me, and believe me afterwards if you will.”
“Alas!” murmured Edmond to himself, “this is a terrible relapse! There was only this blow wanting.” Then he said aloud, “My dear friend, your attack has, perhaps fatigued you, had you not better repose a while! Tomorrow, if you will, I will hear your narrative; but today I wish to nurse you carefully. Besides,” he said, “a treasure is not a thing we need hurry.”
“On the contrary, it must be hurried, Edmond!” replied the old man. “Who knows if tomorrow, or the next day after, the third attack may not come on? and then must not all be finished? Yes, indeed, I have often thought with a bitter joy that these riches, which would make the wealth of a dozen families, will be for ever lost to those men who persecute me. This idea was one of vengeance to me, and I tasted it slowly in the night of my dungeon and the despair of my captivity. But now I have forgiven the world for the love of you; now I see you young and full of hope and prospect,—now that I think of all that may result to you in the good fortune of such a disclosure, I shudder at any delay, and tremble lest I should not assure to one so worthy as yourself the possession of so vast an amount of hidden treasure.”
Edmond turned away his head with a sigh.
“You persist in your incredulity, Edmond,” continued Faria. “My words have not convinced you. I see you require proofs. Well, then, read this paper which I have never shown to any one.”
“Tomorrow, my dear friend,” said Edmond, desirous of not yielding to the old man’s madness. “I thought it was understood that we should not talk of that until tomorrow.”
“Then we will not talk of it until tomorrow; but read this paper today.”
“I will not irritate him,” thought Edmond, and taking the paper, of which half was wanting, having been burnt, no doubt, by some accident, he read:
“This treasure, which may amount to two of Roman crowns in the most distant a of the second opening wh declare to belong to him alo heir.
“25th April, 149 “
“Well!” said Faria, when the young man had finished reading it.
“Why,” replied Dantès, “I see nothing but broken lines and unconnected words, which are rendered illegible by fire.”
“Yes, to you, my friend, who read them for the first time, but not for me, who have grown pale over them by many nights’ study, and have reconstructed every phrase, completed every thought.”
“And do you believe you have discovered the concealed sense?”
“I am sure I have, and you shall judge for yourself; but first listen to the history of this paper.”
“Silence!” exclaimed Dantès. “Steps approach, I go, adieu.”
And Dantès, happy to escape the history and explanation which could not fail to confirm to him his friend’s malady, glided like a snake along the narrow passage, whilst Faria, restored by his alarm to a kind of activity, pushed with his foot the stone into its place, and covered it with a mat in order the more effectually to avoid discovery.
It was the governor, who, hearing of Faria’s accident from the gaoler, had come in person to see him.
Faria sat up to receive him, and continued to conceal from the governor the paralysis that had already half stricken him with death. His fear was, lest the governor touched, with pity, might order him to be removed to a prison more wholesome, and thus separate him from his young companion; but fortunately this was not the case, and the governor left him convinced that the poor madman, for whom in his heart he felt a kind of affection, was only affected with a slight indisposition.
During this time, Edmond, seated on his bed with his head in his hands, tried to collect his scattered thoughts. All was so rational, so grand, so logical, with Faria, since he had known him, that he could not understand how so much wisdom on all points could be allied to madness in any one;—was Faria deceived as to his treasure, or was all the world deceived as to Faria?
Dantès remained in his cell all day, not daring to return to his friend, thinking thus to defer the moment when he should acquire the certainty that the abbé was mad—such a conviction would be so terrible!
But, towards the evening, after the usual visitation, Faria, not seeing the young man appear, tried to move, and get over the distance which separated them. Edmond shuddered when he heard the painful efforts which the old man made to drag himself along; his leg was inert, and he could no longer make use of one arm. Edmond was compelled to draw him towards himself, for otherwise he could not enter by the small aperture which led to Dantès’ chamber.
“Here I am, pursuing you remorselessly,” he said, with a benignant smile. “You thought to escape my munificence, but it is in vain. Listen to me.”
Edmond saw there was no escape, and placing the old man on his bed, he seated himself on the stool beside him.
“You know,” said the abbé, “that I was the secretary and intimate friend of the Cardinal Spada, the last of the princes of that name. I owe to this worthy lord all the happiness I ever knew. He was not rich, although the wealth of his family had passed into a proverb, and I heard the phrase very often, ‘As rich as a Spada.’ But he, like public rumour, lived on this reputation for wealth; his palace was my paradise. I instructed his nephews, who are dead, and when he was alone in the world I returned to him, by an absolute devotion to his will, all he had done for me during ten years.
“The house of the cardinal had no secrets for me. I had often seen my noble patron annotating ancient volumes, and eagerly searching amongst dusty family manuscripts. One day when I was reproaching him for his unavailing searches, and the kind of prostration of mind that followed them, he looked at me, and, smiling bitterly, opened a volume relating to the History of the City of Rome. There, in the twenty-ninth chapter of the Life of Pope Alexander VI, were the following lines, which I can never forget:—
“‘The great wars of Romagne had ended; Cæsar Borgia, who had completed his conquest, had need of money to purchase all Italy. The pope had also need of money to conclude with Louis, the twelfth king of France, formidable still in spite of his recent reverses; and it was necessary, therefore, to have recourse