“Ah, M. Morrel,” exclaimed the young seaman, with tears in his eyes, and grasping the owner’s hand, “M. Morrel, I thank you in the name of my father and of Mercédès.”
“Good, good! Edmond. There’s a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft that keeps a good watch for good fellows! Go to your father: go and see Mercédès, and come to me afterwards.”
“Shall I row you on shore?”
“No, I thank you; I shall remain and look over the accounts with Danglars. Have you been satisfied with him this voyage?”
“That is according to the sense you attach to the question, sir. Do you mean is he a good comrade? No, for I think he never liked me since the day when I was silly enough, after a little quarrel we had, to propose to him to stop for ten minutes at the Isle of Monte Cristo to settle the dispute, a proposition which I was wrong to suggest, and he quite right to refuse. If you mean as responsible agent that you ask me the question, I believe there is nothing to say against him, and that you will be content with the way in which he has performed his duty.”
“But tell me, Dantès, if you had the command of the Pharaon, should you have pleasure in retaining Danglars?”
“Captain or mate, M. Morrel,” replied Dantès, “I shall always have the greatest respect for those who possess our owners’ confidences.”
“Good! good! Dantès. I see you are a thorough good fellow, and will detain you no longer. Go, for I see how impatient you are.”
“Then I have leave?”
“Go, I tell you.”
“May I have the use of your skiff?”
“Certainly.”
“Then for the present, M. Morrel, farewell, and a thousand thanks!”
“I hope soon to see you again, my dear Edmond. Good luck to you!”
The young sailor jumped into the skiff, and sat down in the stern, desiring to be put ashore at the Canebière. The two rowers bent to their work, and the little boat glided away as rapidly as possible in the midst of the thousand vessels which choke up the narrow way which leads between the two rows of ships from the mouth of the harbour to the Quai d’Orléans.
The shipowner, smiling, followed him with his eyes, until he saw him spring out on the quay, and disappear in the midst of the throng which, from five o’clock in the morning until nine o’clock at night, choke up this famous street of La Canebière, of which the modern Phocéens are so proud, and say with all the gravity in the world, and with that accent which gives so much character to what is said, “If Paris had La Canebière, Paris would be a second Marseilles.” On turning round, the owner saw Danglars behind him, who apparently attended his orders; but in reality followed, as he did, the young sailor with his eyes, only there was a great difference in the expression of the looks of the two men who thus watched the movements of Edmond Dantès.
WE WILL LEAVE Danglars struggling with the feelings of hatred, and endeavouring to insinuate in the ear of the shipowner, Morrel, some evil suspicions against his comrade, and follow Dantès; who, after having traversed the Canebière, took the Rue de Noailles, and entering into a small house, situated on the left side of the Allées de Meillan, rapidly ascended four storeys of a dark staircase, holding the baluster in his hand, whilst with the other he repressed the beatings of his heart, and paused before a half-opened door, which revealed all the interior of a small apartment.
This apartment was occupied by Dantès’ father.
The news of the arrival of the Pharaon had not yet reached the old man, who, mounted on a chair, was amusing himself with staking some nasturtiums with tremulous hand, which, mingled with clematis, formed a kind of trellis at his window.
Suddenly he felt an arm thrown round his body, and a well-known voice behind him exclaimed, “Father! dear father!”
The old man uttered a cry, and turned round; then, seeing his son, he fell into his arms, pale and trembling.
“What ails you, my dearest father? Are you ill?” inquired the young man, much alarmed.
“No, no, my dear Edmond—my boy—my son!—no; but I did not
expect you; and joy, the surprise of seeing you so suddenly———Ah! I really seem as if I were going to die!”
“Come, come, cheer up, my dear father! ‘Tis I—really I! They say joy never hurts, and so I come to you without any warning. Come now, look cheerfully at me, instead of gazing as you do with your eyes so wide. Here I am back again, and we will now be happy.”
“Yes, yes, my boy, so we will—so we will,” replied the old man, “but how shall we be happy?—Will you never leave me again?—Come, tell me all the good fortune that has befallen you.”
“God forgive me,” said the young man, “for rejoicing at happiness derived from the misery of others; but Heaven knows I did not seek this good fortune: it has happened, and I really cannot affect to lament it. The good Captain Leclere is dead, father, and it is probable that, with the aid of M. Morrel, I shall have his place. Do you understand, father? Only imagine me a captain at twenty, with a hundred louis pay, and a share in the profits! Is this not more than a poor sailor, like me, could have hoped for?”
“Yes, my dear boy,” replied the old man, “and much more than you could have expected.”
“Well, then, with the first money I touch, I mean you to have a small house, with a garden to plant your clematis, your nasturtiums, and your honeysuckles. But what ails you, father? Are not you well?”
“‘Tis nothing, nothing; it will soon pass away;” and as he said so the old man’s strength failed him, and he fell backwards.
“Come, come,” said the young man, “a glass of wine, father, will revive you. Where do you keep your wine?”
“No, no; thank ye. You need not look for it; I do not want it,” said the old man.
“Yes, yes, father, tell me where it is;” and he opened two or three cupboards.
“It is no use,” said the old man; “there is no wine.”
“What! no wine?” said Dantès, turning pale, and looking alternately at the hollow cheeks of the old man and the empty cupboards. “What! no wine? Have you wanted money, father?”
“I want nothing now you are here,” said the old man.
“Yet,” stammered Dantès, wiping the perspiration from his brow—“yet I gave you two hundred francs when I left three months ago.”
“Yes, yes, Edmond, that is true, but you forgot at that time a little debt to our neighbour Caderousse. He reminded me of it, telling me if I did not pay for you, he would be paid by M. Morrel; and so, you see, lest he might do you an injury———”
“Well?”
“Why, I paid him.”
“But,” cried Dantès, “it was a hundred and forty francs I owed Caderousse.”
“Yes,” stammered the old man.
“And you paid him out of the two hundred francs I left you?”
The old man made a sign in the affirmative.
“So that you have lived for three months on sixty francs?” muttered the young man.
“You know how little I require,”