Chapter 27 Monsieur de Beaufort.
Chapter 28 Preparations for Departure.
Chapter 29 Planchet’s Inventory.
Chapter 30 The Inventory of M. de Beaufort.
Chapter 32 Captive and Jailers.
Chapter 36 In M. Colbert’s Carriage.
Chapter 39 How the King, Louis xiv., Played His Little Part.
Chapter 40 The White Horse and the Black.
Chapter 41 In Which the Squirrel Falls,—the Adder Flies.
Chapter 43 Explanations by Aramis.
Chapter 44 Result of the Ideas of the King, and the Ideas of D’Artagnan.
Chapter 45 The Ancestors of Porthos.
Chapter 46 The Son of Biscarrat.
Chapter 47 The Grotto of Locmaria.
Chapter 50 The Death of a Titan.
Chapter 52 M. de Gesvres’s Round.
Chapter 54 M. Fouquet’s Friends.
Chapter 56 The Old Age of Athos.
Chapter 58 The Angel of Death.
Chapter 60 The Last Canto of the Poem.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Chapter 1 Marseilles — The Arrival.
On the 24th of February, 1810, the lookout at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples.
As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d’If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island.
Immediately, and according to custom, the ramparts of Fort Saint-Jean were covered with spectators; it is always an event at Marseilles for a ship to come into port, especially when this ship, like the Pharaon, has been built, rigged, and laden at the old Phocee docks, and belongs to an owner of the city.
The ship drew on and had safely passed the strait, which some volcanic shock has made between the Calasareigne and Jaros islands; had doubled Pomegue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and spanker, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune could have happened on board. However, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself, for she bore down with all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the anchor a-cockbill, the jib-boom guys already eased off, and standing by the side of the pilot, who was steering the Pharaon towards the narrow entrance of the inner port, was a young man, who, with activity and vigilant eye, watched every motion of the ship, and repeated each direction of the pilot.
The vague disquietude which prevailed among the spectators had so much affected one of the crowd that he did not await the arrival of the vessel in harbor, but jumping into a small skiff, desired to be pulled alongside the Pharaon, which he reached as she rounded into La Reserve basin.
When the young man on board saw this person approach, he left his station by the pilot, and, hat in hand, leaned over the ship’s bulwarks.
He was a fine, tall, slim young fellow of eighteen or twenty, with black eyes, and hair as dark as a raven’s wing; and his whole appearance bespoke that calmness and resolution peculiar to men accustomed from their cradle to contend with danger.
“Ah, is it you, Dantes?” cried the man in the skiff. “What’s the matter? and why have you such an air of sadness aboard?”
“A great misfortune, M. Morrel,” replied the young man, — “a great misfortune, for me especially! Off Civita Vecchia we lost our brave Captain Leclere.”
“And the cargo?” inquired