The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (best book club books .TXT) 📕

“Yes; I am a supercargo; pen, ink, and paper are my tools, and without my tools I am fit for nothing.”

“Pen, ink, and paper, then,” called Fernand loudly.

“There’s what you want on that table,” said the waiter.

“Bring them here.” The waiter did as he was desired.

“When one thinks,” said Caderousse, letting his hand drop on the paper, “there is here wherewithal to kill a man more sure than if we waited at the corner of a wood to assassinate him! I have always had more dread of a pen, a bottle of ink, and a sheet of paper, than of a sword or pistol.”

“The fellow is not so drunk as he appears to be,” said Danglars. “Give him some more wine, Fernand.” Fernand filled Caderousse’s glass, who, like the confirmed toper he was, lifted his hand from the paper and seized the glass.

The Catalan watched him until Caderousse, almost overcome by this fresh assault on his senses, rested, or rather dropped, his glass upon the table.

“Well!” resumed the Catalan, as he saw the final glimmer of Caderousse’s reason vanishing before the last glass of wine.

“Well, then, I should say, for instance,” resumed Danglars, “that if after a voyage such as Dantès has just made, in which he touched at the Island of Elba, someone were to denounce him to the king’s procureur as a Bonapartist agent⁠—”

“I will denounce him!” exclaimed the young man hastily.

“Yes, but they will make you then sign your declaration, and confront you with him you have denounced; I will supply you with the means of supporting your accusation, for I know the fact well. But Dantès cannot remain forever in prison, and one day or other he will leave it, and the day when he comes out, woe betide him who was the cause of his incarceration!”

“Oh, I should wish nothing better than that he would come and seek a quarrel with me.”

“Yes, and Mercédès! Mercédès, who will detest you if you have only the misfortune to scratch the skin of her dearly beloved Edmond!”

“True!” said Fernand.

“No, no,” continued Danglars; “if we resolve on such a step, it would be much better to take, as I now do, this pen, dip it into this ink, and write with the left hand (that the writing may not be recognized) the denunciation we propose.” And Danglars, uniting practice with theory, wrote with his left hand, and in a writing reversed from his usual style, and totally unlike it, the following lines, which he handed to Fernand, and which Fernand read in an undertone:

“The honorable, the king’s attorney, is informed by a friend of the throne and religion, that one Edmond Dantès, mate of the ship Pharaon, arrived this morning from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been entrusted by Murat with a letter for the usurper, and by the usurper with a letter for the Bonapartist committee in Paris. Proof of this crime will be found on arresting him, for the letter will be found upon him, or at his father’s, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.”

“Very good,” resumed Danglars; “now your revenge looks like common sense, for in no way can it revert to yourself, and the matter will thus work its own way; there is nothing to do now but fold the letter as I am doing, and write upon it, ‘To the king’s attorney,’ and that’s all settled.” And Danglars wrote the address as he spoke.

“Yes, and that’s all settled!” exclaimed Caderousse, who, by a last effort of intellect, had followed the reading of the letter, and instinctively comprehended all the misery which such a denunciation must entail. “Yes, and that’s all settled; only it will be an infamous shame”; and he stretched out his hand to reach the letter.

“Yes,” said Danglars, taking it from beyond his reach; “and as what I say and do is merely in jest, and I, amongst the first and foremost, should be sorry if anything happened to Dantès⁠—the worthy Dantès⁠—look here!” And taking the letter, he squeezed it up in his hands and threw it into a corner of the arbor.

“All right!” said Caderousse. “Dantès is my friend, and I won’t have him ill-used.”

“And who thinks of using him ill? Certainly neither I nor Fernand,” said Danglars, rising and looking at the young man, who still remained seated, but whose eye was fixed on the denunciatory sheet of paper flung into the corner.

“In this case,” replied Caderousse, “let’s have some more wine. I wish to drink to the health of Edmond and the lovely Mercédès.”

“You have had too much already, drunkard,” said Danglars; “and if you continue, you will be compelled to sleep here, because unable to stand on your legs.”

“I?” said Caderousse, rising with all the offended dignity of a drunken man, “I can’t keep on my legs? Why, I’ll wager I can go up into the belfry of the Accoules, and without staggering, too!”

“Done!” said Danglars, “I’ll take your bet; but tomorrow⁠—today it is time to return. Give me your arm, and let us go.”

“Very well, let us go,” said Caderousse; “but I don’t want your arm at all. Come, Fernand, won’t you return to Marseilles with us?”

“No,” said Fernand; “I shall return to the Catalans.”

“You’re wrong. Come with us to Marseilles⁠—come along.”

“I will not.”

“What do you mean? you will not? Well, just as you like, my prince; there’s liberty for all the world. Come along, Danglars, and let the young gentleman return to the Catalans if he chooses.”

Danglars took advantage of Caderousse’s temper at the moment, to take him off towards Marseilles by the Porte Saint-Victor, staggering as he went.

When they had advanced about twenty yards, Danglars looked back and saw Fernand stoop, pick up the crumpled paper, and putting it into his pocket then rush out of the arbor towards Pillon.

“Well,” said Caderousse, “why, what a lie he told! He said he was going to the Catalans, and he is going to the