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

with wild staring eyes, while with his cramped hand he grasped a piece of furniture to enable him to stand upright.

“He is going to fall!” cried Morrel.

The rigors which had attacked Barrois gradually increased, the features of the face became quite altered, and the convulsive movement of the muscles appeared to indicate the approach of a most serious nervous disorder. Noirtier, seeing Barrois in this pitiable condition, showed by his looks all the various emotions of sorrow and sympathy which can animate the heart of man. Barrois made some steps towards his master.

“Ah, sir,” said he, “tell me what is the matter with me. I am suffering⁠—I cannot see. A thousand fiery darts are piercing my brain. Ah, don’t touch me, pray don’t.”

By this time his haggard eyes had the appearance of being ready to start from their sockets; his head fell back, and the lower extremities of the body began to stiffen. Valentine uttered a cry of horror; Morrel took her in his arms, as if to defend her from some unknown danger.

“M. d’Avrigny, M. d’Avrigny,” cried she, in a stifled voice. “Help, help!”

Barrois turned round and with a great effort stumbled a few steps, then fell at the feet of Noirtier, and resting his hand on the knee of the invalid, exclaimed:

“My master, my good master!”

At this moment M. de Villefort, attracted by the noise, appeared on the threshold. Morrel relaxed his hold of Valentine, and retreating to a distant corner of the room remained half hidden behind a curtain. Pale as if he had been gazing on a serpent, he fixed his terrified eye on the agonized sufferer.

Noirtier, burning with impatience and terror, was in despair at his utter inability to help his old domestic, whom he regarded more in the light of a friend than a servant. One might by the fearful swelling of the veins of his forehead and the contraction of the muscles round the eye, trace the terrible conflict which was going on between the living energetic mind and the inanimate and helpless body.

Barrois, his features convulsed, his eyes suffused with blood, and his head thrown back, was lying at full length, beating the floor with his hands, while his legs had become so stiff, that they looked as if they would break rather than bend. A slight appearance of foam was visible around the mouth, and he breathed painfully, and with extreme difficulty.

Villefort seemed stupefied with astonishment, and remained gazing intently on the scene before him without uttering a word. He had not seen Morrel. After a moment of dumb contemplation, during which his face became pale and his hair seemed to stand on end, he sprang towards the door, crying out:

“Doctor, doctor! come instantly, pray come!”

“Madame, madame!” cried Valentine, calling her stepmother, and running upstairs to meet her; “come quick, quick!⁠—and bring your bottle of smelling-salts with you.”

“What is the matter?” said Madame de Villefort in a harsh and constrained tone.

“Oh! come! come!”

“But where is the doctor?” exclaimed Villefort; “where is he?”

Madame de Villefort now deliberately descended the staircase. In one hand she held her handkerchief, with which she appeared to be wiping her face, and in the other a bottle of English smelling-salts. Her first look on entering the room was at Noirtier, whose face, independent of the emotion which such a scene could not fail of producing, proclaimed him to be in possession of his usual health; her second glance was at the dying man. She turned pale, and her eye passed quickly from the servant and rested on the master.

“In the name of heaven, madame,” said Villefort, “where is the doctor? He was with you just now. You see this is a fit of apoplexy, and he might be saved if he could but be bled!”

“Has he eaten anything lately?” asked Madame de Villefort, eluding her husband’s question.

“Madame,” replied Valentine, “he has not even breakfasted. He has been running very fast on an errand with which my grandfather charged him, and when he returned, took nothing but a glass of lemonade.”

“Ah,” said Madame de Villefort, “why did he not take wine? Lemonade was a very bad thing for him.”

“Grandpapa’s bottle of lemonade was standing just by his side; poor Barrois was very thirsty, and was thankful to drink anything he could find.”

Madame de Villefort started. Noirtier looked at her with a glance of the most profound scrutiny.

“He has such a short neck,” said she.

“Madame,” said Villefort, “I ask where is M. d’Avrigny? In God’s name answer me!”

“He is with Edward, who is not quite well,” replied Madame de Villefort, no longer being able to avoid answering.

Villefort rushed upstairs to fetch him.

“Take this,” said Madame de Villefort, giving her smelling-bottle to Valentine. “They will, no doubt, bleed him; therefore I will retire, for I cannot endure the sight of blood”; and she followed her husband upstairs. Morrel now emerged from his hiding-place, where he had remained quite unperceived, so great had been the general confusion.

“Go away as quick as you can, Maximilian,” said Valentine, “and stay till I send for you. Go.”

Morrel looked towards Noirtier for permission to retire. The old man, who had preserved all his usual coolness, made a sign to him to do so. The young man pressed Valentine’s hand to his lips, and then left the house by a back staircase.

At the same moment that he quitted the room, Villefort and the doctor entered by an opposite door. Barrois was now showing signs of returning consciousness. The risis seemed past, a low moaning was heard, and he raised himself on one knee. D’Avrigny and Villefort laid him on a couch.

“What do you prescribe, doctor?” demanded Villefort.

“Give me some water and ether. You have some in the house, have you not?”

“Yes.”

“Send for some oil of turpentine and tartar emetic.”

Villefort immediately despatched a messenger. “And now let everyone retire.”

“Must I go too?” asked Valentine timidly.

“Yes, mademoiselle, you especially,” replied the doctor abruptly.

Valentine looked at M. d’Avrigny with astonishment, kissed her grandfather on the forehead, and left the