Sixteen

"THE YOUNG AMELIA"

Dantes did not take long to discover what kind of trade was done by The Young Amelia—the ship in which he was sailing. He heard the men talking, and he knew very soon that The Young Amelia was a "Free-trader", that is, a ship which sets its goods on shore on a dark night and in a bay where no officers of Government come, so that they may not have to pay anything on the goods. The Captain at first seemed in doubt whether Dantes could be trusted or not. He wondered whether he might be really an officer of Government, and thought that all this story of the storm and the ship from Malta might have been a way of getting on board. In time Dantes was able to make the Captain believe in him, and by the time they reached Leghorn it was clear that his mind was quite easy about the new man.

At Leghorn Edmond went to get his beard and hair cut. All these years he had not seen his own face; he remembered well enough how he had looked just before he went to Chateau d'If; he would now discover how much he had changed.

When the work was complete he asked the hair-cutter for a glass. When he entered Chateau d'If he had had the round and open face of a young and happy man. This was now all changed.

His face was longer; his mouth was harder and stronger; his eyes were deep and thoughtful, and his skin, long kept from the sun and open air, was whiter. Even his voice was changed; his long prayers and weepings had made it soft and rather sad.

Edmond looked at himself in the glass. Even his best friend, he thought, would not know him. He did not know himself.

After leaving the hair-cutter he went and bought some clothes. Then, a changed man in dress as in face, he went back on board The Young Amelia.

The men of The Young Amelia served their Captain well; they worked hard, and very little time was lost at Leghorn. He soon had his ship loaded again. The Captain had to get these goods out of Leghorn without having trouble with the Government officers, and get them on shore at Corsica.

They set sail. Edmond was again on the open sea, the play-field of his early years, of which he had so often dreamed in prison. They left Pianosa on the right and sailed towards the country in which Napoleon was born.

Early next morning, the Captain found Dantes standing at the side of the ship, looking at a great mass of rocks which the rising sun coloured with rosy light. It was the Island of Monte Cristo. The Young Amelia left it about four miles away on her left and kept on her course for Corsica.

Dantes thought, as they passed, that he had only to jump over the side, and in an hour he would be on that land so full of promise. But, even if he did that, how could he carry the treasure away? What would his fellow-seamen say? What would the Captain think? He must wait. He had learnt how to wait. He had waited for years to be free; he could wait a few months to be rich.

And perhaps that treasure was only a dream, a child of Faria's mind, and that dream had died with him. And yet there was the letter of Prince Spada. That seemed to be real enough. Dantes said the letter over to himself from one end to the other: he had not forgotten a word of it.

Night came on, and Edmond saw the island become beautiful with all the colours of evening, and then hide itself from all eyes in the darkness; but he, whose eyes were used to the darkness of a prison, continued to see it after all others.

How should he reach it, and bring back the treasure, if there were any, safely? He, to whom the riches of the Spadas had been given, had no money to buy a small boat in order to get the treasure!

He was still thinking over this matter when they returned from Corsica to Leghorn. While they were there, one evening the Captain asked Dantes to come with him to a meeting. The Captain had now great trust in Dantes; and this meeting was about a very important matter. He went with the Captain to a room where all the "free-traders" of those parts were used to gather together. The matter to be talked about was a ship coming from Turkey carrying silks worth much money. It was necessary to find some quiet place where they would meet this ship, buy the silks, and then try to get the silks from there onto the coast of France. The meeting-place must be some quiet bay or desert island where no officers of Government would come, and no one would know, or tell, of the meeting.

The Captain of The Young Amelia thought that the best place for this would be the Island of Monte Cristo. It was desert, and no Government officers ever went there: indeed it seemed as if it might have been put in the sea there just for that very thing.

Hearing the name Monte Cristo, Dantes was filled with joy. He rose and went away so as to hide his feelings. When he returned to them, they had decided to start for Monte Cristo on the next night.

The Captain turned to Edmond and asked him what he thought about it. Edmond replied that the island would be a very safe place for the business, and it would certainly be a good thing to start at once.

So orders were given to set sail next night; and, if wind and weather allowed, they would reach Monte Cristo on the next day.