The Son of Monte-Cristo The Son Of Monte Cristo Part 87

"Go on!" he said.

Presently they stopped before a dark building. Not a light was to be seen. Benedetto turned to the son of Monte-Cristo.

"This is the place to which I agreed to bring you."

"Do you mean that my beloved Jane is in this house?"

"She is here."

"I cannot believe it. The whole thing is a plot!"

"Will you kindly tell me, sir," said Benedetto, "why I should take the trouble to come all this way? A half hour since we were together where no human eye could see us, nor human ear hear us. What would have prevented my attacking you then, had my intentions been sinister?"

"That is true; but tell me that you are mistaken--that my poor Jane is not here!"

At this moment shrill laughter and ribald songs came from the house near which Esperance stood.

"Let us go in!" cried the Vicomte. "Jane must not stay here one other minute."

"Come, then," answered Benedetto, "you shall be satisfied."

He opened the door, but it was as dark within as without. Esperance heard the door close; he spoke, but there was no answer. He stretched out his arms and felt the wall, and instantly his eyes regained their peculiar facility of sight. He was alone in a small, square room without door or window. He uttered a cry of rage.

"I have been deceived! The scoundrel!"

But at the same moment the wall opened before him like two sliding panels, but in the place of the wall were iron bars. And through these bars Esperance beheld Jane, but what he saw was so terrible that he recoiled and uttered a cry of terror, which was drowned in shrieks of laughter, wild songs and the clatter of gla.s.ses.

CHAPTER LXII.

COUCON.

Goutran had entire faith in Carmen, and he was now anxious to communicate with her. He called the former Zouave.

"Coucon," he said, "do you know where Monsieur Laisangy lives?"

"The great banker? Oh! yes, sir, everybody knows that."

"Then without losing one minute, I want you to go to his hotel. This note must be given to his daughter at once."

"To Miss Carmen, sir?"

"Precisely; but understand me--no one else must see it. This note must be given into her hands."

"I understand, sir; it shall be done. There is nothing I would not do, sir, to repair my own stupidity."

Coucon started off. To go to the hotel and ask for Miss Carmen was simple enough, but he took it into his head that it would be better if no one knew that he was there. He thought he would examine the premises before he decided on his course of action.

When he reached the hotel, to his great surprise he found the doors wide open and the courtyard blazing with lights. Carriage after carriage was driving up, and stopping at the vestibule.

"Upon my life," said Coucon, "this is bad enough."

He stepped into a wine-shop, and asked for a bottle of wine; as he drank it he said to himself: "How the deuce am I to see Miss Carmen? She is in the salon receiving her guests. Of course, she won't come into the anteroom to get a _billet doux_, but if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain, which means, that if Miss Carmen won't come to me in the anteroom, I must go to her!"

At this moment a Cha.s.seur d'Afrique entered the wine-shop.

"Will you have the kindness to tell me," he asked, of the shop-keeper, "where I shall find the hotel of a rich banker about here? Laisangy, I think, is the name."

"Almost opposite--where all those carriages stand."

"Ah! thanks!" And as the soldier turned round he saw Coucon.

The recognition was mutual, and the two former companions fell into each other's arms.

"Galaret!" cried Coucon.

"Yes. And now let us have a gla.s.s."

"Can't stop, have a commission to perform!"

Nevertheless, Coucon did stop to drink a little, and to gossip. "When did you come to Paris?" he asked.

"This very day, in the escort of Mohammed-Ben-Omar, a sort of Pasha, you know, and to-night he slipped on the stairs and wrenched his ankle. Take another gla.s.s, friend. Well, as I was saying, he was asked to this _soiree_ at the banker's and had to write a refusal. As he lies on his sofa, and is likely to lie there for some little time, this note I must deliver."

Coucon did not seem to hear what his friend was saying, but suddenly exclaimed to an innocent looking bourgeois, at another table:

"What are you staring at?"

In vain did the man stammer that he was not even looking at them. One word led to another until a hot quarrel was in progress, the police were called in, and Galaret was arrested.

"Give me your note," said Coucon, in the most obliging manner, "I will see that it is delivered."

And he dashed out of the shop with suspicious alacrity. "You are a fool, Coucon," he said to himself, "if you don't manage to deliver your own note at the same time!"

Our readers must not suppose that Coucon was so simple as to think of penetrating the Laisangy salons, even with the note he had obtained in so abominable a manner from his friend. The plan he had devised was more audacious and more sure. Ten minutes later the former Zouave entered the shop of a costumer in the Rue de Peletere. And in five minutes more he sallied forth a magnificent Bedouin, draped in white and wearing an enormous turban. He called out to the astonished coachman:

"Rue de Rivoli! and drive fast!"

CHAPTER LXIII.

CARMEN KEEPS HER WORD.