The Son of Monte-Cristo The Son Of Monte Cristo Part 89

Laisangy, learning of his arrival in Paris, had hastened to send him an invitation, but had hardly hoped to see him. He was, therefore, more than usually civil.

Ben-Omar replied to his courtesies only by carrying his hand to his heart and then to his forehead, in the recognized Mussulman manner. He did not speak one word of French, and yet, when Carmen pa.s.sed, he said "Beautiful!" with a guttural intonation.

"My daughter, sir!" answered the banker, with pride.

"Beautiful! beautiful!" repeated the Mohammedan.

Laisangy signed to Omar to accompany him to the group where Carmen was talking. There he went through the ceremony of introduction. Then, leaning toward her, Omar said, under his breath:

"I come from Goutran. Allah il Allah!" he added, aloud.

Carmen started. Never was she so astonished. The name of Goutran from these lips was like lightning from a clear sky. She looked at the Arab's bronze face and his huge moustache.

"Take His Excellency's arm," said Laisangy, "and show him the gallery and statuary."

Carmen hesitated, but Omar at once threw his bournous aside and offered the young lady his arm.

Laisangy whispered in Carmen's ear:

"Do not delay too long. I have received the signal and must do what was agreed upon between us."

Carmen paid little heed to these words, but moved through the crowd on Omar's arm, slowly and thoughtfully. Omar was very solemn, but under his moustache he whispered:

"I come from Monsieur Goutran."

"Who are you?" she asked, raising her fan to hide her lips as she spoke.

Whenever the crowd came too near he raised his arm, and with a grand sweep of bournous, hand and arm, he said:

"Allah il Allah! Ra.s.soul il Allah!"

Everybody drew back much impressed, for the incomprehensible has always great power.

At last, Omar and Carmen were alone in a small salon.

"Will you tell me who you are?" asked Carmen once again.

"I am Coucon--devoted to Monsieur Goutran and to Esperance, the son of Monte-Cristo."

"And you disguised yourself to see me?"

"Yes, for I had a note to bring from Monsieur Goutran."

"Give it to me!" Carmen cried.

When at last Coucon succeeded in finding it among the folds of his bournous, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him.

This is what she read:

"Carmen, my friend and my ally, you have promised your a.s.sistance.

Gladly do I claim it. My friends are in great peril. Jane Zeld has vanished in the most mysterious manner, as has Esperance. There must be in the Hotel de Monte-Cristo some secret issue which our enemies do not know. The infamous L---- must possess this secret. Do your best to discover it. You see that I place my reliance on you, for I love you.

"GOUTRAN."

Carmen uttered a joyous exclamation. Goutran loved her! Coucon turned toward her.

"Well," he asked, "what am I to tell him?"

"Return to Monsieur Goutran and tell him that if it costs me my life I will discover what he wishes to know. And remember that you must open the door of the hotel to me at whatever time I may come. Of course, you and Monsieur Goutran will be there all night. Now, go!"

At this moment a terrified looking servant entered the room.

"Mademoiselle," he said, "your father has just been taken ill."

Omar respectfully saluted the young girl, and was lost in the crowd. No one noticed him, for there was much excitement over the illness of the great financier. Carmen followed the lacquey with rather too slow a step for the occasion. She was intensely irritated at this new comedy, and she was tempted to cry out to the crowd:

"He lies! He has always lied!"

Laisangy was lying back in his chair. There was no physician in the room, and yet the people about him talked knowingly of bleeding him.

Fortunately for him, Carmen arrived.

"I know what it is," she said; "he has had similar attacks before. He will be better after a little rest."

And Carmen gave orders that the banker should be carried to his chamber.

Then excusing herself to her guests, she followed.

Laisangy, who was becoming greatly bored by the part he was playing, supposed that Carmen would dismiss the servants and remain with him herself; but she had quite other plans. She bade the men undress their master and put him in his bed. Laisangy was ready to swear at her, but, of course, he was too ill to dispute. If he suddenly revived and made a row, then the story would get about of the ridiculous comedy he had played. His patience was not long tried, however. Carmen only wanted to gain a little time, in which she might hope to discover the contents of a letter which she saw the banker receive and put in his pocket early in the evening. She found the letter and retired into the next room to read it.

"Vengeance is a.s.sured. Fanfar and Goutran are prisoners in the house of Monte-Cristo. As to the girl, she is at the house at Courberrie, where Esperance will arrive too late."

Hardly had Carmen grasped the sense of these words than she ran to her room, and wrapping herself in her long black cloak, left the hotel by the private door.

CHAPTER LXIV.

THE PLOT.

We left Esperance in the house at Courberrie just when the panels had been thrown open. He uttered a cry of horror. What did he see? Around a table covered with gla.s.ses sat a number of women singing drunken songs, and among these women sat one pale as a ghost, and this one was Jane!

Ah! poor child! Of what terrible machination was she the victim?

Benedetto, who required her as a tool for his vengeance, had carried her through the subterranean pa.s.sage, she all the time entirely unconscious.

He laid her on a sofa, and stood with folded arms looking down upon her.

Did he feel the smallest emotion of pity? No, not he! He was only asking himself if the girl was so attractive that Esperance would really feel her loss as much as his enemies wished. Suddenly she sighed--a long, strange, fluttering sigh. Benedetto leaned over her anxiously. What if she were to die now! He must hasten. Everything had been arranged. He opened her teeth with the blade of a knife, and poured down her throat a few drops of a clear white liquor. It was an anesthetic whose terrible properties he well understood. Jane would see, Jane would hear, and Jane would suffer, but as she could neither speak nor move--all resistance would be impossible. And, that night she was carried to the house at Courberrie, what terrible agony she suffered! She knew that she was in the power of an enemy, that she had been torn from him whom she loved better than life, and from whose lips she had just heard oaths of eternal fidelity. With a heart swelling with agony she could not utter a sound. Her soul was alive, but her body was motionless. Suddenly the room in which she lay was brilliantly illuminated. A crowd of women came pouring in--and such women! My readers who remember Jane's past can readily imagine that the girl regarded this scene as a hideous dream.