save
you!"

"A friend!--a friend!" cried the maniac, with a burst of bitter, mocking
laughter that pierced Maximilian through and through like a
sharp-pointed, keen-edged stiletto and made Valentine shudder as if she
had come in contact with polar ice. "A friend!--a friend! Come to save
me--me! ha! ha! ha! A labor of Hercules with no Hercules to accomplish
it! You are mad, my poor fellow! Besides, I am not Giovanni Massetti--I
am a King, an Emperor! Behold my sceptre and my crown!"

He pointed to his tall staff and the wreath of ivy leaves encircling his
head, pointed triumphantly and with all the dignity of a throned
monarch.

It was a pitiful sight, in the highest degree pitiful, this spectacle
of intellect overthrown, of the glorious mental light of youthful
manhood which had became clouded and obscured.

Maximilian was deeply affected, but, knowing full well that all his
firmness, resolution and resources would be requisite in dealing with
the wretched man he had come so far to aid, he controlled his emotion
and said, in a comparatively steady voice:

"Giovanni Massetti, in the name of the woman you love, in the name of
Zuleika, Monte-Cristo's daughter, I conjure you to be calm and hear me.
I am her ambassador, I come to you from her!"

The young man put his hand to his forehead and seemed to be striving to
collect his scattered senses.

"Zuleika?--Zuleika?" he murmured. "Monte-Cristo's daughter? Yes, yes, I
have heard of her before--a long time back in the dreary past! I read of
her in some book of history or the verses of some oriental poet. She was
a Queen!--yes, she was a Queen! Well, what of this Zuleika?"

He stood as if waiting for some Arabian romance to be unfolded to him,
with parted lips and a vacant smile sorrowful to see.

Since his interview with the old Count Massetti Maximilian's hope for
the success of his difficult mission had been but a very slender thread.
Now that thread was stretched to its utmost tension, and Zuleika's
ambassador felt that it must shortly snap asunder and vanish
irrecoverably. Love is ever a potent influence with man but this poor
demented creature appeared to have lost even the faintest conception of
the crowning passion of life, since Zuleika's name, the name of his
betrothed, had failed to awaken his memory or touch a sympathetic chord
in his bosom.

As Maximilian stood uncertain what to do next, but as yet reluctant to
abandon the miserable Viscount to his fa