with my projected operations."

The police had conducted matters very quietly; still, the tramp of many
feet in the corridor had awakened the Viscount and filled him with
terror. Knowing the unparalleled audacity of the bandits, he at once
jumped to the conclusion that a body of them had entered Rome and taken
possession of the Hotel de France with the object of seizing upon him as
the murderer of old Pasquale Solara, who, he did not doubt, was dead.
When the tramping feet, which the Count and Vampa were too much
engrossed to hear, paused in front of his very door he became fixed in
this conclusion and sprang from his bed in wild alarm. He looked hastily
around him for some avenue of escape, but there was none. If the
brigands were without he was trapped and would speedily be in their
hands. He listened with the utmost anxiety, expecting every instant that
his door would be forced and his relentless foes come thronging into the
chamber. No such movement, however, was made. A deathlike silence
prevailed. What was the meaning of all this? What was taking place or
about to occur? If the men in the corridor were not Luigi Vampa's
bandits, who were they? The Viscount lost himself in a bewildering maze
of conjectures. Make a personal examination and satisfy himself he dare
not. In the midst of his conjectures he heard a door open directly
across the corridor and knew it was Monte-Cristo's. Then a voice of
stern command broke the silence, but what was uttered he could not
distinguish, though he fancied he made out the ominous word "arrest,"
which was almost immediately succeeded by a renewal of the tramping of
feet. This sound speedily died away and silence again prevailed. Young
Massetti was more perplexed than ever. He could make nothing out of the
knotty problem presented to him for solution. Suddenly a thought struck
him that brought beads of cold perspiration out upon his forehead.
Monte-Cristo had been arrested and carried off to a Roman prison! Then
he heard the Count's well-known voice angrily addressing some one and
this alarming thought vanished as quickly as it had come to him. The
party arrested, if an arrest had been made, was, therefore, not
Monte-Cristo but some one else, some one who had come from the Count's
salon. Who could it possibly be? Maximilian Morrel? No, the idea was
absurd, for what had the young Frenchman done to provoke arrest?
Finally, unable longer to endure the uncertainty and suspense, the
Vis