nd dropped into the river, dived, and only rose at intervals to
breathe, until I reached a ditch that had recently been made from the
Rhone to the canal that runs from Beaucaire to Aigues-Mortes. I was now
safe, for I could swim along the ditch without being seen, and I reached
the canal in safety. I had designedly taken this direction. I have
already told your excellency of an inn-keeper from Nimes who had set up
a little tavern on the road from Bellegarde to Beaucaire."

"Yes," said Monte Cristo "I perfectly recollect him; I think he was your
colleague."

"Precisely," answered Bertuccio; "but he had, seven or eight years
before this period, sold his establishment to a tailor at Marseilles,
who, having almost ruined himself in his old trade, wished to make his
fortune in another. Of course, we made the same arrangements with the
new landlord that we had with the old; and it was of this man that I
intended to ask shelter."

"What was his name?" inquired the count, who seemed to become somewhat
interested in Bertuccio's story.

"Gaspard Caderousse; he had married a woman from the village of
Carconte, and whom we did not know by any other name than that of her
village. She was suffering from malarial fever, and seemed dying by
inches. As for her husband, he was a strapping fellow of forty, or five
and forty, who had more than once, in time of danger, given ample proof
of his presence of mind and courage."

"And you say," interrupted Monte Cristo "that this took place towards
the year"--

"1829, your excellency."

"In what month?"

"June."

"The beginning or the end?"

"The evening of the 3d."

"Ah," said Monte Cristo "the evening of the 3d of June, 1829. Go on."

"It was from Caderousse that I intended demanding shelter, and, as we
never entered by the door that opened onto the road, I resolved not
to break through the rule, so climbing over the garden-hedge, I crept
amongst the olive and wild fig trees, and fearing that Caderousse might
have some guest, I entered a kind of shed in which I had often passed
the night, and which was only separated from the inn by a partition, in
which holes had been made in order to enable us to watch an opportunity
of announcing our presence. My intention was, if Caderousse was alone,
to acquaint him with my presence, finish the meal the custom-house
officers had interrupted, and profit by the threatened storm to return
to the Rhone, and ascertain the state of our vessel an