ore five o'clock; despatch a
messenger to apprise the grooms at the first station. M. de Morcerf will
accompany me." Bertuccio obeyed and despatched a courier to Pontoise to
say the travelling-carriage would arrive at six o'clock. From Pontoise
another express was sent to the next stage, and in six hours all the
horses stationed on the road were ready. Before his departure, the
count went to Haidee's apartments, told her his intention, and resigned
everything to her care. Albert was punctual. The journey soon became
interesting from its rapidity, of which Morcerf had formed no previous
idea. "Truly," said Monte Cristo, "with your posthorses going at the
rate of two leagues an hour, and that absurd law that one traveller
shall not pass another without permission, so that an invalid or
ill-tempered traveller may detain those who are well and active, it is
impossible to move; I escape this annoyance by travelling with my own
postilion and horses; do I not, Ali?"

The count put his head out of the window and whistled, and the horses
appeared to fly. The carriage rolled with a thundering noise over the
pavement, and every one turned to notice the dazzling meteor. Ali,
smiling, repeated the sound, grasped the reins with a firm hand, and
spurred his horses, whose beautiful manes floated in the breeze. This
child of the desert was in his element, and with his black face and
sparkling eyes appeared, in the cloud of dust he raised, like the genius
of the simoom and the god of the hurricane. "I never knew till now the
delight of speed," said Morcerf, and the last cloud disappeared from
his brow; "but where the devil do you get such horses? Are they made to
order?"

"Precisely," said the count; "six years since I bought a horse in
Hungary remarkable for its swiftness. The thirty-two that we shall
use to-night are its progeny; they are all entirely black, with the
exception of a star upon the forehead."

"That is perfectly admirable; but what do you do, count, with all these
horses?"

"You see, I travel with them."

"But you are not always travelling."

"When I no longer require them, Bertuccio will sell them, and he expects
to realize thirty or forty thousand francs by the sale."

"But no monarch in Europe will be wealthy enough to purchase them."

"Then he will sell them to some Eastern vizier, who will empty his
coffers to purchase them, and refill them by applying the bastinado to
his subjects."

"Count, may I sugges