e he
smiled as he attempted to regard the affair as a joke, he felt his
temples get moist with perspiration.

"Come, my friend," said Danglars, seeing that he made no impression on
Peppino, "you will not refuse me a glass of wine?"

"I have already told you that we do not sell at retail."

"Well, then, let me have a bottle of the least expensive."

"They are all the same price."

"And what is that?"

"Twenty-five thousand francs a bottle."

"Tell me," cried Danglars, in a tone whose bitterness Harpagon [*] alone
has been capable of revealing--"tell me that you wish to despoil me of
all; it will be sooner over than devouring me piecemeal."

* The miser in Moliere's comedy of "L'Avare."--Ed.

"It is possible such may be the master's intention."

"The master?--who is he?"

"The person to whom you were conducted yesterday."

"Where is he?"

"Here."

"Let me see him."

"Certainly." And the next moment Luigi Vampa appeared before Danglars.

"You sent for me?" he said to the prisoner.

"Are you, sir, the chief of the people who brought me here?"

"Yes, your excellency. What then?"

"How much do you require for my ransom?"

"Merely the 5,000,000 you have about you." Danglars felt a dreadful
spasm dart through his heart. "But this is all I have left in the
world," he said, "out of an immense fortune. If you deprive me of that,
take away my life also."

"We are forbidden to shed your blood."

"And by whom are you forbidden?"

"By him we obey."

"You do, then, obey some one?"

"Yes, a chief."

"I thought you said you were the chief?"

"So I am of these men; but there is another over me."

"And did your superior order you to treat me in this way?"

"Yes."

"But my purse will be exhausted."

"Probably."

"Come," said Danglars, "will you take a million?"

"No."

"Two millions?--three?--four? Come, four? I will give them to you on
condition that you let me go."

"Why do you offer me 4,000,000 for what is worth 5,000,000? This is a
kind of usury, banker, that I do not understand."

"Take all, then--take all, I tell you, and kill me!"

"Come, come, calm yourself. You will excite your blood, and that would
produce an appetite it would require a million a day to satisfy. Be more
economical."

"But when I have no more money left to pay you?" asked the infuriated
Danglars.

"Then you must suffer hunger."

"Suffer hunger?" said Danglars, becoming pale.

"Most likely," replied Vam