very desirous of retaining him in
his service, took him by the arm one evening and led him to a tavern
on the Via del' Oglio, where the leading smugglers of Leghorn used
to congregate and discuss affairs connected with their trade. Already
Dantes had visited this maritime Bourse two or three times, and seeing
all these hardy free-traders, who supplied the whole coast for nearly
two hundred leagues in extent, he had asked himself what power might
not that man attain who should give the impulse of his will to all these
contrary and diverging minds. This time it was a great matter that was
under discussion, connected with a vessel laden with Turkey carpets,
stuffs of the Levant, and cashmeres. It was necessary to find some
neutral ground on which an exchange could be made, and then to try and
land these goods on the coast of France. If the venture was successful
the profit would be enormous, there would be a gain of fifty or sixty
piastres each for the crew.

The patron of The Young Amelia proposed as a place of landing the Island
of Monte Cristo, which being completely deserted, and having neither
soldiers nor revenue officers, seemed to have been placed in the midst
of the ocean since the time of the heathen Olympus by Mercury, the god
of merchants and robbers, classes of mankind which we in modern times
have separated if not made distinct, but which antiquity appears to have
included in the same category. At the mention of Monte Cristo Dantes
started with joy; he rose to conceal his emotion, and took a turn
around the smoky tavern, where all the languages of the known world were
jumbled in a lingua franca. When he again joined the two persons who had
been discussing the matter, it had been decided that they should touch
at Monte Cristo and set out on the following night. Edmond, being
consulted, was of opinion that the island afforded every possible
security, and that great enterprises to be well done should be done
quickly. Nothing then was altered in the plan, and orders were given to
get under weigh next night, and, wind and weather permitting, to make
the neutral island by the following day.

Chapter 23. The Island of Monte Cristo.

Thus, at length, by one of the unexpected strokes of fortune which
sometimes befall those who have for a long time been the victims of an
evil destiny, Dantes was about to secure the opportunity he wished for,
by simple and natural means, and land on the island without incurring