n order to one of the men seated round the fire, who rose and
disappeared among the rocks. Not a word was spoken, every one seemed
occupied, Franz with his disembarkment, the sailors with their sails,
the smugglers with their goat; but in the midst of all this carelessness
it was evident that they mutually observed each other. The man who had
disappeared returned suddenly on the opposite side to that by which he
had left; he made a sign with his head to the sentinel, who, turning
to the boat, said, "S'accommodi." The Italian s'accommodi is
untranslatable; it means at once, "Come, enter, you are welcome; make
yourself at home; you are the master." It is like that Turkish phrase
of Moliere's that so astonished the bourgeois gentleman by the number of
things implied in its utterance. The sailors did not wait for a second
invitation; four strokes of the oar brought them to land; Gaetano sprang
to shore, exchanged a few words with the sentinel, then his comrades
disembarked, and lastly came Franz. One of his guns was swung over his
shoulder, Gaetano had the other, and a sailor held his rifle; his
dress, half artist, half dandy, did not excite any suspicion, and,
consequently, no disquietude. The boat was moored to the shore, and they
advanced a few paces to find a comfortable bivouac; but, doubtless,
the spot they chose did not suit the smuggler who filled the post of
sentinel, for he cried out, "Not that way, if you please."

Gaetano faltered an excuse, and advanced to the opposite side, while
two sailors kindled torches at the fire to light them on their way.
They advanced about thirty paces, and then stopped at a small esplanade
surrounded with rocks, in which seats had been cut, not unlike
sentry-boxes. Around in the crevices of the rocks grew a few dwarf oaks
and thick bushes of myrtles. Franz lowered a torch, and saw by the mass
of cinders that had accumulated that he was not the first to discover
this retreat, which was, doubtless, one of the halting-places of the
wandering visitors of Monte Cristo. As for his suspicions, once on
terra firma, once that he had seen the indifferent, if not friendly,
appearance of his hosts, his anxiety had quite disappeared, or rather,
at sight of the goat, had turned to appetite. He mentioned this to
Gaetano, who replied that nothing could be more easy than to prepare
a supper when they had in their boat, bread, wine, half a dozen
partridges, and a good fire to roast them by. "Besides,"