off the right angle of the street in which
stands Santa Maria Maggiore and proceeding by the Via Urbana and
San Pietro in Vincoli, the travellers would find themselves directly
opposite the Colosseum. This itinerary possessed another great
advantage,--that of leaving Franz at full liberty to indulge his deep
reverie upon the subject of Signor Pastrini's story, in which his
mysterious host of Monte Cristo was so strangely mixed up. Seated with
folded arms in a corner of the carriage, he continued to ponder over
the singular history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself
an interminable number of questions touching its various circumstances
without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of them. One
fact more than the rest brought his friend "Sinbad the Sailor" back
to his recollection, and that was the mysterious sort of intimacy that
seemed to exist between the brigands and the sailors; and Pastrini's
account of Vampa's having found refuge on board the vessels of smugglers
and fishermen, reminded Franz of the two Corsican bandits he had found
supping so amicably with the crew of the little yacht, which had even
deviated from its course and touched at Porto-Vecchio for the sole
purpose of landing them. The very name assumed by his host of Monte
Cristo and again repeated by the landlord of the Hotel de Londres,
abundantly proved to him that his island friend was playing his
philanthropic part on the shores of Piombino, Civita-Vecchio, Ostia, and
Gaeta, as on those of Corsica, Tuscany, and Spain; and further, Franz
bethought him of having heard his singular entertainer speak both
of Tunis and Palermo, proving thereby how largely his circle of
acquaintances extended.

But however the mind of the young man might be absorbed in these
reflections, they were at once dispersed at the sight of the dark
frowning ruins of the stupendous Colosseum, through the various openings
of which the pale moonlight played and flickered like the unearthly
gleam from the eyes of the wandering dead. The carriage stopped near the
Meta Sudans; the door was opened, and the young men, eagerly alighting,
found themselves opposite a cicerone, who appeared to have sprung up
from the ground, so unexpected was his appearance.

The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they had paid two
conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to avoid this abundant supply
of guides; besides the ordinary cicerone, who seizes upon you direc