received from the count, and the magnificence of his entertainment
in the grotto of the "Thousand and One Nights." He recounted, with
circumstantial exactitude, all the particulars of the supper, the
hashish, the statues, the dream, and how, at his awakening, there
remained no proof or trace of all these events, save the small
yacht, seen in the distant horizon driving under full sail toward
Porto-Vecchio. Then he detailed the conversation overheard by him at the
Colosseum, between the count and Vampa, in which the count had promised
to obtain the release of the bandit Peppino,--an engagement which, as
our readers are aware, he most faithfully fulfilled. At last he arrived
at the adventure of the preceding night, and the embarrassment in which
he found himself placed by not having sufficient cash by six or seven
hundred piastres to make up the sum required, and finally of his
application to the count and the picturesque and satisfactory result
that followed. Albert listened with the most profound attention. "Well,"
said he, when Franz had concluded, "what do you find to object to in
all you have related? The count is fond of travelling, and, being rich,
possesses a vessel of his own. Go but to Portsmouth or Southampton, and
you will find the harbors crowded with the yachts belonging to such of
the English as can afford the expense, and have the same liking for this
amusement. Now, by way of having a resting-place during his excursions,
avoiding the wretched cookery--which has been trying its best to poison
me during the last four months, while you have manfully resisted its
effects for as many years,--and obtaining a bed on which it is possible
to slumber, Monte Cristo has furnished for himself a temporary abode
where you first found him; but, to prevent the possibility of the Tuscan
government taking a fancy to his enchanted palace, and thereby depriving
him of the advantages naturally expected from so large an outlay of
capital, he has wisely enough purchased the island, and taken its name.
Just ask yourself, my good fellow, whether there are not many persons of
our acquaintance who assume the names of lands and properties they never
in their lives were masters of?"

"But," said Franz, "the Corsican bandits that were among the crew of his
vessel?"

"Why, really the thing seems to me simple enough. Nobody knows better
than yourself that the bandits of Corsica are not rogues or thieves, but
purely and simply fugitive