hand. "And is it your cook who prepares these pills?" asked Beauchamp.

"Oh, no, monsieur," replied Monte Cristo; "I do not thus betray my
enjoyments to the vulgar. I am a tolerable chemist, and prepare my pills
myself."

"This is a magnificent emerald, and the largest I have ever seen," said
Chateau-Renaud, "although my mother has some remarkable family jewels."

"I had three similar ones," returned Monte Cristo. "I gave one to the
Sultan, who mounted it in his sabre; another to our holy father the
Pope, who had it set in his tiara, opposite to one nearly as large,
though not so fine, given by the Emperor Napoleon to his predecessor,
Pius VII. I kept the third for myself, and I had it hollowed out, which
reduced its value, but rendered it more commodious for the purpose I
intended." Every one looked at Monte Cristo with astonishment; he spoke
with so much simplicity that it was evident he spoke the truth, or
that he was mad. However, the sight of the emerald made them naturally
incline to the former belief. "And what did these two sovereigns give
you in exchange for these magnificent presents?" asked Debray.

"The Sultan, the liberty of a woman," replied the Count; "the Pope, the
life of a man; so that once in my life I have been as powerful as if
heaven had brought me into the world on the steps of a throne."

"And it was Peppino you saved, was it not?" cried Morcerf; "it was for
him that you obtained pardon?"

"Perhaps," returned the count, smiling.

"My dear count, you have no idea what pleasure it gives me to hear you
speak thus," said Morcerf. "I had announced you beforehand to my friends
as an enchanter of the 'Arabian Nights,' a wizard of the Middle Ages;
but the Parisians are so subtle in paradoxes that they mistake for
caprices of the imagination the most incontestable truths, when these
truths do not form a part of their daily existence. For example, here is
Debray who reads, and Beauchamp who prints, every day, 'A member of the
Jockey Club has been stopped and robbed on the Boulevard;' 'four persons
have been assassinated in the Rue St. Denis' or 'the Faubourg St.
Germain;' 'ten, fifteen, or twenty thieves, have been arrested in a cafe
on the Boulevard du Temple, or in the Thermes de Julien,'--and yet these
same men deny the existence of the bandits in the Maremma, the Campagna
di Romana, or the Pontine Marshes. Tell them yourself that I was taken
by bandits, and that without your generous intercession