I should
now have been sleeping in the Catacombs of St. Sebastian, instead of
receiving them in my humble abode in the Rue du Helder."

"Ah," said Monte Cristo "you promised me never to mention that
circumstance."

"It was not I who made that promise," cried Morcerf; "it must have been
some one else whom you have rescued in the same manner, and whom you
have forgotten. Pray speak of it, for I shall not only, I trust, relate
the little I do know, but also a great deal I do not know."

"It seems to me," returned the count, smiling, "that you played a
sufficiently important part to know as well as myself what happened."

"Well, you promise me, if I tell all I know, to relate, in your turn,
all that I do not know?"

"That is but fair," replied Monte Cristo.

"Well," said Morcerf, "for three days I believed myself the object of
the attentions of a masque, whom I took for a descendant of Tullia or
Poppoea, while I was simply the object of the attentions of a contadina,
and I say contadina to avoid saying peasant girl. What I know is, that,
like a fool, a greater fool than he of whom I spoke just now, I mistook
for this peasant girl a young bandit of fifteen or sixteen, with a
beardless chin and slim waist, and who, just as I was about to imprint
a chaste salute on his lips, placed a pistol to my head, and, aided by
seven or eight others, led, or rather dragged me, to the Catacombs of
St. Sebastian, where I found a highly educated brigand chief perusing
Caesar's 'Commentaries,' and who deigned to leave off reading to inform
me, that unless the next morning, before six o'clock, four thousand
piastres were paid into his account at his banker's, at a quarter past
six I should have ceased to exist. The letter is still to be seen,
for it is in Franz d'Epinay's possession, signed by me, and with a
postscript of M. Luigi Vampa. This is all I know, but I know not, count,
how you contrived to inspire so much respect in the bandits of Rome who
ordinarily have so little respect for anything. I assure you, Franz and
I were lost in admiration."

"Nothing more simple," returned the count. "I had known the famous Vampa
for more than ten years. When he was quite a child, and only a shepherd,
I gave him a few gold pieces for showing me my way, and he, in order to
repay me, gave me a poniard, the hilt of which he had carved with his
own hand, and which you may have seen in my collection of arms. In after
years, whether he had forgotten