The Son of Monte-Cristo The Son Of Monte Cristo Part 90

She even fancied that she saw her mother.

Esperance beheld all this. He rushed forward, only to be stopped by iron bars.

This terrible scene had been most adroitly managed. The house at Courberrie belonged to Danglars, and had been the scene of many ign.o.ble orgies. The opening through which Esperance looked was not more than thirty feet from Jane. He called, but she could not hear him. Then all was suddenly dark. The lights returned in a few minutes, and Jane was seen alone.

"Jane! Jane!" cried Esperance. Suddenly a door opened. Esperance saw an old man enter the room. He went up to Jane with a hideous smile on his face. It was Laisangy.

Of all the crimes that Benedetto had committed, this was the most infamous!

Esperance caught the iron bars and shook them violently, and with such enormous strength that one of them was loosened. Esperance pa.s.sed through them and stood in a corridor, but there was a sheet of plate gla.s.s still between him and Jane. This gla.s.s he broke with his clenched hands, and Esperance sprang at the throat of Danglars and threw him to the other end of the room. Then, taking Jane in his arms, he cried:

"Jane! my beloved--do you not hear me? I am Monte-Cristo."

"Monte-Cristo!" repeated a hoa.r.s.e voice.

Esperance half turned.

Danglars had staggered up from the floor, and was gazing at Esperance with eyes fairly starting from his head. With his deadly pallor and a gash on his cheek from the gla.s.s through which he had pa.s.sed, Esperance bore a striking resemblance to his father. He looked as Dantes looked the day his infamous companion betrayed him at Ma.r.s.eilles. Danglars was appalled.

"Edmond Dantes!" he cried in agony, raising his arms high above his head, and wildly clutching the air for support. Then he fell forward on his face in an attack of apoplexy.

Esperance laid Jane again on the sofa, and ran to his a.s.sistance. He lifted him from the floor. The banker was dead.

Esperance was as if stunned. The strange events, coming one after the other, affected his reason. He believed himself the victim of a hideous nightmare. He heard a sigh and turned back to Jane, who seemed to be trying to throw off the stupor that had weighed her down. The effect of the narcotic was probably pa.s.sing off. She raised her hands and pressed them to her forehead. Esperance forgot everything else, and falling at Jane's feet he cried, in an agony of entreaty.

"Oh! Jane, awake! I must take you from this terrible place. Jane, awake!"

The girl's eyes moved.

"Who speaks my name?" she whispered.

"It is I--I, who loves--Esperance!"

Jane opened her eyes quickly.

"Esperance! Oh! not here--it must not be!"

She began to sob convulsively.

"I know all, my beloved!" he answered, soothingly, "I know the snare that was laid for you. But why do you repel me, dearest?"

"Ah! you do not know," she said, amid her sobs. "Those women--those songs. Ah! let me die!"

"No, do not say that! We are surrounded by enemies, but I fear them not.

Come, we must leave this place."

But, with her brain still excited by opium, she continued to resist.

"Jane, you know me?--I am Esperance. Let us fly, and find our happiness together. Jane--dear Jane!"

His voice was so tender and so persuasive that suddenly the terror-stricken expression left the girl's face. She placed her hands on his shoulder, and contemplated him in a sort of ecstasy.

"Yes, I remember. Esperance, how I love you!"

At this instant, like a chorus behind the scenes, there came the shouts of ribald laughter. She fell on the floor, crying: "Alas! alas! I am accursed!"

The door of the room was thrown open, and a man entered. This man was Benedetto.

CHAPTER LXV.

THE MYSTERIOUS SIGNALS.

Having played his little comedy with consummate skill, Coucon hastened to the carriage he had kept waiting, and drove to the Hotel de Monte-Cristo. He was in such haste to inform Goutran that he had successfully fulfilled his mission, that he forgot to disembarra.s.s himself of his fancy costume, so that when he appeared before Madame Caraman, the good woman uttered a cry of terror.

"It is only I--Coucon."

Madame protested against his selecting a time like this to indulge in a masquerade.

"It is nothing of the kind," answered Coucon, impatiently. "Where is Monsieur Goutran?"

"I have not seen the gentlemen since you went out."

"Then they must be in Miss Jane's room still?"

"I suppose so."

"We will go there at once, then."

But the Zouave was interrupted by a strange sound like that made by a heavy hammer at some distance.

Madame turned pale.

"You know, Coucon, that I am not a coward, but I tell you I can't make out that sound. I have heard it now for some time."

"It seems to come from the cellar."

"Yes, that is what I think. But let us tell the friends."

They by this time had reached Jane's door, on which they knocked. No reply. Then, after knocking and listening, Madame said:

"We must go in!"

She opened the door, and both uttered a cry on finding the chamber empty. The iron panel had closed, and no one would have suspected its existence.

Coucon could not believe his eyes. He ran through every room, but those they sought had vanished. They had not gone out of the hotel, for Madame had guarded it.