CHAPTER LXIV.
THE PLOT.
We left Esperance in the house at Courberrie just when the panels hadbeen thrown open. He uttered a cry of horror. What did he see? Around atable covered with glasses sat a number of women singing drunken songs,and among these women sat one pale as a ghost, and this one was Jane!
Ah! poor child! Of what terrible machination was she the victim?
Benedetto, who required her as a tool for his vengeance, had carried herthrough the subterranean passage, she all the time entirely unconscious.He laid her on a sofa, and stood with folded arms looking down upon her.Did he feel the smallest emotion of pity? No, not he! He was only askinghimself if the girl was so attractive that Esperance would really feelher loss as much as his enemies wished. Suddenly she sighed--a long,strange, fluttering sigh. Benedetto leaned over her anxiously. What ifshe were to die now! He must hasten. Everything had been arranged. Heopened her teeth with the blade of a knife, and poured down her throat afew drops of a clear white liquor. It was an anesthetic whose terribleproperties he well understood. Jane would see, Jane would hear, and Janewould suffer, but as she could neither speak nor move--all resistancewould be impossible. And, that night she was carried to the house atCourberrie, what terrible agony she suffered! She knew that she was inthe power of an enemy, that she had been torn from him whom she lovedbetter than life, and from whose lips she had just heard oaths ofeternal fidelity. With a heart swelling with agony she could not utter asound. Her soul was alive, but her body was motionless. Suddenly theroom in which she lay was brilliantly illuminated. A crowd of women camepouring in--and such women! My readers who remember Jane's past canreadily imagine that the girl regarded this scene as a hideous dream.She even fancied that she saw her mother.
Esperance beheld all this. He rushed forward, only to be stopped by ironbars.
This terrible scene had been most adroitly managed. The house atCourberrie belonged to Danglars, and had been the scene of many ignobleorgies. The opening through which Esperance looked was not more thanthirty feet from Jane. He called, but she could not hear him. Then allwas suddenly dark. The lights returned in a few minutes, and Jane wasseen alone.
"Jane! Jane!" cried Esperance. Suddenly a door opened. Esperance saw anold man enter the room. He went up to Jane with a hideous smile on hisface. It was Laisangy.
Of all the crimes that Benedetto had committed, this was the mostinfamous!
Esperance caught the iron bars and shook them violently, and with suchenormous strength that one of them was loosened. Esperance passedthrough them and stood in a corridor, but there was a sheet of plateglass still between him and Jane. This glass he broke with his clenchedhands, and Esperance sprang at the throat of Danglars and threw him tothe 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 hoarse voice.
Esperance half turned.
Danglars had staggered up from the floor, and was gazing at Esperancewith eyes fairly starting from his head. With his deadly pallor and agash on his cheek from the glass through which he had passed, Esperancebore a striking resemblance to his father. He looked as Dantes lookedthe day his infamous companion betrayed him at Marseilles. Danglars wasappalled.
"Edmond Dantes!" he cried in agony, raising his arms high above hishead, and wildly clutching the air for support. Then he fell forward onhis face in an attack of apoplexy.
Esperance laid Jane again on the sofa, and ran to his assistance. Helifted him from the floor. The banker was dead.
Esperance was as if stunned. The strange events, coming one after theother, affected his reason. He believed himself the victim of a hideousnightmare. He heard a sigh and turned back to Jane, who seemed to betrying to throw off the stupor that had weighed her down. The effect ofthe narcotic was probably passing off. She raised her hands and pressedthem to her forehead. Esperance forgot everything else, and falling atJane'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 snarethat was laid for you. But why do you repel me, dearest?"
"Ah! you do not know," she said, amid her sobs. "Those women--thosesongs. 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 happinesstogether. Jane--dear Jane!"
His voice was so tender and so persuasive that suddenly theterror-stricken expression left the girl's face. She placed her hands onhis 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 shoutsof ribald laughter. She fell on the floor, crying: "Alas! alas! I amaccursed!"
The door of the room was thrown open, and a man entered. This man wasBenedetto.
The Son of Monte-Cristo Page 66
