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Your excellency is mistaken; there are pirates, like the
bandits who were believed to have been exterminated by Pope
Leo XII., and who yet, every day, rob travellers at the
gates of Rome. Has not your excellency heard that the French
charge d'affaires was robbed six months ago within five
hundred paces of Velletri?
Oh, yes, I heard that.
Well, then, if, like us, your excellency lived at Leghorn,
you would hear, from time to time, that a little merchant
vessel, or an English yacht that was expected at Bastia, at
Porto-Ferrajo, or at Civita Vecchia, has not arrived; no one
knows what has become of it, but, doubtless, it has struck
on a rock and foundered. Now this rock it has met has been a
long and narrow boat, manned by six or eight men, who have
surprised and plundered it, some dark and stormy night, near
some desert and gloomy island, as bandits plunder a carriage
in the recesses of a forest.
But, asked Franz, who lay wrapped in his cloak at the
bottom of the boat, why do not those who have been
plundered complain to the French, Sardinian, or Tuscan
governments?
Why? said Gaetano with a smile.
Yes, why?
Because, in the first place, they transfer from the vessel
to their own boat whatever they think worth taking, then
they bind the crew hand and foot, they attach to every one's
neck a four and twenty pound ball, a large hole is chopped
in the vessel's bottom, and then they leave her. At the end
of ten minutes the vessel begins to roll heavily and settle
down. First one gun'l goes under, then the other. Then they
lift and sink again, and both go under at once. All at once
there's a noise like a cannon -- that's the air blowing up
the deck. Soon the water rushes out of the scupper-holes
like a whale spouting, the vessel gives a last groan, spins
round and round, and disappears, forming a vast whirlpool in
the ocean, and then all is over, so that in five minutes
nothing but the eye of God can see the vessel where she lies
at the bottom of the sea. Do you understand now, said the
captain, why no complaints are made to the government, and
why the vessel never reaches port?
It is probable that if Gaetano had related this previous to
proposing the expedition, Franz would have hesitated, but
now that they had started, he thought it would be cowardly
to draw back. He was one of those men who do not rashly
court danger, but if danger presents itself, combat it with
the most unalterable coolness. Calm and resolute, he treated
any peril as he would an adversary in a duel, -- calculated
its probable method of approach; retreated, if at all, as a
point of strategy and not from cowardice; was quick to see
an opening for attack, and won victory at a single thrust.
Bah! said he, I have travelled through Sicily and
Calabria -- I have sailed two months in the Archipelago, and
yet I never saw even the shadow of a bandit or a pirate.
I did not tell your excellency this to deter you from your
project, replied Gaetano, but you questioned me, and I
have answered; that's all.
Yes, and your conversation is most interesting; and as I
wish to enjoy it as long as possible, steer for Monte
Cristo.
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