The Count of Monte Cristo (Unabridged Penguin) (50 page)

‘Yes, it was indeed! That’s what did for us. After twelve hours of being tossed this way and that, as if the devil was on our tail, we sprang a leak. “Penelon,” the captain told me, “I think we’re going under, old chap. Give me the wheel and go down into the hold.”

‘I gave him the wheel and went below. There was already three feet of water. I came back up, shouting: “All hands to the pump! To the pump!” But it was already too late. We all set to it, but I think the more we put out, the more there was coming in.

‘ “Dammit!” I said after we’d struggled for four hours. “Since we’re sinking, let’s sink; you only die once!”

‘ “Is that how you set an example, Master Penelon?” said the captain. “Well, just you wait there.” And he went to fetch a pair of pistols from his cabin. “The first man who leaves the pump,” said he, “I’ll blow his brains out.” ’

‘That was well done,’ said the Englishman.

‘Nothing inspires a man like a solid argument,’ the sailor went on, ‘and all the more so as meanwhile the weather had lightened and the wind had fallen. But, for all that, the water kept on rising, not much, perhaps two inches an hour, but it did rise. You see, two inches an hour may seem like nothing; but in twelve hours it’s not an inch short of twenty-four, and twenty-four inches are two feet. Those two feet, added to the three we had already, makes five. And when a ship has five feet of water in it, it’s fit to be called dropsical.

‘ “Come on, then,” said the captain. “That’s enough. Monsieur Morrel will have nothing to reproach us for: we’ve done what we could to save the ship; now we must try to save the men. To the boats, boys, and look sharp about it.”

‘Listen, Monsieur Morrel,’ Penelon continued. ‘We loved the
Pharaon
but, much as a sailor may love his ship, he loves his hide better. So we didn’t wait to be asked twice, especially as the ship itself was groaning as if to say: “Be off with you, be off with you.” And it was telling the truth, the poor old
Pharaon
, because you could feel it literally going down under our feet. So in a trice the boat was in the sea and all eight of us were in the boat.

‘The captain came down last; or, rather, he didn’t come down, because he didn’t want to leave the ship. I had to seize him myself and throw him after our shipmates, before jumping in myself. It was not too soon. Just after I jumped, the deck burst with a noise which you would have thought was a volley from a forty-eight-gun man-of-war.

‘Ten minutes later, it dipped its bows, then its stern, then started to roll over like a dog chasing its own tail. And finally, heigh-ho, boys! Brrrou… ! Down she went, no more
Pharaon
!

‘As for us, we were three days with nothing to eat or drink, and we’d even started to talk about drawing lots to see which of us would be food for the rest, when we saw the
Gironde
. We signalled to her, she saw us, made for where we were, put down her boat and picked us up. That’s how it happened, Monsieur Morrel, on my word! On the word of a sailor! Isn’t that true, you others?’

A general murmur of assent showed that the storyteller had unanimous support for the truth of the basic facts and the picturesque embroidery of the details.

‘Very well, my friends,’ said M. Morrel, ‘you are fine men, and I already knew that no one was responsible for the misfortune that
has befallen me other than my own fate. It’s God’s will and not the fault of men. Let us bow to His will. Now, how much pay are you owed?’

‘Oh, no! Let’s not talk about that, Monsieur Morrel.’

‘On the contrary, let’s,’ said the shipowner with a melancholy smile.

‘In that case, we are owed three months…’ said Penelon.

‘Coclès, pay two hundred francs to each of these good men. At any other time, my friends,’ he went on, ‘I should have added: “And give each of them two hundred francs bonus.” But times are bad, and the little money that remains is not mine to give. So accept my regrets, and don’t hold it against me.’

Penelon grimaced with emotion, turned to his companions, said a few words to them and turned back.

‘As far as that’s concerned, Monsieur Morrel,’ he said, shifting his quid of tobacco to the other side of his mouth and sending a second jet of saliva into the antechamber to balance the first, ‘as far as that’s concerned…’

‘What’s concerned?’

‘The money…’

‘Well?’

‘Well, Monsieur Morrel, my comrades say that for the moment they will have enough with fifty francs each, and they can wait for the rest.’

‘My dear friends!’ exclaimed M. Morrel, deeply moved. ‘Thank you, you are all the best of men. But take it! Take it, and if you find a good owner to sail with, join him, you are free.’

This last remark produced a startling effect on the worthy seamen. They looked at one another aghast. Penelon, as if winded by a blow, almost swallowed his quid; luckily he put a hand to his throat in time.

‘What, Monsieur Morrel!’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘What! You are dismissing us! Are you displeased with us?’

‘No, my children, not at all,’ said the shipowner. ‘I am not displeased, quite the opposite. I am not dismissing you. But what do you expect? I have no more ships, I have no further need of seamen.’

‘What do you mean, you have no more ships?’ said Penelon. ‘Well, have some more built. We’ll wait. Thank God, we know what it is to ride out a spell of bad weather.’

‘I have no money left to build ships, Penelon,’ the shipowner replied, smiling sadly. ‘I can’t accept your offer, generous as it is.’

‘Well, if you have no money, don’t pay us. We’ll just do what the poor old
Pharaon
did: we’ll keep our sails furled!’

‘Enough, my dear friends, enough!’ M. Morrel exclaimed, stifled with emotion. ‘Go, I beg you. We shall meet again in better times. You go with them, Emmanuel, and see that my wishes are carried out.’

‘At least this is not farewell for ever, is it, Monsieur Morrel?’ said Penelon.

‘No, my friends – at least, I hope not. Goodbye then.’

He signalled to Coclès, who took the lead; the sailors followed the cashier and Emmanuel followed the sailors.

‘Now,’ the shipowner said to his wife and daughter, ‘please leave us alone for a moment. I have to talk to this gentleman.’

He nodded towards the representative of Thomson and French, who had remained motionless throughout this scene, standing in his corner and intervening only with the few words we mentioned. The two women looked at the stranger, whom they had entirely forgotten, and left the room; but as she went the girl addressed a sublime look of supplication to him, to which he replied with a smile that any disinterested observer would have been astonished to see flowering on that icy face. The two men were left alone.

‘Well, Monsieur,’ said Morrel, slumping down into a chair. ‘You saw and heard everything, so there is nothing for me to say.’

‘What I saw, Monsieur,’ said the Englishman, ‘is that you have suffered a further misfortune, as undeserved as the rest, and this has confirmed me in my desire to oblige you.’

‘Oh, Monsieur!’ said Morrel.

‘Let us see,’ said the foreigner. ‘I am one of your principal creditors, am I not?’

‘You are certainly the one whose bills fall due in the shortest time.’

‘Would you like a stay before paying me?’

‘A space of time might save my honour and so my life.’

‘How long do you need?’

Morrel hesitated.

‘Two months,’ he said.

‘Good. I shall give you three.’

‘But do you think that the house of Thomson and French… ?’

‘Have no fear, Monsieur, I take full responsibility. Today is June the fifth.’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, reassign all these bills to September the fifth. On that day at eleven in the morning’ (the clock showed precisely eleven as he spoke) ‘I shall present myself here.’

‘I shall be waiting for you, Monsieur,’ said Morrel. ‘And you shall be paid, or I shall be dead.’

The last words were spoken so softly that the other man could not hear them.

The bills were renewed, the old ones torn up, and at least the poor shipowner found himself with three months to muster his last resources. The Englishman accepted his thanks with the sang-froid peculiar to his nation and took his leave of Morrel, who accompanied him with his blessings as far as the door.

On the staircase he met Julie. The girl was pretending to go down, but in fact had been waiting for him.

‘Oh, Monsieur!’ she said, clasping her hands.

‘Mademoiselle,’ the foreigner said. ‘One day you will receive a letter signed by… Sinbad the Sailor. Do precisely as this letter tells you, however strange its instructions may seem.’

‘Yes, Monsieur,’ Julie said.

‘Do you promise me this?’

‘I promise.’

‘Very well. Farewell, Mademoiselle. Stay always as good and virtuous as you are now and I truly believe God will reward you by giving you Emmanuel as a husband.’

Julie gave a little cry, blushed as red as a cherry and clasped the banister to stop herself falling. The stranger went on his way, with a wave of farewell. In the courtyard he met Penelon, who was holding a roll of one hundred francs in each hand, apparently undecided whether to take them with him.

‘Come with me, friend,’ the stranger said. ‘We must talk.’

The stay granted by the representative of Thomson and French, just when M. Morrel least expected it, seemed to the poor shipowner like one of those changes of fortune which tell a man that fate has at last tired of hounding him. The same day, he told his daughter, his wife and Emmanuel what had happened, and a modicum of hope, if not peace of mind, descended on the family. But unfortunately Morrel did not only have to deal with Thomson and French, who appeared so well disposed towards him. As he himself said, in business one has associates, but no friends. When he thought seriously about it, he could not even understand the generosity of Messrs Thomson and French. The only explanation he could find was that the firm had made the following self-interested calculation: it is better to support a man who owes us nearly three hundred thousand francs, and have the money at the end of three months, than to precipitate his ruin and have only six or eight per cent of the original sum.

Unfortunately, whether through hatred or blindness, not all M. Morrel’s associates thought in that way; some even thought the opposite. The bills that Morrel had signed were consequently presented at the till with scrupulous punctuality but, thanks to the time that had been allowed them by the Englishman, were paid on the nail by Coclès. The latter consequently went on in his state of fateful indifference. Only M. Morrel could appreciate, with horror, that if he had had to reimburse the fifty thousand francs to de Boville on the 15th and, on the 30th, the thirty-two thousand five hundred francs of bills for which (as for his debt to the inspector of prisons) he had obtained a stay, he would have been a lost man that very month.

The conclusion in business circles in Marseille was that Morrel would not be able to ride out the succession of disasters that were befalling him. There was consequently great astonishment at seeing him pay his debts at the end of the month with his habitual promptitude. However, this was not enough to restore confidence, and there was unanimous agreement that the end of the following month would see the unfortunate man bankrupt.

The month passed in extraordinary efforts on Morrel’s part to muster all his resources. At one time his paper, whatever the term on it, had been accepted with confidence and even sought out. Morrel tried to issue some bills for ninety days but found the doors of the banks closed. Luckily, Morrel himself had some bills due that he could call in; he did so successfully, and so found himself once more able to meet his obligations at the end of July.

No one, as it happened, had seen the representative of Thomson and French again in Marseille. The day after his visit to Morrel, or the day after that, he had vanished. As he had not been in contact with anyone in Marseille except the mayor, the inspector of prisons and M. Morrel, his stay had left no trace behind it other than the different memories that these three people had of him. As for the sailors of the
Pharaon
, it appeared that they had found another ship to sign on, because they too had vanished.

Captain Gaumard had recovered from the illness that kept him in Palma and returned to Marseille. He was reluctant to go to see M. Morrel, but the shipowner heard of his arrival and went himself to find him. He already knew, from Penelon’s story, how courageously the captain had behaved throughout the shipwreck, and it was he who tried to console the other man. He brought him his salary, which Captain Gaumard had not dared to draw.

As he was coming down the stairs, Morrel met Penelon coming up. It appeared that the helmsman had made good use of his money, because he was kitted out in entirely new clothes. He seemed quite embarrassed on meeting his owner; he drew back into the further corner of the landing, shifted his quid of tobacco from left to right and right to left, rolling his eyes and only replying with a feeble handshake to the one that M. Morrel, with his habitual warmth, had offered him. Morrel attributed Penelon’s embarrassment to the elegance of his dress: it was clear that the good man had not indulged in such luxury out of his last pay, so he must clearly have signed on with another ship, and his shame must be for not having, so to speak, gone into a longer period of mourning for the
Pharaon
. Perhaps he had even been to tell Captain Gaumard of his good fortune and let him know what his new master was offering.