"My child, for the present it is best that you do not go to Giovanni. I will see him for you and without delay put a plan in operation that I do not doubt will result in his speedy cure. I know a wondrous physician whose skill is so great that he can almost restore the dead to life. He belongs to the despised race of Jews, but is a good as well as a marvellous man. His name is Dr. Israel Absalom and he resides here in Rome, within the walls of the shunned and execrated Ghetto, near the Capitoline Mount. I will go to him at once and take him to young Ma.s.setti. My daughter, rest a.s.sumed that this learned Hebrew will work another miracle and give your lover back to you and in all the glory of his mind and manhood! Be content, therefore, to remain where you are for a brief period, with our devoted friend Valentine as your companion and comforter."

"Yes, Zuleika," said Mme. Morrel, persuasively, "be content to remain with me. I will not quit you even for an instant. We will talk of Giovanni, of the happiness and joy the future has in store for both of you, and, believe me, the hours will pa.s.s on rapid wings!"

As Valentine spoke she gently disengaged the girl from her father's neck and pa.s.sed her arm lovingly around her slender waist. Zuleika's head sank upon her friend's shoulder.

"I yield to my father's solicitations and to your own, Valentine," she said, submissively. "You are older and wiser than I am and what you say is without doubt for the best. I will remain and trust to the wondrous physician."

"I have heard a great deal of this Dr. Absalom since I have been in Rome," said M. Morrel, addressing Monte-Cristo. "The common people regard him as a magician and the higher cla.s.ses as a cunning charlatan, but, if his legitimate scientific skill is generally denied, his brilliant and marvellous success, even in cases that the best Roman physicians have abandoned as hopeless, is universally admitted."

"Dr. Absalom is neither a magician nor a charlatan," answered Monte-Cristo, warmly, "but a physician of the utmost experience and of the highest possible attainments. He is bent beneath the weight of years and arduous study, yet his eye is as keen and his perception as acute as if he were a youth of twenty. No man knows either his age or his history. I met him long ago in Athens, where I had the good fortune to rescue him from the clutches of a howling mob of ruffians who had seized upon him and were about to slay him as a sorcerer because he had taken into his hut and cured of the plague a wretched Greek who had been cast into the streets to die! For my sake he will save Giovanni!"

"But," said Maximilian, as a sudden thought occurred to him and filled him with dismay, "Dr. Absalom can practise outside of the Ghetto only by stealth and at the risk of being thrown into prison! He will not be allowed to visit the Viscount Ma.s.setti!"

The Count of Monte-Cristo drew himself up proudly and his peculiar smile pa.s.sed over his countenance.

"I will take care of that!" he said, impressively.

Zuleika was left with Mme. Morrel, and, accompanied by Maximilian, Monte-Cristo at once started for the Ghetto.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WONDROUS PHYSICIAN.

A brisk walk of half an hour brought the Count and his companion to one of the two gates in the wall of the Ghetto or Jews' quarter of Rome.

Monte-Cristo knocked at a wicket and a policeman immediately appeared.

He was a young man and wore a military dress. His coat was b.u.t.toned to the throat, a yellow cord and ta.s.sel gracefully looped over the breast.

His hands were encased in white cotton gloves, a helmet adorned with bra.s.s was upon his head and at his side hung a sword, while on the collar of his coat the number of his regiment shone in gilt figures. The man's bearing was soldierly and he had evidently seen service in the field. The Count addressed him in Italian, informing him that he and M.

Morrel desired to visit the Ghetto, at the same time exhibiting their pa.s.sports. After examining the papers and seeing that they were in proper form the policeman opened the gate and the visitors entered the crowded and filthy precincts of the Jews' quarter.

"Mon Dieu! what vile odors!" exclaimed M. Morrel, placing his handkerchief saturated with cologne to his nose, as they hurried through the narrow, garbage-enc.u.mbered lanes.

"The atmosphere is not like that of a perfumer's shop!" replied the Count, laughing. "But it seems to suit the children of Israel, for they thrive and multiply in it as the sparrows in the pure air and green fields of England!"

"I pity them!" said Maximilian.

"Tastes differ," returned Monte-Cristo, philosophically. "I will wager that in this whole quarter we could not find a single Jew who would eat a partridge in that state of partial decay in which a Frenchman deems it most palatable!"

"What a strange, uncouth place this is," said M. Morrel, after a brief silence. "It seems like some city of the far orient. No one, suddenly transported here, would ever imagine that he was in the heart of Rome."

"It closely resembles the Judenga.s.se at Frankfort-on-the-Main," replied the Count, "and is quite as ancient though much larger. But the Germans are more progressive and liberal than the Romans, for the gates that closed the Judenga.s.se were removed in 1806, while those of the Ghetto still remain and are, as you have seen, in charge of the police, who subject every person entering or quitting the place to the closest scrutiny. Even as far back as the 17th century the gates of the Judenga.s.se were shut and locked only at nightfall, after which no Jew could venture into any other part of Frankfort without incurring a heavy penalty if caught, whereas here at the present time, in this age of enlightenment and religious toleration, the gates of the Ghetto are kept closed day and night, and the poor Israelites, victims of bigotry and unreasoning prejudice, are treated worse than the pariahs in Hindoostan!

Rome is the Eternal City and verily its faults are as eternal as itself!"

Monte-Cristo had evidently visited the Ghetto before, as he seemed thoroughly familiar with its crooked lanes and obscure byways, pursuing his course without hesitation or pause for inquiry. It apparently contained no new sights or surprises for him. To M. Morrel, on the contrary, who now was within its walls for the first time, it presented an unending series of wonders. The buildings particularly impressed him.

They looked as if erected away back in remote antiquity, and were curiously quaint combinations of wood and stone, exceedingly picturesque in appearance. Most of them were not more than eight or ten feet wide and towered to a height of four stories, resembling dwarfed steeples rather than houses. Not a new or modern edifice was to be seen in any direction. Many of the buildings were in a ruinous condition and some seemed actually about to crumble to pieces, while here and there great piles of shapeless rubbish marked the spots where others had fallen. As they were pa.s.sing one of these piles, much larger than the rest, Maximilian called Monte-Cristo's attention to it. The Count glanced at it and said:

"That was once the dwelling of old Isaac Nabal, known to his people as Isaac the Moneylender, but styled by the Romans Isaac the Usurer. He was enormously rich and loaned his gold at exorbitant rates to the extravagant and impecunious Roman n.o.bles. Isaac was wifeless and childless, but so eager for gain was he that he kept his house constantly filled with lodgers. The house was perhaps the oldest in all the Ghetto. Strange noises were heard in it every night occasioned by the falling of plaster or part.i.tion walls. It was no uncommon thing for a lodger to be suddenly roused from his sleep by a crash and find himself bruised and bleeding. Still old Isaac st.u.r.dily refused to make repairs. He a.s.serted that the rickety edifice would last as long as he did, and he was not wrong, for one night it came down bodily about his ears and he perished amid the ruins together with thirty others, all who were in the aged rookery at the time. This catastrophe happened twenty years ago."

"Do the houses often fall here?" asked M. Morrel, glancing uneasily around him at the dilapidated buildings.

"Very often," answered the Count. "Age and decay will bring them all down sooner or later."

"Then for Heaven's sake let us hasten lest we be crushed beneath some sudden wreck!" said Maximilian. "The houses project over the street at the upper stories until they almost join each other in mid air. If one should fall there would be no escape!"

"Have no fear, Maximilian!" replied Monte-Cristo, smiling. "A famous astrologer once a.s.sured me that I bore a charmed life, and if I escape you will also!"

The ground floors of the houses were for the most part occupied as shops of various kinds and the upper portions used as dwellings. Jewish merchants stood at the doors of the shops and Jewish women, some of them very beautiful, were occasionally seen at the upper windows. The streets were thronged with pedestrians of both s.e.xes and here and there groups of chubby, black-haired children were at play.

Maximilian was amazed to notice that most of the men they met took off their hats to Monte-Cristo and that some of them saluted him by name.

"You appear to be pretty well known to the Israelites," said he, at length.

"Yes," answered the Count, "many of them know me. I have had frequent occasion to consult with them on matters of importance. They are a shrewd and trusty people."

By this time Monte-Cristo and M. Morrel had reached a lane narrower and darker than any they had yet traversed. Into this the Count turned and after he had taken his companion a short distance stopped in front of a dingy but well-preserved building. It differed from its neighbors in having no shop on the ground floor and in being tightly closed from bottom to top. It looked as if it were uninhabited.

"We have reached our destination," said Monte-Cristo. "This is the residence of Dr. Absalom."

Maximilian stared at him in astonishment.

"The house is deserted," said he. "Are you not mistaken?"

"No. This is the place."

"I fear then that the physician has left it and perhaps also the Ghetto."

Monte-Cristo smiled.

"You do not know him," he said. "His habits and manner of living are very peculiar. Prepare to be greatly surprised!"

Thus speaking he went to the door of the tightly-closed dwelling and struck five loud raps upon it, three very quickly and two very slowly delivered. The sounds seemed to reverberate through the house as if it were not only uninhabited but also unfurnished. Several minutes elapsed but no response was heard to Monte-Cristo's signal, no one came in obedience to his summons. The Count held his watch in his hand and his eyes were riveted upon the dial.

M. Morrel grew slightly impatient; he said to his companion, triumphantly:

"I told you that the house was deserted and I was right!"

The Count smiled again, but made no reply, still keeping his eyes fixed on the dial of his watch.

"Ten minutes!" said he, and he repeated his signal, but this time struck only three rapid blows. As before no answer was returned.

Maximilian was much interested and not a little amused, the Count's proceedings were so singular.

"Fifteen minutes!" said Monte-Cristo at length, putting up his watch and giving one long, resounding rap upon the door.

The effect was instantaneous. The portal swung open through some unseen influence, as if by magic, disclosing a long, bare, gloomy corridor, but not a sign of human life was visible.