"Well, Luigi Vampa!" said he, facing his visitor and calmly folding his arms as soon as they were alone. "What do you want with me?"

The brigand chief did not seem either disconcerted or surprised even in the slightest degree. He boldly returned his host's gaze and said:

"I knew you would recognize me at once, for I am well aware of your extraordinary keenness and penetration, Signor Count, but, to confess the truth, my disguise was not intended to deceive you; its sole object was to secure me safe entrance to and exit from Rome which of late has become dangerous for men in my line of industry!"

The Count smiled in his peculiar way.

"What do you want with me, Luigi Vampa?" he repeated. "Your errand must be of vast importance since you have taken so much trouble to execute it!"

"It is of vast importance, Signor Count. This morning one of the most efficient members of my band, old Pasquale Solara, was attacked and severely wounded by your protege the Viscount Giovanni Ma.s.setti!"

"Old Solara attacked and severely wounded by the Viscount Ma.s.setti?

Impossible!"

The Count was greatly disconcerted by this intelligence; he could not conceal his chagrin. The Viscount's rashness and impetuosity would ruin all!

"What I say is true," continued Vampa, "and I have come to you to protest. You must restrain this Viscount Ma.s.setti, this reckless madman!

He professes to have a grudge against Pasquale Solara and there is no telling to what length he may go if you do not control him. Had Pasquale been able to speak when discovered lying bathed in blood upon the highway by some of the members of my band, young Ma.s.setti would have been pursued, captured and made to pay for his murderous a.s.sault with his life; but it was only later, when brought into my presence, that he became sufficiently conscious to relate what had happened. Signor Count, I wish to respect your friends, but they on their part must respect me and my band!"

"Luigi Vampa," replied Monte-Cristo, sternly, "you say that young Ma.s.setti has a grudge against old Pasquale Solara! What you seek to belittle with the name of grudge is simply just indignation for an outrage such as human beings rarely commit! This you know!--you to whom Solara basely sold his daughter!--you who plotted with the aged scoundrel that the charge of abduction and murder might fall upon the Viscount's innocent shoulders when you, Luigi Vampa, were the guilty man!"

The brigand chief started and grew pale beneath the paint and cosmetics with which his visage was thickly coated.

"You have been deceived, Signor Count!" he stammered, taken at a disadvantage, but nevertheless speaking guardedly and endeavoring to put on a bold front. "The girl herself, Annunziata Solara, will swear to you that the Viscount Giovanni Ma.s.setti was her abductor and the author of her ruin!"

"Yes," replied Monte-Cristo, bitterly, "she will and does say so, for she has been completely blinded by the cunning, fiendish stratagems you resorted to, aided and abetted by that infamous miscreant old Pasquale Solara, for whom a lingering death upon the rack of the ancient Spanish Inquisition would not be a sufficient punishment!"

"You speak very confidently, Signor Count," said Vampa, resuming his cool self-possession. "Pray tell me how you are going to prove all this?"

"I should be foolish, indeed, did I do so," replied Monte-Cristo, seeing the brigand chief's trap and adroitly avoiding being caught in it.

"However, suffice it to say that I can and will make good all I have a.s.serted! Even Annunziata Solara herself shall be thoroughly convinced!"

"Signor Count," said Vampa, pleadingly, "we have long been good friends, have long understood each other perfectly. Do not let the idle tales designing persons have poured into your ears destroy that friendship and that understanding!"

"I have heard no idle tales from designing persons," retorted the Count.

"What I have heard was a plain and simple statement of the truth. I know how old Solara summoned you with his signal whistle, how you bargained with him for his beautiful daughter and how you finally bought her of him! I know how you abducted the girl while her infamous father waited outside the cabin with a torch, how you bore her away in your arms through the forest, murdering her brother and in turn encountering my son Esperance and the Viscount Ma.s.setti. I know how you carried her to the hut you had prepared, how you kept her a close prisoner there guarded by members of your band until your shameful object was accomplished! I know how you wrote that letter signed Tonio which was intended to influence Annunziata's belief in the Viscount's guilt, and I know how old Solara secreted it where his daughter afterwards found and read it! Now, Luigi Vampa, are you satisfied? You said a moment ago that we have long understood each other. I hope there will be no misunderstanding on your part when I tell you that I mean to force both you and old Solara to confess your crimes and make reparation for them as far as possible!"

"Then you declare war against us?" cried the brigand chief.

"I do!" answered Monte-Cristo, coldly.

"Then in my own name and in that of Pasquale Solara, I defy you, Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte-Cristo!"

He backed towards the door as if afraid the Count would attack him. When he reached it, he turned, flung it open and stepped into the corridor, instantly finding himself in the grasp of Peppino and Beppo, who at once handed him over to a squad of policemen, the officer in charge of whom said:

"I arrest you, Luigi Vampa! Follow me!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE BANDITS' REPRISALS.

Monte-Cristo was astounded when he saw Luigi Vampa arrested by the Roman policeman and his squad; his first thought was that Peppino, unwilling to let slip so fair an opportunity to obtain vengeance, had betrayed the brigand chief to the authorities; this idea was apparently confirmed by the part the two ex-bandits had taken in their former leader's capture; hence after the officers and their prisoner had departed, he turned fiercely upon Peppino and said, in a tone of anger:

"This is fine work for one of my servants to do, especially one so trusted as you!"

"Signor Count," answered Peppino, humbly, "you are mistaken. I had no hand in it whatever save obeying the order of the officer in command of the police."

"Indeed!" cried the Count, incredulously.

"Yes," continued Peppino, in the same humble voice, "and Beppo here is equally innocent. The officer tracked Vampa to the hotel and was informed that I had conducted him into your presence. He thereupon sent for me, directing me without further ado to take Beppo, who chanced to be in my company, and seize the chief, who was personally unknown to him, the instant he quitted your salon. I trust your Excellency will pardon us, as we could do nothing but obey."

"In that case," said Monte-Cristo, "no blame attaches to either of you, but, nevertheless, Vampa's arrest at this critical juncture will seriously interfere with my projected operations."

The police had conducted matters very quietly; still, the tramp of many feet in the corridor had awakened the Viscount and filled him with terror. Knowing the unparalleled audacity of the bandits, he at once jumped to the conclusion that a body of them had entered Rome and taken possession of the Hotel de France with the object of seizing upon him as the murderer of old Pasquale Solara, who, he did not doubt, was dead.

When the tramping feet, which the Count and Vampa were too much engrossed to hear, paused in front of his very door he became fixed in this conclusion and sprang from his bed in wild alarm. He looked hastily around him for some avenue of escape, but there was none. If the brigands were without he was trapped and would speedily be in their hands. He listened with the utmost anxiety, expecting every instant that his door would be forced and his relentless foes come thronging into the chamber. No such movement, however, was made. A deathlike silence prevailed. What was the meaning of all this? What was taking place or about to occur? If the men in the corridor were not Luigi Vampa's bandits, who were they? The Viscount lost himself in a bewildering maze of conjectures. Make a personal examination and satisfy himself he dare not. In the midst of his conjectures he heard a door open directly across the corridor and knew it was Monte-Cristo's. Then a voice of stern command broke the silence, but what was uttered he could not distinguish, though he fancied he made out the ominous word "arrest,"

which was almost immediately succeeded by a renewal of the tramping of feet. This sound speedily died away and silence again prevailed. Young Ma.s.setti was more perplexed than ever. He could make nothing out of the knotty problem presented to him for solution. Suddenly a thought struck him that brought beads of cold perspiration out upon his forehead.

Monte-Cristo had been arrested and carried off to a Roman prison! Then he heard the Count's well-known voice angrily addressing some one and this alarming thought vanished as quickly as it had come to him. The party arrested, if an arrest had been made, was, therefore, not Monte-Cris...o...b..t some one else, some one who had come from the Count's salon. Who could it possibly be? Maximilian Morrel? No, the idea was absurd, for what had the young Frenchman done to provoke arrest?

Finally, unable longer to endure the uncertainty and suspense, the Viscount cautiously opened his door and glanced out into the corridor.

His eyes rested upon Monte-Cristo, Peppino and Beppo. The former saw him and at once came to him.

"What has happened?" demanded Ma.s.setti, eagerly.

"Luigi Vampa was here and has been taken away a prisoner by the police,"

answered the Count.

"Luigi Vampa!" cried the young Italian, in amazement.

"Yes, Luigi Tampa," returned Monte-Cristo, his brow clouding.

"What brought him to the Hotel de France?"

"He came to complain of you!"

"Of me?"

"I have said so."

"And you caused him to be arrested?"

"I did not. His arrest was due entirely to his own rashness. The police tracked him hither and apprehended him as he quitted my apartment."

While speaking Monte-Cristo made his way into Giovanni's chamber.

Closing the door behind him, he stood gazing at the Viscount with a gloomy air.