Upon that pale and motionless countenance she gazed long and deeply, and, oh! the world of memory that passed through her mind!—the world of thought and feeling that centred in that fixed gaze! At length, clasping her hands upon her forehead, her eyes streaming with tears, she bowed her face upon the bed, from which she had just raised it, and long seemed absorbed in prayer.
Roused from this position by some movement of the slumberer, she started up and watched him.
The shaded rays of the dim and distant lamp threw a faint glimmering of light upon the pale countenance, but the quick eye of love instantaneously detected a change. A slight flush was mounting the cheek, and gentle perspiration was distilling upon the brow, while a smile played on the mouth. Suddenly, as she gazed, those pallid lips moved. Astonished, she listened.
"Marseilles! beautiful Marseilles!" said the sleeper. "Home of my boyhood, home of my heart. I come!" Then quickly and sternly came the order, "Let go the anchor—furl the sails—mate, take charge of the ship!" Then the tones changed, and a joyful light shot over the face as the lips exclaimed, "Now for my father! now for my love! Mercédès! Mercédès!"
Amazed, the fair watcher retained her position, and gazed and listened so silently and breathlessly that the quick and audible beatings of her heart might have been numbered.
"Mine—mine at last!" continued the dreamer. "The marriage-feast—the marriage-feast!" But instantly the expression of the voice and the countenance altered. The light of joy was shrouded in clouds. "Arrest—arrest me?" was the exclamation—"me! at my marriage-feast! A dungeon for me! Mercédès! Mercédès! My love—my wife! Oh! God! it is the Château d'If! Despair—despair!"
Shocked, terrified at the terrible energy of these words, and the expression of unutterable woe that rested on the countenance of the sleeper, the affrighted woman, who comprehended but too well the fearful significance of the abrupt and disjointed syllables, hastily arose as if to rouse the slumberer from his dream or to call on the Nubian for aid.
But, before she could carry the purpose into execution, the aspect of the Deputy's visage again had changed. A dark frown settled on the brow, a spirit of fixed resolve contracted the firm lip and dilated the nostril, and the word, "Vengeance—vengeance!" in whispers scarcely audible, but repeatedly and rapidly pronounced, was heard.
A longer silence than before succeeded. At length another change swept over the face, and the words, "Free—free—I am free!" burst from the lips; then they murmured, "Treasure untold! wondrous wealth!—diamonds—pearls—rubies—ingots of gold! The mad abbé's dream was reality!" Again the countenance darkened. "Fourteen years in a dungeon for no crime!—a father dead of starvation!—a bride the bride of the fiend who has done all this—and he a peer of France—and his friends a millionaire of Paris and the Procureur du Roi! Vengeance—vengeance—vengeance!" There was a pause, and the dreamer exultingly continued, "It is done! The peer of France is a disgraced suicide! The Procureur du Roi is a madman! The banker is a bankrupt!" The dreamer again paused, and his countenance once more changed. "Alas! alas! man is not God! 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord!' The innocent suffer with the guilty. To avenge a wrong has been sacrificed a life, and only misery has been the recompense! No more—no more—no more of this! Man and man's happiness be henceforth the aim! To that be devoted wealth untold!"
The lips ceased to move. Gradually the high excitement of the features passed away and was succeeded by an expression of sadness and love. "Haydée—gone—gone to a better world. Mercédès—Mercédès—oh! does she love me yet? The long lost idol of my heart!—the adored angel of my life!—come! come! come!"