"Giovanni Massetti," said Maximilian, "listen to me! I am a friend!"
The young man replied, in a low, discordant voice:
"Who is it mentions Giovanni Massetti? There was once a man who bore that name, but he is dead, dead to the world!"
"I have told you I am a friend," resumed M. Morrel. "I have come to save you!"
"A friend!—a friend!" cried the maniac, with a burst of bitter, mocking laughter that pierced Maximilian through and through like a sharp-pointed, keen-edged stiletto and made Valentine shudder as if she had come in contact with polar ice. "A friend!—a friend! Come to save me—me! ha! ha! ha! A labor of Hercules with no Hercules to accomplish it! You are mad, my poor fellow! Besides, I am not Giovanni Massetti—I am a King, an Emperor! Behold my sceptre and my crown!"
He pointed to his tall staff and the wreath of ivy leaves encircling his head, pointed triumphantly and with all the dignity of a throned monarch.
It was a pitiful sight, in the highest degree pitiful, this spectacle of intellect overthrown, of the glorious mental light of youthful manhood which had became clouded and obscured.
Maximilian was deeply affected, but, knowing full well that all his firmness, resolution and resources would be requisite in dealing with the wretched man he had come so far to aid, he controlled his emotion and said, in a comparatively steady voice:
"Giovanni Massetti, in the name of the woman you love, in the name of Zuleika, Monte-Cristo's daughter, I conjure you to be calm and hear me. I am her ambassador, I come to you from her!"