"Speak, Spero, I am listening. You know," he consolingly added, "dreams are untrue."
"Yes, you have often told me that, and yet—"
The child paused and looked timidly in the corner of the tent.
"Why do you look so timidly over there?" asked the count, anxiously.
"Papa, do not laugh at me," whispered Spero, "but I do not think I was asleep. A little while ago, I saw the curtains of the tent part and a dark form appeared at the aperture."
"When was it, Spero?"
"At the moment when you laid the pen down and came to me."
"You saw me then? You were not sleeping?"
"I do not know, papa; I have read of the eye of the serpent, which frightens the little birds and prevents them from making a single movement. I could not move, and the two men drew near me. They pressed their long hands upon my forehead and wished to drag me off. Then finally I screamed and they disappeared."
Monte-Cristo embraced the excited child and reassuringly murmured: