“Now this way,” the Captain directed. “One of you youngsters help Henry carry the basket. We’ve got to get around to that path we saw, for the gate at the top of it is the only entrance.”
By scrambling over the rocks they soon reached the path, and followed it over rough and slippery rocks, up a steep incline, to the heavy gate, which was closed, but not locked. Once through the gate, the path showed more evidences of care, though it was still rough and difficult, rising in a sort of rude stairway, with a step followed by four or five feet of steep incline, then another step and another incline. On the right was a thick stone wall, with long narrow slanting slits for firing muskets through.
Up and up the path led, growing rougher the nearer it approached the castle, till it ran across a large open yard and ended at the moat, over which a heavy wooden drawbridge was lowered.
“There’s a sample of old times for you,” the Captain said, when they reached the drawbridge and paused for breath. “Two or three days’ work would make a good path of that; but in two or three centuries not one commander of the place had ambition enough to repair it.”
Crossing the bridge over the dry and rocky and weedy moat, they reached the entrance to the castle proper, where the massive doors stood hospitably open, and they walked in without challenge or hindrance. It was soon evident that there was no other person on the island, for they hallooed and shouted, but received no reply.
“Strange that they leave such a historical place without any one to take care of it,” said the chief engineer. And it did look odd, but the fact was that the man in charge had gone ashore on some errand, and the heavy sea had prevented his return.
Having passed through the main portal, they were in a large stone-paved courtyard, nearly in the centre of which stood an old-fashioned well-curb. A heavy stone stairway on the opposite side led to a solid gallery of iron and stone running completely around the court, both stairs and gallery having a strong rail of wrought iron. Numerous doors opened from both the ground floor and the gallery, some closed and some standing open, and over several of the doors were small signs bearing the names of their former occupants.
“Put your lunch basket here in the corner,” the Captain directed Harry. “There doesn’t seem to be any one here to disturb it. But get out some candles, and we’ll have a look at these lower dungeons first. Nearly every one of these solid doors leads to a dungeon, I suppose you understood, and some of them to a series of dungeons. Silburn is anxious to see Monte Cristo’s late residence, I am sure. Do you see his name on the sign there under the stairway, Silburn?”
“Yes, sir, I saw that the first thing,” Kit answered. “But there is so much to see here a fellow hardly knows where to look. It is like going back two or three hundred years at a single step. Even in the old buildings of London I saw nothing like this. It is a regular feudal castle, such as we see sometimes in pictures.”
“It adds a little to the romance of the thing to have the place entirely to ourselves,” said the Captain. “We are as safe from intrusion as if we raised the drawbridge and bolted the big doors, for you may be sure none of the French boatmen will come out in this sea. Now, then, if you are all ready, we will visit Monte Cristo first. Give me a candle, and I will lead the way.”