Navigation Lessons
In the long days on board ship, when the vessel glides with security over the azure sea requiring no care but the hand of the helmsman, thanks to favorable winds, Edmond, with a chart in his hand, becomes the instructor of Jacopo, as the poor Abbé Faria had been his tutor. He points out to him the bearings of the coast, explains to him the variations of the compass, and teaches him to read in that vast book opened over their heads which they call heaven, and where God writes in azure with letters of diamonds. When Jacopo asks, “What is the use of teaching all these things to a poor sailor like me?” Edmond replies, “Who knows? You may one day be the captain of a vessel. Your fellow-countryman, Bonaparte, became emperor.” Jacopo is a Corsican.
The Monte Cristo Plan
Two and a half months elapse in these trips. Edmond has become as skilful a coaster as he was a hardy seaman; he has formed an acquaintance with all the smugglers on the coast and learned all the Masonic signs by which these half-pirates recognize each other. He has passed and repassed his Island of Monte Cristo twenty times, but not once found an opportunity to land there. He forms a resolution: as soon as his engagement with the patron of La Jeune Amélie ends, he will hire a small vessel on his own account—for in his several voyages he has amassed a hundred piastres—and under some pretext land at the Island of Monte Cristo. Then he would be free to make his researches, perhaps not entirely at liberty, for he would be doubtless watched by those who accompanied him. But in this world we must risk something. Prison has made Edmond prudent, and he is desirous of running no risk whatever. But in vain he racks his imagination; fertile as it is, he cannot devise any plan for reaching the island without companionship.
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