Bandits Awaken as Danglars is Led to His Cell
The captain remarks that the man is tired and orders him conducted to his bed. Danglars murmurs fear that the bed is a coffin hollowed in the wall and that sleep will mean death from a poniard. As the companions of the bandit chief rise from their beds of dried leaves or wolf-skins, the banker utters a groan and follows his guide without supplication, having lost all strength, will, power, and feeling. He mechanically climbs a staircase and enters a low door.
Danglars is Locked in a Rock Cell
Bending his head to avoid striking his forehead, Danglars enters a small room cut out of the rock—clean though empty, dry though situated at an immeasurable depth underground. A bed of dried grass covered with goat-skins in one corner raises his spirits, and he exclaims that it is a real bed, invoking God’s name for only the second time in over a decade. His guide shoves him into the cell, closes the door, and slides a bolt into place.
Danglars Calculates Ransom and Falls Asleep
Danglars recognizes the bandit as Luigi Vampa, whose existence he had previously refused to believe when Albert de Morcerf mentioned him in Paris. He also recognizes the very cell where Albert had been confined, preserved for accommodating strangers. These recollections restore some tranquillity: since they have not killed him outright, he concludes they will not kill him at all, and that they have arrested him for robbery. Recalling that Morcerf was taxed at 4,000 crowns, Danglars fixes his own ransom at 8,000 crowns (48,000 livres), reasoning he would still have roughly 5,050,000 francs remaining—safe provided he is not rated at his entire fortune. Satisfied with this calculation, he stretches out on his bed and soon falls asleep with the same tranquillity as the hero whose life Luigi Vampa is studying.
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