Alexandre Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 33: Roman Bandits. (continued)

"`Thank you,' said Luigi, drawing back his hand; `I render a service, I do not sell it.' -- `Well,' replied the traveller, who seemed used to this difference between the servility of a man of the cities and the pride of the mountaineer, `if you refuse wages, you will, perhaps, accept a gift.' -- `Ah, yes, that is another thing.' -- `Then,' said the traveller, `take these two Venetian sequins and give them to your bride, to make herself a pair of earrings.'

"`And then do you take this poniard,' said the young herdsman; `you will not find one better carved between Albano and Civita-Castellana.'

"`I accept it,' answered the traveller, `but then the obligation will be on my side, for this poniard is worth more than two sequins.' -- `For a dealer perhaps; but for me, who engraved it myself, it is hardly worth a piastre.'

"`What is your name?' inquired the traveller. -- `Luigi Vampa,' replied the shepherd, with the same air as he would have replied, Alexander, King of Macedon. -- `And yours?' -- `I,' said the traveller, `am called Sinbad the Sailor.'" Franz d'Epinay started with surprise.

"Sinbad the Sailor." he said.

"Yes," replied the narrator; "that was the name which the traveller gave to Vampa as his own."

"Well, and what may you have to say against this name?" inquired Albert; "it is a very pretty name, and the adventures of the gentleman of that name amused me very much in my youth, I must confess." -- Franz said no more. The name of Sinbad the Sailor, as may well be supposed, awakened in him a world of recollections, as had the name of the Count of Monte Cristo on the previous evening.

"Proceed!" said he to the host.