“No, monsieur,” returned the count; and he drew from his pocket a marvellous casket, formed out of a single emerald and closed by a golden lid which unscrewed and gave passage to a small greenish colored pellet about the size of a pea. This ball had an acrid and penetrating odor. There were four or five more in the emerald, which would contain about a dozen. The casket passed around the table, but it was more to examine the admirable emerald than to see the pills that it passed from hand to hand.

“And is it your cook who prepares these pills?” asked Beauchamp.

“Oh, no, monsieur,” replied Monte Cristo; “I do not thus betray my enjoyments to the vulgar. I am a tolerable chemist, and prepare my pills myself.”

“This is a magnificent emerald, and the largest I have ever seen,” said Château-Renaud, “although my mother has some remarkable family jewels.”