“Carried off!” said Morrel. “What can they have done with him?”

“Oh, he has been taken to Fenestrelles, to Pignerol, or to the Sainte-Marguérite islands. Some fine morning he will return to take command of your vessel.”

“Come when he will, it shall be kept for him. But how is it he is not already returned? It seems to me the first care of government should be to set at liberty those who have suffered for their adherence to it.”

“Do not be too hasty, M. Morrel,” replied Villefort. “The order of imprisonment came from high authority, and the order for his liberation must proceed from the same source; and, as Napoleon has scarcely been reinstated a fortnight, the letters have not yet been forwarded.”

“But,” said Morrel, “is there no way of expediting all these formalities⁠—of releasing him from arrest?”

“There has been no arrest.”