“Ah, that is a different thing.”

“Well, then, wretches,” cried Danglars, “I will defy your infamous calculations⁠—I would rather die at once! You may torture, torment, kill me, but you shall not have my signature again!”

“As your excellency pleases,” said Vampa, as he left the cell.

Danglars, raving, threw himself on the goatskin. Who could these men be? Who was the invisible chief? What could be his intentions towards him? And why, when everyone else was allowed to be ransomed, might he not also be? Oh, yes; certainly a speedy, violent death would be a fine means of deceiving these remorseless enemies, who appeared to pursue him with such incomprehensible vengeance. But to die? For the first time in his life, Danglars contemplated death with a mixture of dread and desire; the time had come when the implacable spectre, which exists in the mind of every human creature, arrested his attention and called out with every pulsation of his heart, “Thou shalt die!”