your dear eyes and look on me once again! Oh, sir, in pity send for a physician; my whole fortune shall not be thought too much for the recovery of my boy.”
With a calm smile and a gentle wave of the hand, Monte Cristo signed to the distracted mother to lay aside her apprehensions; then, opening a casket that stood near, he drew forth a phial of Bohemian glass incrusted with gold, containing a liquid of the color of blood, of which he let fall a single drop on the child’s lips.
Scarcely had it reached them, ere the boy, though still pale as marble, opened his eyes, and eagerly gazed around him. At this, the delight of the mother was almost frantic.
“Where am I?” exclaimed she; “and to whom am I indebted for so happy a termination to my late dreadful alarm?”
“Madame,” answered the count, “you are under the roof of one who esteems himself most fortunate in having been able to save you from a further continuance of your sufferings.”
“My wretched curiosity has brought all this about,” pursued the lady. “All Paris rung with the praises of Madame Danglars’ beautiful horses, and I had the folly to desire to know whether they really merited the high praise given to them.”
“Is it possible,” exclaimed the count with well-feigned astonishment, “that these horses belong to the baroness?”
“They do, indeed. May I inquire if you are acquainted with Madame Danglars?”
“I have that honor; and my happiness at your escape from the danger that threatened you is redoubled by the consciousness that I have been the unwilling and the unintentional cause of all the peril you have