have it."

The night was excessively dark, but Esperance felt neither rain nor
wind; his fever was so great that he was not cold.

Ah! Monte-Cristo, where are you? Here is your son rushing into the most
terrible danger, and you far away!

Through the darkness Esperance followed Benedetto the assassin. Suddenly
it seemed to him that the obscurity was rent away like a vail.

"Where are we?" he said to his guide.

"On the bank of the Seine. We have not far to go. Are you afraid?"

Esperance did not reply to this insulting question.

"Go on!" he said.

Presently they stopped before a dark building. Not a light was to be
seen. Benedetto turned to the son of Monte-Cristo.

"This is the place to which I agreed to bring you."

"Do you mean that my beloved Jane is in this house?"

"She is here."

"I cannot believe it. The whole thing is a plot!"

"Will you kindly tell me, sir," said Benedetto, "why I should take the
trouble to come all this way? A half hour since we were together where
no human eye could see us, nor human ear hear us. What would have
prevented my attacking you then, had my intentions been sinister?"

"That is true; but tell me that you are mistaken--that my poor Jane is
not here!"

At this moment shrill laughter and ribald songs came from the house near
which Esperance stood.

"Let us go in!" cried the Vicomte. "Jane must not stay here one other
minute."

"Come, then," answered Benedetto, "you shall be satisfied."

He opened the door, but it was as dark within as without. Esperance
heard the door close; he spoke, but there was no answer. He stretched
out his arms and felt the wall, and instantly his eyes regained their
peculiar facility of sight. He was alone in a small, square room without
door or window. He uttered a cry of rage.

"I have been deceived! The scoundrel!"

But at the same moment the wall opened before him like two sliding
panels, but in the place of the wall were iron bars. And through these
bars Esperance beheld Jane, but what he saw was so terrible that he
recoiled and uttered a cry of terror, which was drowned in shrieks of
laughter, wild songs and the clatter of glasses.

CHAPTER LXII.

COUCON.

Goutran had entire faith in Carmen, and he was now anxious to
communicate with her. He called the former Zouave.

"Coucon," he said, "do you know where Monsieur Laisangy lives?"

"The great banker? Oh! yes, sir, everybody knows that."

"Then without losing on