Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road

and the first of this week's two episodes of the Count of Monte Cristo.

Today, Chapter 19, the third attack.

Now that this treasure, which has so long been the object of the Abbey's meditations,

could ensure the future happiness of him whom Faria really loved as a son,

it had doubled its value in his eyes, and every day he expatiated on the amount,

explaining to Dante's all the good which, with 13 or 14 millions of

francs, a man could do in these days to his friends. And then Dante's countenance became gloomy,

for the oath of vengeance he had taken recurred to his memory, and he reflected how much ill

in these times a man with 13 or 14 millions could do to his enemies.

The Abbey did not know the island of Monte Cristo, but Dantes knew it, and had often passed it, situated 25 miles from Pianosa, between Corsica and the island of Elba, and had once touched there.

This island was, always had been, and had once touched there. This island was,

always had been, and still is, completely deserted. It is a rock of almost conical form,

which looks as though it had been thrust up by volcanic force from the depth to the surface of the ocean.

Dante's drew a plan of the island for Faria, and Faria gave Dante's advice as to the means he should employ to recover the treasure.

But Dantes was far from being as enthusiastic and confident as the old man.

It was past a question now that Faria was not a lunatic, and the way in which he had achieved

the discovery, which had given rise to the suspicion of his madness, increased Edmund's

admiration of him.

But at the same time, Dantes could not believe that the deposit, supposing it had ever

existed, still existed.

And though he considered the treasure as by no means

...