Welcome back, everyone to 1001 Stories for the Road.

This is your host and storyteller, John Haggardorm.

Today, Chapter 34 of the Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandra Dumas.

Franz had so managed his route that during the ride to the Coliseum they passed not a single ancient ruin, so that no preliminary impression interfered to mitigate the colossal proportions of the gigantic building they came to admire.

The road selected was a continuation of the Via Sistina. Then, by cutting off the right

angle of the street in which stands Santa Maria Maggiore, and proceeding by the Via Urbana and

San Pietro in Binkoli, the travelers would find themselves directly opposite the Coliseum.

This itinerary possessed another great advantage, that of leaving Franz at full

liberty to indulge his deep reverie upon the subject of Signor Pastrini's story, in which his

mysterious host of Monte Cristo was so strangely mixed up. Seated with folded arms in a corner of

the carriage, he continued to ponder over the singular

history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself an interminable number of questions

touching its various circumstances without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of

them. One fact, more than the rest, brought his friend Sinbad the sailor back to his recollection,

and that was the mysterious sort of intimacy that seemed to exist between the brigands and the sailors,

and Pastrini's account of vampas having found refuge on board the vessels of smugglers and fishermen,

reminded Franz of the two Corsican bandits he had found something soupping so amicably with the crew of the little yacht,

"'which had even deviated from its course

"'and touched to Portoecchio for the sole purpose of landing them.

"'The very name assumed by his host of Monte Cristo

"'and again repeated by the landlord of the Hotel de Londres,

"'abundantly proved to him that this island friend "'was playing his philanthropic part on the shores of Pianbino,

...