Within a day of boarding the ship, Dantès had figured out exactly what kind of crew he’d fallen in with. The captain of La Jeune Amélie, a sleek vessel flying under foreign colors, might not have had formal education, but he was street-smart in ways that mattered. He could speak fragnts of every language you’d hear around the diterranean ports, from Arabic to the local dialects. This skill ant he didn’t need translators, those nosy middlen who always seed to know too much for their own good.
It also ant he could communicate easily with anyone they encountered: other ships at sea, coastal fishing boats, or those shady characters who hung around every port, the kind of people with no official job but sohow always had money in their pockets. Dantès quickly realized he was aboard a smuggling vessel.
At first, the captain had been suspicious of his new crew mber. The man was well-known to customs officials along the coast, and their relationship was an endless ga of cat and mouse. His initial worry was that Dantès might be an undercover agent, planted to discover his trade secrets.
But watching Dantès handle the ship with expert skill had put those fears to rest. Then, when the captain saw smoke rising from the fortress prison and heard the distant cannon fire, he realized sothing important: his new recruit was soone whose movents warranted military salutes. This was far less concerning than harboring a customs officer, though this theory too faded when he observed Dantès’ complete composure.
So Dantès had the advantage, he knew what kind of operation he’d joined, while the captain remained clueless about his true identity. No matter how the old sailor and his crew tried to pump him for information, they got nothing. Dantès gave accurate descriptions of Naples and Malta, cities he knew as well as his hotown, and stuck to his cover story. The Genoese captain, clever as he was, found himself completely fooled by Dantès’ mild manner, nautical expertise, and flawless act.
Perhaps the captain was one of those shrewd types who only wanted to know what was necessary and only believed what was convenient.
In this state of mutual understanding, they reached the port city of Leghorn. Here, Dantès faced a crucial test, he needed to see if he could even recognize himself after fourteen years without looking in a mirror.
He rembered fairly well what he’d looked like as a young man, but now he had to discover what those years had made him beco. His shipmates assud his personal vow was complete. Having docked at Leghorn many tis before, he rembered a barbershop on St. Ferdinand Street and headed there for a long-overdue haircut and shave.
The barber stared in amazent at this custor with long, thick black hair and a wild beard that made him look like a figure from an old master’s painting. In that era, such dramatic facial hair wasn’t fashionable, nowadays, a barber would be more surprised if soone with such striking natural advantages chose to get rid of them. But the Leghorn barber said nothing and got to work.
When the transformation was complete and Dantès felt his smooth chin and properly trimd hair, he asked for a hand mirror. He was now thirty-three years old, and fourteen years of imprisonnt had completely changed his appearance.
When Dantès had entered the island fortress, he’d had the round, open, smiling face of a young, happy man, soone whose early life had been smooth and who expected his future to match his pleasant past. All of that was gone now.
His face had beco more angular, his once-easy smile replaced by the firm, determined lines that co with hard-won resolve. His eyebrows arched over a forehead marked by deep thought. His eyes held a lancholy depth, occasionally sparkling with dark flas of bitterness and hatred. His complexion, so long deprived of sunlight, had taken on that pale quality that, when frad by black hair, gives a man an aristocratic, almost otherworldly beauty.
The extensive learning he’d acquired in prison had given his features a refined, intellectual expression. Being naturally tall, he’d also developed the kind of physical strength that cos from years of channeling all one’s energy inward. His once lean, nervous fra had been replaced by solid, well-developed muscle.
Even his voice had changed, years of prayers, sobs, and curses had altered it so that sotis it carried a penetrating sweetness, while other tis it was rough and nearly hoarse. After spending so long in twilight and darkness, his eyes had developed the ability to see clearly in the night, like a predator.
Dantès smiled when he saw his reflection. It was impossible that his closest friend, if he had any friends left, could recognize him. He couldn’t even recognize himself.
The captain of La Jeune Amélie, eager to keep such a valuable crew mber, had offered to advance him money against future earnings. Dantès had accepted. His next stop after the barbershop was a clothing store, where he bought a complete sailor’s outfit. Simple gear consisting of white trousers, a striped shirt, and a cap.
It was in this new costu, returning Jacopo’s borrowed clothes, that Dantès reappeared before the captain. The man had to hear the story multiple tis before he could believe or recognize the neat, trim sailor in the wild, bearded figure he’d pulled from the sea, hair tangled with seaweed, body soaked in brine, nearly drowned.
Impressed by Dantès’ transford appearance, the captain renewed his job offer, but Dantès, who had his own agenda, would only commit to three months.
La Jeune Amélie ran a tight operation with an efficient, obedient crew under a captain who wasted no ti. Within a week of reaching Leghorn, the ship’s hold was packed with contraband: printed fabrics, untaxed English gunpowder, and tobacco that had sohow avoided official stamps. The plan was to smuggle everything out of Leghorn and land it on Corsican shores, where local dealers would handle getting the cargo into France.
They set sail, and Dantès found himself once again cutting through the brilliant blue sea that had been his first horizon as a youth, the sa waters he’d dread of countless tis in his prison cell. He passed familiar islands, heading toward the legendary holand of great leaders and revolutionaries.
The next morning, rising early as always, the captain found Dantès leaning against the ship’s rail, staring intensely at a cluster of granite rocks that the rising sun painted in rosy light. It was the Island of Monte Cristo. La Jeune Amélie passed it at a distance of about three-quarters of a league and continued toward Corsica.
As they sailed so close to the island whose na held such significance for him, Dantès thought about how he could simply leap into the sea and reach that promised land in half an hour. But then what? He had no tools to locate his treasure, no weapons to defend himself. Besides, what would the sailors think? What would the captain assu? He had to wait.
Fortunately, Dantès had learned patience. He’d waited fourteen years for his freedom and now that he was free, he could wait at least six months or a year for wealth. Wouldn’t he have accepted liberty without riches if it had been offered? Besides, was this treasure even real, or just the fantasy of a dying old priest?
Still, that letter had been remarkably detailed, and Dantès could recite every word from mory.
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