It was enough to see Hélène coming towards her, leaning on Patrice’s arm, and to note the expression on their faces, for Madame Caoudal to guess what had happened. And, after all, as she had been compelled to relinquish the dream she had so long cherished of uniting her son to her adopted daughter, what better husband could she desire for Hélène, provided for as Patrice would be henceforth? In a few rapid words all was arranged, and with the best grace in the world, though suppressing the ghost of a sigh, Madame Caoudal embraced the happy lovers.
Meanwhile, as these interesting affairs were arranging themselves, a dispute had arisen between Monte Cristo, Sacripanti and Kermadec. Warmed with the wine he had taken, the prince forgot all about his matrimonial projects; and Sacripanti, the terror he had lately undergone. Both were inspired with the brilliant idea of returning to take possession of the treasures accumulated in the palace they had left behind them, now that they had discovered such an easy exit from it. Whereat, Kermadec, bringing his fist down with a thump on the table, opposed it with an absolute veto.
“What has it to do with you, you fool?” cried Monte Cristo, when he had recovered from his surprise at being thwarted. “ You have only to come back with us and your fortune will be made.”
“No, your highness, asking your pardon, you will do no such thing,” reiterated Kermadec, with the obstinacy of his race.
“And why, may I ask, if you please?”
“Because no one has any right to go back there without my officer’s permission, and he will not give it.”
“I should very much like to know what right he has over the grotto.”
“He has the right of having discovered it, and of espousing the heiress of the old gentleman.”
“But if he were to go there, himself?”
“Monsieur René would never go back there, seeing that the deceased gentleman, with almost his last breath, said that he wished to sleep quietly there till the day of judgment. And it doesn’t do to trifle with the wishes of the dead, my good gentleman, prince or no prince.”
Monte Cristo nearly choked with rage; then, shrugging his shoulder, wrathfully:
“And who is to prevent my going, if I choose? “ cried he, his eyes almost starting out of his head.
“I, Yvon Kermadec, forbid it,” resolutely replied the young sailor. “You are not my officer, sir prince, and I would break your. head open sooner than let you go back without Monsieur René’s consent.”
In vain the prince and Sacripanti, indignant at this unexpected assumption of authority, shouted and swore at the Breton. He stuck to his point, and nothing could shake him. The quarrel was becoming serious, when René gave the order to prepare to resume their journey. This created a diversion. They all set forward. Kermadec, blocking up the path behind Monte Cristo, kept his eye t upon him lest he should attempt to put his sacrilegious design into execution. The prince would fain have rebelled against the order to march, but Kermadec chose not to understand him, and the journey was continued, notwithstanding his noisy protestations,
In due time, after an hour or so’s march, they arrived at the crystal door. They caught sight of it at some little distance. Brilliantly illuminated with electric light, it looked like a fairy entrance to a new world. Atlantis, excited and impressed, stopped and clasped her hands, at the sight of the sparkling barrier which had so long separated her from the liberty she had dreamed of. Then she sprang forward as lightly as Diana might have done, and was the first to reach it. Standing, with the gold key in her hand, her face turned towards her companions, she seemed, in her white drapery, like some young sister of the wingless conquerors, created by the chisel of her great Greek ancestors.
When they had all overtaken her, she gave one long look back on the path by which she had come, clasping her hands with the inspired gesture of a priestess. Her face pale, her eyes with a thoughtful look in them, she raised her clear voice, which resounded and then died away in the distance.
“Charicles, Atlantide, farewell!” she repeated three times.
She waited till the echo of her voice was lost in the vaulted roof; then turning resolutely, she placed the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the great door. No sooner had she done so, than a tremendous noise resounded from the bowels of the earth, at a considerable distance behind the travellers. For an instant they paused, confounded, utterly unable to understand what could have happened.
Five minutes had hardly elapsed, when a noise like a cataract was heard, and they saw great waves let loose, and roaring through the tunnel, which died down at their feet, covering them with foam. They had only time to hurry out of the cave; the sea, as if pursuing them, rushed out behind them, destroying forever the submarine passage. They understood then what Charicles had done. Determined to bury Atlantide with himself, he had contrived a mechanical arrangement which should be set in motion by the opening of the door. Forever, there’-fore, he would rest in peace on his funeral couch. The sea, so long kept at bay by human will alone, had resumed its power. The waters had destroyed the birthplace of Atlantis, and seaweed would cover forever the fabulous treasures heaped up by her ancestors. The travellers, stricken dumb by surprise and awe, stood at the entrance of the cave, listening to the huge waves as they broke against the rocky walls of the tunnel. They stood thus for a long time. Kermadec was the first to speak.
“At any rate, prince, you will not go back now,” said he, in a tone of triumph.
Monte Cristo started angrily forward, indignant at having been baffled by the sailor, forgetting the fright he had just had “of being swept away altogether. Hélène, throwing her arm around Atlantis’s waist, drew her out of the cave, for the poor girl seemed turned to stone, and, the rest following in their steps, all emerged into the open air.
A narrow sandy beach, shelving gently towards the sea, reflecting the last rays of the setting sun, was spread out before them. Behind them, dark rocks that had so long concealed the secret door reared themselves, forming at the sea-front a sort of portico to a mysterious temple. To right and left of them the rocks sloped gradually, opening up to their view smiling stretches of level land. A promontory, boldly jutting out into the sea, bore on its surface trees of a hundred years’ growth, whose branches, covered with creeping plants, bathed themselves in the transparent waters. Thousands of birds were chanting, with full throats, their vespers to the setting sun. It was a calm and peaceful scene, and inspired them with fresh courage and happiness.
Atlantis, supported by Hélène, and recovering from her astonishment, shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around her with a long, steady gaze.
“At last, at last,” murmured she, “I see thee, O sun! Earth, I belong to thee henceforth! The treacherous sea cannot take possession of me again!”
She fell on her knees with the unconscious and dignified grace which characterized all her movements, and reverently kissed the soil. Madame Caoudal was somewhat shocked at this action. But everything the Greek girl did was so natural, and at the same time so noble, that no one dreamed of blaming her. Kermadec, moreover, distracted their attention from her.
“The foreign young lady is quite right,” said he, “and we ought to kiss our old mother earth, for we were very near losing the chance of seeing her again.” And, throwing himself on his knees, he took off his cap and piously gave the shore a sounding kiss.
“Come,” said Patrice, shaking himself together and rousing the others from the reverie into which they had fallen, “we must look out for some lodging where we can get shelter, until we can find some means of returning home again.”
The travellers, leaving the rocks, took their way across the meadows that bordered the sea. They had not gone very far before they caught sight of the low roofs of a fishing village on the beach. Patrice and René went on ahead, as scouts, and soon came back to take the whole of the party to the best house they could find in the neighbourhood, and which had been placed at their disposal by its owners. One may imagine Atlantis’s surprise on seeing for the first time—she who had lived all her days like a princess in a fairy tale— the wonders of civilization to be found in the humble cottage of a fisherman of the Azores! when she had to use, instead of gold and silver and mother-of-pearl vessels, which she had always used for the commonest purposes, the rude, primitive, half-baked pottery she now saw for the first time! But, in her delight at being among human beings, — children, young girls, old men, and—oh, joy! — a cow and a large watchdog,—she forget everything else.
The fishermen listened, all in good faith, to the account the travellers gave of themselves, which was true enough, — that they had lost their submarine vessel in the sea. In reply they stated that an American packet was expected to pass, in the course of a week, by which they could return to their own country.
The week passed very quickly. Madame Caou-dal’s first care was to manufacture from the coarse blue serge, worn by the wives and daughters of the fisher-folk, a “ civilized” costume for Atlantis. And, in truth, when she appeared smiling, but a little embarrassed in her new attire, with her long plain skirt, her puffed sleeves, and a large straw hat plaited by Hélène, her small feet shod in the Sunday shoes of a young girl of the village, there was a general cry of admiration, she looked so charming.
Madame Caoudal smiled, proud of her work. As for Hélène, she sighed as she folded up the beautiful vestments lately worn by her friend.
“I shall carry them away with me,” said she, “and take care of them always. Yes, she looks sweet in her new costume, but it is only the beauty of an ordinary pretty girl, whilst formerly it was that of a goddess!”
”Bah!” retorted Madame Caoudal, “she is much better as she is; she would have taken cold the very first thing, with hands and feet bare like that. And then, think of her going on board an American steamer in that ‘get-up.’ Goddesses are all very pretty under the water, but, for my part, I prefer to see a young girl properly dressed.”
The travellers returned to France, and two , months afterwards a double marriage was celebrated in Paris, in order to avoid the indiscreet curiosity of a provincial town. Madame Caoudal, completely reconciled to the new state of things, was as much in love with Atlantis as she had been with Hélène.
By the end of six months, the young Greek girl spoke French as well as any Parisian. She adapted herself to her new surroundings with exquisite taste, and the only thing her mother-in-law had to complain of in her was, that her great beauty attracted too much attention in the street. René didn’t complain of it. Every day he made some fresh discovery of the perfection of her heart and mind.
As to Patrice and Hélène, their opinion of one another had been so long formed that they found no change in each other. Each thought the other perfect. So that everything was arranged for the best in this best of worlds.
The only cloud over this delightful state of things was the attitude of Monte Cristo. René had begged him, very seriously, never to reveal anything about their fantastic voyage, not wishing to provide foolish gossips with the story of his wife and her submarine , origin. He pretended not to hear. Even though giving a reluctant consent, out of pure politeness, to omit any details of Charicles and his daughter, he persisted in the project on which he had set his heart from the first,—of presenting to the Academy of Science an account of his adventures. And, after labouring long at his self-imposed task, he did so. Unfortunately for him, he produced a story which so far surpassed the facts, extraordinary enough in themselves, that no one believed a word of it.
In vain he struggled and blustered, buttonholed each of his coscientists; nothing but the innate feeling of ordinary politeness prevented him from invoking the testimony of his companions; whatever he said or did, he won the reputation, and will forever retain it, of trying to rival a Barbary ape.
Sacripanti, the only one who would have confirmed his assertions, but whose testimony, truth to say, would have been of doubtful value, had disappeared in a manner which remained inexplicable, until René, one day, discovered the loss of one of the most magnificent of Atlantis’s pearls. Monte Cristo, furious at the discovery, would have pursued the thief, but, by common consent, they decided to leave him alone, and all trace of him was completely lost.
René sent in his resignation to the minister of the navy, reserving, however, the right to resume active service if his country needed him. Atlantis was perfectly happy among her new relatives, and in her affectionate heart, her husband, her mother, her brother Patrice, and her sister Hélène had taken the place of the august old man whom they had buried in the depths of the sea, though she was very far from forgetting him.
But, before long, René remarked a cloud of melancholy on her sweet face. He often heard her sigh at sight of the sea. Sometimes she had a homesick look. Quick to become alarmed, René’s devotion enabled him easily to unravel the secret of her sadness. The poor child was longing for her ocean home, the enchanted silence of the bottom of the sea, and the wonders in the midst of which she had grown up. Then, without saying anything to her, René sold a few of the pearls given him by Charicles. Then he made use of all the experience he had gained, and set all his ingenuity and his science to work to build for her, at the bottom of the Bay of Juan, a beautiful submarine villa, to which they had access by a submarine boat. What joy for the young wife, when her husband, one day, under the pretext of taking her for a stroll along the shore, brought her suddenly to the threshold of her new dwelling, a humble imitation of her fairy-like birthplace!
Atlantis had now nothing more to wish for. She and her husband passed a good third of their time in this retreat, and Hélène and Patrice occasionally visited them there. In this enchanted solitude, oblivious of their kind, of ugly surroundings and petty cares, waited on only by the faithful Kermadec, who had finished his term of service with the fleet, and was as devoted as ever to his officer, they led an enviable life.