Haydée was awaiting her visitors in the first room of her suite of apartments, which was the drawing-room. Her large eyes were wide with surprise and expectation, for it was the first time that any man, except Monte Cristo, had been granted an entrance into her presence. She was sitting on a sofa placed at an angle of the room, with her legs crossed under her in the Eastern fashion, and seemed to have made for herself a kind of nest in the rich Indian silks which enveloped her. Near her was the instrument on which she had just been playing[.]
The messenger uttered a cry of joy, and clapped his hands. At this signal four soldiers of the Seraskier Kourchid suddenly appeared, and Selim fell pieced by five blows. Each man had stabbed him separately; and, intoxicated by their crime, though still pale with fear, they sought all over the cavern to discover if there was any fear of fire, after which they amused themselves by rolling on the bags of gold.
He hastily tore off the wrapping, opened the journal with nervous haste, passed contemptuously over le premiere Paris, and arriving at the miscellaneous intelligence, stopped, with a malicious smile, at a paragraph headed ‘YANINA’. ‘Very good!’ observed Danglars, after having read the paragraph; ‘here is a little article about Colonel Fernand which, if I am not mistaken, would render the explanation which the Comte de Morcerf required of me perfectly unnecessary.’
The trembling which had attacked Barrois gradually increased, the features of the face became quite altered, and the convulsive movement of the muscles appeared to indicate the approach of a most serious nervous collapse. Noirtier, seeing Barrois in this pitiable condition, showed by his looks all the various emotions of sorrow and sympathy which can animate the heart of man. Barrois took a few steps towards his master. ‘Ah, sir,’ said he, ‘tell me what is the matter with me? I am suffering.
The count had watched the approach of death. He knew this was the last struggle,— he approached the dying man and leaning over him with a calm and melancholy look, he whispered: ‘I am — I am—’ And his almost closed lips uttered a name so low that the count himself appeared afraid to hear it.
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