The Count of Monte Cristo

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companions, whom Jacopo had rejoined, and who were all busy preparing
the repast which Edmond's skill as a marksman had augmented with a
capital dish.

Edmond looked at them for a moment with the sad and gentle smile of
a man superior to his fellows. "In two hours' time," said he, "these
persons will depart richer by fifty piastres each, to go and risk their
lives again by endeavoring to gain fifty more; then they will return
with a fortune of six hundred francs, and waste this treasure in some
city with the pride of sultans and the insolence of nabobs. At
this moment hope makes me despise their riches, which seem to me
contemptible. Yet perchance to-morrow deception will so act on me, that
I shall, on compulsion, consider such a contemptible possession as the
utmost happiness. Oh, no!" exclaimed Edmond, "that will not be. The
wise, unerring Faria could not be mistaken in this one thing. Besides,
it were better to die than to continue to lead this low and wretched
life." Thus Dantes, who but three months before had no desire but