The Count of Monte Cristo

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"Well, then, if, like us, your excellency lived at Leghorn, you would
hear, from time to time, that a little merchant vessel, or an English
yacht that was expected at Bastia, at Porto-Ferrajo, or at Civita
Vecchia, has not arrived; no one knows what has become of it, but,
doubtless, it has struck on a rock and foundered. Now this rock it has
met has been a long and narrow boat, manned by six or eight men, who
have surprised and plundered it, some dark and stormy night, near some
desert and gloomy island, as bandits plunder a carriage in the recesses
of a forest."

"But," asked Franz, who lay wrapped in his cloak at the bottom of the
boat, "why do not those who have been plundered complain to the French,
Sardinian, or Tuscan governments?"

"Why?" said Gaetano with a smile.

"Yes, why?"