The Count of Monte Cristo

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a southern moonlit sky, whose rays are sufficiently clear and vivid to
light the horizon with a glow equal to the soft twilight of an eastern
clime. Scarcely, therefore, had the reflective Franz walked a hundred
steps beneath the interior porticoes of the ruin, than, abandoning
Albert to the guides (who would by no means yield their prescriptive
right of carrying their victims through the routine regularly laid down,
and as regularly followed by them, but dragged the unconscious visitor
to the various objects with a pertinacity that admitted of no appeal,
beginning, as a matter of course, with the Lions' Den, and finishing
with Caesar's "Podium,"), to escape a jargon and mechanical survey
of the wonders by which he was surrounded, Franz ascended a
half-dilapidated staircase, and, leaving them to follow their monotonous
round, seated himself at the foot of a column, and immediately opposite
a large aperture, which permitted him to enjoy a full and undisturbed
view of the gigantic dimensions of the majestic ruin.

Franz had remained for nearly a quarter of an hour perfectly hidden