Respawned as The Count of Glow-Up-Chapter 268: The Baron’s Journey: II

Surprised, Danglars opened the door. A strong hand shoved him back inside, and the carriage rolled on.

Now the baron was fully awake.

"Eh? Mio caro?" he called to the postilion, another Italian phrase he’d learned from his daughter’s singing lessons.

No answer.

Danglars opened the window and thrust his hand through.

"My friend, where are we going?"

"Dentro la testa!" came a solemn, threatening voice with a menacing gesture.

Danglars thought dentro la testa meant "put your head in." He was making rapid progress in Italian! He obeyed, though with growing uneasiness that filled his previously empty mind with very alarming ideas, the kind that keep travelers awake, especially ones in his situation.

His vision sharpened the way it does in that first moment of fear, before becoming too strained to see clearly. Before we’re truly frightened, we see correctly. When we’re frightened, we see double. After being frightened, we see nothing but trouble.

Danglars spotted a man in a cloak galloping alongside the right side of the carriage.

"A policeman!" he gasped. "Could the French have telegraphed the papal authorities about me?"

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

"Dentro la testa!" the same threatening voice replied.

Danglars looked left, another horseman galloped on that side.

"I must be under arrest," he muttered, sweating, and threw himself back against the seat. Not to sleep this time, but to think.

The moon rose. He saw those same massive aqueducts he’d noticed before, but now they were on the opposite side. They’d made a circle, they were bringing him back to Rome!

"Oh no!" he cried. "They’ve arrested me!"

The carriage continued at terrifying speed. An hour of pure terror passed as every landmark confirmed they were heading back. Then he saw a dark mass ahead that the carriage seemed about to crash into, but they swerved around it. It was one of the ramparts surrounding Rome.

"My God!" Danglars cried. "We’re not returning to Rome! So it’s not the law pursuing me! Heavens, what if they’re-"

His hair stood on end. He remembered those stories no one in Paris believed about Roman bandits. He remembered young Albert de Morcerf’s adventures, back when Albert was supposed to marry his daughter.

"They’re robbers," he whispered.

The carriage rolled onto harder ground. Danglars risked a look at the strange monuments on both sides. His mind recalled all the details Morcerf had shared, and comparing them to his situation, he realized he must be on the Appian Way, the ancient Roman road. On the left, in a valley, he saw a circular excavation. Caracalla’s Circus.

At a word from the rider, the carriage stopped. The door opened.

"Scendi!" someone commanded, get out.

Danglars immediately obeyed. Though he couldn’t speak Italian yet, he understood it well enough. More dead than alive, he looked around. Four men surrounded him, plus the postilion.

"Di quà," one said, heading down a small path off the main road.

Danglars followed without resistance, sensing the others stationed at equal distances like sentinels. After ten minutes of silent walking, he found himself between a hill and tall weeds. Three men formed a triangle around him. He tried to speak, but his tongue wouldn’t move.

"Avanti!" came that same sharp, commanding voice, forward!

The man behind shoved him so hard he stumbled into his guide, Peppino, who plunged into the thick weeds along a path only animals could navigate. Peppino stopped at a pit hidden by thick hedges. Half-open, it offered passage to the young man, who disappeared like an evil spirit in a fairy tale.

The gesture from behind ordered Danglars to do the same. There was no doubt now, the bankrupt was in the hands of Roman bandits.

Fear made Danglars brave. Despite his large stomach, definitely not designed for squeezing through cracks in the countryside, he slid down like Peppino and landed on his feet with his eyes closed.

He opened them. The path was wide but dark. Peppino, no longer caring about being recognized in his own territory, struck a light and lit a torch. Two more men descended behind Danglars, pushing him whenever he stopped. They descended gently to where two corridors intersected. The walls were carved with burial niches stacked one above another, their dark openings like the vacant eyes of the dead.

A sentinel struck his carbine.

"Who comes?" 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

"A friend!" Peppino called. "Where’s the captain?"

"There," the sentinel said, pointing to a spacious crypt carved from rock, its lights shining through large arched openings.

"Fine prize, captain! Fine prize!" Peppino announced in Italian, grabbing Danglars by the coat collar and dragging him through a door-like opening into what appeared to be the captain’s quarters.

"Is this the man?" asked the captain, who was intently reading about Alexander the Great.

"Himself, captain."

"Very well. Show him to me."

At this rather rude order, Peppino raised his torch to Danglars’ face. The baron jerked back to avoid having his eyelashes singed. His terrified features were pale and hideous.

"The man is tired," the captain observed. "Take him to his bed."

That bed is probably one of the coffins carved in the wall, Danglars thought in horror, and the sleep I’ll get will be death from one of those daggers I see glinting in the darkness.

From beds of dried leaves and wolf-skins at the back of the chamber rose the companions of the man Albert de Morcerf had once found reading Caesar, and whom Danglars now found studying Alexander. The banker groaned and followed his guide. He no longer begged or protested, he had no strength, will, power, or feeling left. He simply went where led.

At the foot of a staircase, he mechanically lifted his foot five or six times. A low door opened. Bending to avoid hitting his head, he entered a small chamber carved from rock. The cell was clean if empty, and dry despite being immeasurably deep underground. A bed of dried grass covered with goat-skins occupied one corner.

Danglars brightened at the sight, taking it as a promise of safety.

"Oh, thank God," he said. "It’s a real bed!"

"Ecco!" the guide said, shoving Danglars into the cell and slamming the door. A bolt grated, Danglars was a prisoner.

Even without the bolt, escaping would have been impossible. The garrison holding the catacombs of Saint Sebastian surrounded their master, whom readers would recognize as the famous Luigi Vampa.

Danglars also recognized the bandit whose existence he’d refused to believe when Albert mentioned him in Paris. He even recognized the cell where Albert had been confined, apparently kept ready for guests. These memories brought Danglars some comfort and a degree of calm.

Since the bandits hadn’t killed him immediately, he reasoned they wouldn’t kill him at all. They’d arrested him for ransom. He only had a few gold coins on him, so he’d definitely be ransomed. He remembered Morcerf had been charged four thousand crowns. Considering himself far more important than Morcerf, he set his own price at eight thousand crowns, forty-eight thousand livres. That would leave him about five million, fifty thousand francs. With that sum, he could stay out of trouble.

Fairly confident he could escape his situation as long as they didn’t demand the full five million fifty thousand francs, he stretched out on his bed. After turning over two or three times, he fell asleep with the same tranquility as the hero whose life Luigi Vampa was currently studying.