The apparition paused, sighed deeply, and then resumed in a tone of still greater menace: "Count of Monte-Cristo, look well to your beloved wife, Haydée, look well to your heroic son, Espérance, look well to your darling daughter, Zuleika, for this night they are in frightful danger! Look well to your fabulous riches, for they are threatened; look well to your stately and magnificent palace, for already the element that shall devour it is noiselessly and stealthily at work! Count of Monte-Cristo, farewell!"
A heart-rending shriek rang in the sleeper's ears, a mighty flash dazzled his eyes, and, with a grim smile upon his pallid countenance, Villefort vanished.
Monte-Cristo awoke with a quick start and passed his hand across his forehead, as if dazed; then he leaped to his feet and glanced breathlessly about him. Danglars and Villefort had been only the idle coinage of his brain, but the heart-rending shriek, the mighty flash, they were, indeed, stern realities--the shriek was Haydée's, and the flash was fire!
"My God!" cried Monte-Cristo, standing for an instant rooted to the spot, "can it be possible that this dream is the truth after all, and that I am even now to feel the vengeance of those two men?"
He sprang into the spacious hall that was as light as day, and, as he did so, the figure of a man rushed by him--it was Benedetto, and in his hand he held a long knife dripping with blood. The Count turned and pursued him, snatching a dagger from a table as he ran. At the door leading to the lawn, he grasped him firmly by the shoulder and held him.
"Murderer!" he shouted, "whose blood is that upon your knife?"
"The blood of Haydée, the Greek slave!" hissed Benedetto, with a glare of ferocious triumph, "the blood of Haydée, your wife! Edmond Dantès, I am even with you!"
Monte-Cristo struck at the assassin with his dagger, but Benedetto eluded the blow, and raising his own weapon inflicted a frightful gash upon the Count's cheek.
A terrible struggle ensued. Monte-Cristo was possessed of wonderful strength and activity, but in both these respects the two desperate antagonists seemed fairly matched. Three times did the Count bury his dagger in Benedetto's body, but, though the assassin's blood gushed copiously from his wounds, he continued to fight with the utmost determination. At length the men grappled in a supreme, deadly effort, but Monte-Cristo, making a false step, slipped on the blood-spattered marble floor, and Benedetto, with the quickness of thought, hurling him backward, freed himself and bounding through the open doorway vanished in the darkness beyond.