"Fate sided with old Pasquale and Vampa. His wound kept the Viscount at the cabin and the fair Annunziata nursed him. He had become smitten with her beauty the day he met her in the Piazza del Popolo. Intimate association with her intensified her influence over him, and when he had been in the cabin nearly a week and convalescence had begun he made violent love to her, even going so far as to ask her to fly with him. Espérance divined his friend's intentions and, knowing that Massetti could not marry the girl, interposed to save her. The result was a quarrel and your son challenged the Viscount to fight him. The challenge was instantly accepted and it was arranged that the duel should occur on the following morning.
"Faithful to his promise to Vampa, old Solara, while pretending to be absent from home, lurked in the vicinity and kept track of all that was going on. He was hidden beneath the open window when Massetti or Tonio, as he called himself, for both the Viscount and Espérance were passing under assumed names, proposed flight to his daughter. Instantly he hastened to the brigand chief, who had been prowling in the neighborhood of the hut all day, and gleefully communicated to him what he had heard. It was immediately decided that the time for the abduction had come and preparations were made to carry off Annunziata that very night. Vampa wrote a criminating letter to the girl purporting to come from Massetti, and old Solara, stealing unobserved into the hut, placed it beneath his daughter's work-box on her table where she afterwards found it. It was not for a moment supposed that the girl would consent to fly with the Viscount, for though gay and light-hearted she was pure and innocent; the note was simply intended to fill Annunziata's mind, after the abduction, with the idea that Massetti was her abductor."
"What shrewd, far-seeing villainy!" muttered Monte-Cristo, between his teeth.
"That night there was no moon," continued Peppino, "and, after all the inmates of the cabin had retired to rest, old Pasquale waited outside with a torch while Vampa made his way to Annunziata's chamber, tore her from her couch and carried her to the forest, preventing her from giving the alarm by placing his hand over her mouth. He was masked and the shepherd kept at such a distance that it was utterly impossible for his daughter to recognize him. As Vampa ran through the forest with his burden, he struck his arm against a tree and the pain caused him to take his hand for a second from Annunziata's mouth. The poor girl profited by this opportunity to scream and her cry brought first her brother, then the Viscount and then Espérance to her aid.