"How beautiful the island looks!" exclaimed Zuleika, enthusiastically, as she leaned against the bulwarks of the vessel and gazed out over the sea.
"Yes," replied Monte-Cristo, who was standing beside her, "it does, indeed, look beautiful from here, but a closer view will dispel the charm for the island is nothing but a barren waste."
"What! Is it a desert?" asked Zuleika, in surprise.
"A perfect desert, my child," answered the Count, "uncultivated and uninhabited."
"Uninhabited!" cried Zuleika, gazing intently at the shore. "I certainly see life there! Look! What was that?"
"A wild goat leaping from one rock to another," returned Monte-Cristo, smiling. "The island is full of them. When I said it was uninhabited I meant by human beings."
The Haydée by this time had approached as near the island as possible; she was therefore anchored. The Count then ordered a boat lowered, into which he descended with Zuleika and Ali. A stout sailor took the rudder, two others grasped the oars, and, in a few minutes, a little cove was gained and the disembarkation effected.
"Men," said the Count, addressing the sailors, "you can now row back to the yacht. When you see me come upon the beach and wave my handkerchief thrice, return for us."
"Aye, aye, Signor Count," answered the coxswain for the boat's crew. His words were accompanied by the fall of the oars and the boat shot off towards the Haydée.
"You are now on the Isle of Monte-Cristo," said the Count to Zuleika as he took her hand to lead her forward. "Prepare to see what you have termed its wonders!"
"They will, no doubt, prove wonders to me, at any rate," returned the girl, smiling.
The Nubian stood before his master with uncovered head, respectfully waiting for orders.
"Go in advance, Ali," said the Count, "and see that all is right."
The Nubian made a profound salaam in oriental fashion and hastened away.
The Count and his daughter leisurely followed. As they walked they disturbed hosts of grasshoppers, that leaped with a whirring flutter of wings from the bushes and fled before them. This amused Zuleika, but she could not repress a cry of affright as now and then a green, repulsive looking lizard emerged from under the loose stones beneath her very feet and shot hastily away in search of a more secure hiding-place. Occasionally, too, they saw wild goats that pricked up their ears and stared at them with wide open eyes, then gathering themselves for a spring bounded off up the rocks and vanished.
At last Monte-Cristo and Zuleika came upon the Nubian, who had stopped beside a huge bowlder that seemed to have lain for ages where it had fallen from the cliffs above. A thick, bushy growth of wild myrtle and flowering thorn had sprung up around it, and its surface was covered with emerald hued moss. The Count and his daughter also stopped, the former glancing around him and at the vast stone with evident satisfaction.