fr:Mathias Sandorf - III,1
CHAPTER I.THE MEDITERRANEAN.
“ Mediterranean is beautiful above all in two
respects—harmonious setting and transparency of light and
atmosphere. Such as it is, it is an admirable temperer of
man. It gives him a hard, unyielding strength: it produces
the most substantial races.”
Micholet has said this, and said truly. But it is fortunate
for humanity that nature, in place of Hercules, has
separated the rock of Calpe from the rock of Abyla, to
to form the Strait of Gibraltar. It must even be admitted, in spite of the assertions of most geologists, that this strait has always existed. Without it no Mediterranean. For, in truth, evaporation carries off from this sea three times as much water as is furnished it by tributary rivers, and in default of this Atlantic inflow—which, diffusing itself through the strait, regenerates it—it would have been these many centuries back no more than a kind of Dead Sea, instead of the Living Sea, par excellence.
It was in one of the deepest retreats and least known of
this vast Mediterranean Sea that Count Mathias Sandorf—until
the wished-for hour, until the entire fulfillment of
his work, he should remain Dr. Antekirtt—had secluded
himself in order to profit by all the benefits which his supposed
death had given him.
There are two Mediterraneans on the terrestrial globe—one
in the old world, the other in the new. The American
Mediterranean is the Gulf of Mexico; it covers not
less than four million and a half kilometers. If the Latin
Mediterranean, having but an area of two million eight
hundred and eighty-five thousand five hundred and twenty-two
square kilometers, be but the half of the other, it is
more varied in general design, richer in harbors and distinct
gulfs, in large hydrographical subdivisions which
have merited the name of seas. Such as Greek Archipelago, the Sea of Crete above the island of that name, the Libyan Sea below, the Adriatic, between Italy, Austria, Turkey and Greece; the Ionian, which washes Corfu, Zante, Cephalonia and other isles; the Tyrrhenian in the west of Italy, the Æolienne around the Liparis, the Gulf of Lyons hollowing out Provence, the Gulf of Genoa indenting the Ligurias, the Gulf of Gabes hollowing out the Tunisian shores, the two Syrtes of such profound depth between Cyrene and Tripoli in the African continent.
What secret place in or about this sea, of which many
a landing is still but little known, had Dr. Antekirtt
chosen as a dwelling-place? There are islands by hundreds, islets by thousands on the periplus of this immense basin. One would seek in vain to count its capes and coves. How many people of different race, customs and political state throng forward to this seaboard, where the story of humanity has left its imprint for more than twenty centuries past—Frenchmen, Italians, Spaniards, Austrians, Ottomans, Greeks, Arabians, Egyptians, Tripolitans, Tunisians, Algerians, Moroccoans, even Englishmen, at Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus. Three great continents embrace it with their shores, Europe, Asia and Africa. When, then, had Count Mathias Sandorf become Dr. Antekirtt—a name dear to Oriental lands—sought the remote dwelling-place, in which the programme of his life should work itself out? This was what Pierre Bathory was bound to learn ere long.
After opening his eyes for an instant he had fallen back
completely exhausted, as insensible as when the doctor had
left him for dead in the house of Ragusa. It was then
that the doctor had succeeded in one of those physiologic
experiments in which the will plays so important a part, and of which the phenomena are no longer open to doubt. Gifted with a singular power of magnetism, he had been able, without the aid of magnesium light or even a brilliant point of metal, simply by the penetration of his look, to cast the dying man into a hypnotic state and substitute his own will for Pierre's. Pierre, enfeebled by the loss of blood, had lost the very look of life, and had fallen asleep to wake when the doctor wished. But his life was wellnigh spent, and now it had to be revived. It was a difficult task, and required the most minute care and all the resources of the medical art. The doctor must not fail.
“He will live. I must have him live,” he repeated.