In 1838 Franz d'Épinay and Albert de Morcerf plan to enjoy the Carnival in Rome. While Albert visits Naples, Franz sails from Leghorn to Elba and beyond. His captain Gaetano points to Monte Cristo and offers hunting on the empty island. Franz agrees, even after hearing grim stories of smugglers, pirates, and crews drowned with iron balls tied to their necks.
At night they see a fire on shore. Gaetano swims to investigate and returns saying Spanish smugglers and two Corsican bandits are camping there. Franz decides to land anyway. The men challenge the boat in Sardinian, then welcome them after Gaetano speaks. Their chief invites Franz to supper, but only if he agrees to be blindfolded until the host says otherwise. Franz knows it may be dangerous, but curiosity wins. He lets them tie a cloth over his eyes and follows them inland.
Led through dark passages, Franz meets a pale, handsome man in Eastern dress who calls himself Sinbad the Sailor and nicknames Franz Aladdin. The underground rooms are lavish beyond belief: crimson silk walls, Arabian swords, marble halls, and a feast of pheasant, lobster, and rare fruit. Sinbad tells how he saved his mute servant Ali from mutilation by the Bey of Tunis. He speaks like a king who makes his own laws on land and sea. When Sinbad asks what force might bring a man back from solitude to society, Franz answers: revenge. Sinbad laughs but does not deny it.
Sinbad offers hashish and describes it like the paradise drug of the Old Man of the Mountain. He says one taste can open kingdoms in the mind. Franz tastes it. The world turns vivid and dreamlike. Music swells, the island seems an oasis, and stone statues in the cave appear to move and beckon. For a time Franz forgets danger, law, and Paris society. He wakes breathless among marble shadows that vanish with daylight. He cannot prove the palace existed, yet the night changes him. He has met a man who lives outside the law and speaks of Paris as if a reckoning waits there. Rome will feel different after this.
Coming Up in Chapter 32
Morning will strip away the night's enchantment without answering its questions. Franz wakes in the grotto, finds Sinbad gone, and cannot reopen the hidden passage he crossed blindfolded.
