When Carnival ends, every candle goes out at once and Rome turns black. Franz returns alone to the hotel, then goes to the Duke of Bracciano's ball. The duke and Countess G grow uneasy when Albert still has not come back from his secret rendezvous near the Via Macello.
A messenger waits in the street with Albert's letter. Franz must pay four thousand piastres by six in the morning, or Luigi Vampa will kill his friend by seven. Franz is short of money and runs to the Count of Monte Cristo, who opens a drawer of gold without hesitation. The messenger kneels inside the hotel. He is Peppino, the bandit the Count saved from execution.
Peppino explains the trick. The pretty peasant girl was a boy named Beppo. Luigi Vampa himself drove the carriage. Albert was carried to the catacombs of Saint Sebastian. The Count and Franz ride out past midnight with Peppino as guide. In the underground camp they find Vampa reading Caesar's Commentaries while twenty armed men spring to their feet. The Count orders them to lower their guns and demands Albert's release.
Albert has slept through the whole crisis, dreaming of a dance with the countess. He wakes cheerful, thanks everyone, and returns with Franz to the ball at two in the morning. Only when the Count shakes his hand does Franz see him shudder, as if touching Albert brought back a pain no ransom could pay for.
The letter is not a lover's note. It is a bill: four thousand piastres by six, or Albert dies by seven. The messenger who kneels in the hotel is Peppino, alive because the Count bought his pardon, and the peasant girl was Beppo with a pistol. Outside the Porta San Paolo the band stops carriages the way they stopped Albert, then walks the prisoner into the catacombs.
In the columbarium the Count does not negotiate from the stairs. He steps into the lamp-light while Vampa is still bent over Caesar, and twenty carbines come up. One order puts them down. Albert wakes as if the night were a dance he is late for, thanks the chief, and is told he is as free as air. They can still reach Torlonia's by two. The shudder in the Count's hand, when he takes Albert's, is the only sign that the rescue cost something the gold in the drawer cannot name.
