Bertuccio obeyed and despatched a courier to Pontoise to say the travelling-carriage would arrive at six o’clock. From Pontoise another express was sent to the next stage, and in six hours all the horses stationed on the road were ready.
Before his departure, the count went to Haydée’s apartments, told her his intention, and resigned everything to her care.
Albert was punctual. The journey soon became interesting from its rapidity, of which Morcerf had formed no previous idea.
“Truly,” said Monte Cristo, “with your post-horses going at the rate of two leagues an hour, and that absurd law that one traveller shall not pass another without permission, so that an invalid or ill-tempered traveller may detain those who are well and active, it is impossible to move; I escape this annoyance by travelling with my own postilion and horses; do I not, Ali?”
The count put his head out of the window and whistled, and the horses appeared to fly. The carriage rolled with a thundering noise over the pavement, and everyone turned to notice the dazzling meteor. Ali, smiling, repeated the sound, grasped the reins with a firm hand, and spurred his horses, whose beautiful manes floated in the breeze. This child of the desert was in his element, and with his black face and sparkling eyes appeared, in the cloud of dust he raised, like the genius of the simoom and the god of the hurricane.
“I never knew till now the delight of speed,” said Morcerf, and the last cloud disappeared from his brow; “but where the devil do you get such horses? Are they made to order?”