The Count of Monte-Cristo/Volume 1/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII
THE ABBE'S CHAMBER
FTER having passed, in a stooping position but with tolerable ease, through the subterranean passage, the two friends reached the farther end of the corridor, into which the cell of the abbé opened; from that point the opening became much narrower, barely permitting a man to creep through on his hands and knees. The floor of the abbé's cell was paved, and it had been by raising one of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had been able to commence the laborious task of which Dantès had witnessed the completion.
As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantès cast around a searching glance, but nothing more than common met his view.
"It is well," said the abbé; "we have some hours before us — it is now just a quarter past twelve o'clock."
Instinctively Dantès turned round to observe by what watch or clock the abbé had been able so accurately to specify the hour.
"Look at this ray of light which enters by my window," said the abbé, "and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, as well as the ellipse it describes round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch; for that might go wrong, while the sun and earth never vary."
This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantès, who had always imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement in the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared to him perfectly impossible; still, each word that fell from his lips seemed fraught with the wonders of science, as admirably deserving of being brought fully to light as the mines of gold and diamonds he could just recollect having visited during his earliest youth in a voyage he made to Guzerat and Golconda.
"Come," said he to the abbé, "show me the wonderful inventions you told me of."
The abbé, proceeding to the fire-place, raised, by the help of his chisel, a stone, which had been the hearth, beneath which was a cavity of considerable depth, serving as a depository of the articles mentioned to Dantès.
"What do you wish to see first?" asked the abbé.
"Oh! your great work on the monarchy of Italy!"
Faria then drew forth from his hiding-place three or four rolls of linen, laid one over the other like the folds of papyrus. These rolls con sisted of slips of cloth about four inches wide and eighteen long; they were all carefully numbered and closely covered with writing, so legible that Dantes could easily read it, as well as make out the sense — it being in Italian, a language he, as a Provençal, perfectly understood. "There!" said he, "there is the work complete — I wrote the word finis at the end of the sixty-eighth strip about a week ago. I have torn up two of my shirts, and as many handkerchiefs as I was master of, to complete the precious pages. Should I ever get out of prison, and find a printer to publish what I have composed, my reputation is secured."
"I see," answered Dantès. "Now let me behold the curious pens with which you have written your work."
"Look!" said Faria, showing to the young man a slender stick about six inches long, and much resembling the size of the handle of a fine painting brush, to the end of which was tied, by a piece of thread, one of those cartilages of which the abbe had before spoken to Dantès; it was pointed, and divided at the nib like an ordinary pen. Dantès examined it with intense admiration, then looked around to see the instrument with which it had been shaped so correctly into form.
"Ah, I see," said Faria. "My penknife? That was a master-piece! I made it, as well as this knife, out of an old iron candlestick."
The penknife was sharp and keen as a razor; as for the other knife, it possessed the double advantage of being capable of serving either as a dagger or a knife.
Dantès examined the various articles shown to him with the same attention he had bestowed on the curiosities and strange tools exhibited in the shops at Marseilles as the works of the savages in the South Seas, from whence they had been brought by the different trading vessels.
"As for the ink," said Faria, "I told you how I managed; and I only just make it as I require it."
"There is one thing puzzles me still," observed Dantès, "and that is how you managed to do all this by daylight."
"I worked at night also," replied Faria.
"Night! why, for Heaven's sake, are your eyes like cats', that you can see to work in the dark?"
"Indeed they are not; but a beneficent Creator has supplied man with intelligence and ability to supply his wants. I furnished myself with a light."
"You did?"
"I separated the fat from the meat served to me, melted it, and made a sort of oil—here is my lamp." So saying, the abbe exhibited a sort of vessel very similar to those employed upon the occasion of public illuminations.
"But how do you procure a light?"
"Oh, here are two flints and a morsel of burnt linen. I feigned a
disorder of the skin, and asked for a little sulphur, which was readily supplied."
Dantès laid the different things he had been looking at gently on the table, and stood with his head drooping, as though overwhelmed by the persevering spirit of such a character.
"You have not seen all yet," continued Faria, "for I did not think it wise to trust all my treasures in the same hiding-place. Let us shut this one up."
Dantès helped him to replace the stone; the abbé sprinkled a little dust over it, rubbed his foot well on it to make it assume the same appearance as the other, and then, going toward his bed, he removed it from the spot it stood in.
Behind the head of the bed, and concealed by a stone fitting in so closely as to defy all suspicion, was a hollow space, and in this space a ladder of cords, between twenty-five and thirty feet in length.
Dantès closely and eagerly examined it; he found it firm, solid, and compact enough to bear any weight.
"Who supplied you with the materials for making this wonderful work?" asked Dantès.
"No one but myself. I tore up several of my shirts, and unraveled the sheets of my bed, during my three years' imprisonment at Fenestrelle; and when I was removed to the Château d'If, I managed to bring the ravelings with me, so that I have been able to finish my work here."
"And was it not discovered that your sheets were unhemmed?"
"Oh, no! for when I had taken out the thread I required, I hemmed the edges over again."
"With what?"
"With this needle!" said the abbé, as, opening his ragged vestments, he showed Dantès a long, sharp fish-bone, with a small, perforated eye for the thread, a small portion of which still remained in it.
"I once thought," continued Faria, "of removing these iron bars, and letting myself down from the window, which, as you see, is somewhat wider than yours, although I should have enlarged it still more preparatory to my flight; however, I discovered that I should merely have dropped into a sort of inner court, and I therefore renounced the project altogether as too full of risk and danger. Nevertheless, I care fully preserved my ladder against one of those unforeseen opportunities of which I spoke just now, and which chance frequently brings about."
While affecting to be deeply engaged in examining the ladder, the mind of Dantès was, in fact, busily occupied by the idea that a person so intelligent, ingenious, and clear-sighted as the abbé might probably be enabled to clear up the dark recesses of his own misfortunes, in which he had in vain sought to distinguish aught.
"What are you thinking of?" asked the abbé smilingly, imputing the deep abstraction in which his visitor was plunged to the excess of his awe and wonder.
"I was reflecting, in the first place," replied Dantès, "upon the enormous degree of intelligence you must have employed to reach the high perfection to which you have attained. What would you not have accomplished free?"
"Possibly nothing at all; the overflow of my brain would have evaporated in follies; it needs trouble to hollow out various mysterious mines of human intelligence. Pressure is required, you know, to crush the beam: captivity has collected into one single focus all the floating faculties of my mind; they have come into close contact in the narrow space; and you are well aware that from the collision of clouds electricity is produced — from electricity the lightning, from whose flash we have light."
"Alas, no!" replied Dantès. "I know not that these things follow in such natural order. Oh, I am very ignorant! and you must be blessed indeed to possess the knowledge you have."
The abbé smiled.
"Well," said he, "but you had another subject for your thoughts besides admiration for me; did you not say so just now?"
"I did!"
"You have told me as yet but one of them, — let me hear the other."
"It was this: that while you had related to me all the particulars of your past life, you were perfectly unacquainted with mine."
"Your life, my young friend, has not been of sufficient length to admit of any very important events."
"It admits of a terrible misfortune which I have not deserved. I would fain know who has been the author of it, that I may no longer accuse Heaven, as I have done, but charge men with my woes."
"Then you profess ignorance of the crime with which you are charged?"
"I do, indeed; and this I swear by the two beings most dear to me upon earth — my father and Mercédès."
"Come," said the abbé, closing his hiding-place, and pushing the bed back to its original situation, "let me hear your story."
Dantès obeyed, and commenced what he called his history, but which consisted only of the account of a voyage to India, and two or three in the Levant, until he arrived at the recital of his last cruise, with the death of Captain Leclere, and the receipt of a packet to be delivered by himself to the grand-maréchal; his interview with that personage, and his receiving, in place of the packet brought, a letter addressed to M. Noirtier; his arrival at Marseilles, and interview with his father; his affection for Mercédès, and their nuptial fête; his arrest and subsequent examination in the temporary prison of the Palais de Justice, ending in his final imprisonment in the Château d'If. From the period of his arrival there he knew nothing, not even the length of time he had been imprisoned. His recital finished, the abbé reflected long and earnestly.
"There is," said he, at the end of his meditations, "a clever maxim, which bears upon what I was saying to you some little while ago, and that is, that unless wicked ideas take root in a naturally depraved mind, human nature revolts at crime. Still, from civilization have originated wants, vices, and false tastes, which occasionally stifle within us all good feelings, and lead us into guilt. From this view of things, then, comes the axiom I allude to—that if you wish to discover the author of any bad action, discover the person to whom that bad action could be advantageous. Now, to whom could your disappearance have been serviceable?"
"To no breathing soul. Why, who could have cared about the removal of so insignificant a person as myself?"
"Do not speak thus, for your reply evinces neither logic nor philosophy; everything is relative, my dear young friend, from the king who obstructs his successor's immediate possession of the throne, to the occupant of a place for which the supernumary to whom it has been promised ardently longs. Now, in the event of the king's death, his successor inherits a crown; when the placeman dies, the supernumary steps into his shoes and receives his salary of twelve thousand livres. Well, these twelve thousand livres are his civil list, and are as essential to him as the twelve millions of a king. Every individual, from the highest to the lowest degree, has his place in the ladder of social life, and around him are grouped a little world of interests, composed of stormy passions and conflicting atoms, like the worlds of Descartes; but let us return to your world. You say you were on the point of being appointed captain of the Pharaon?"
"I was."
"And about to become the husband of a young and lovely girl?"
"True."
"Now, could any one have had any interest in preventing the accomplishment of these two circumstances? But let us first settle the question as to its being the interest of any one to hinder you from being captain of the Pharaon. What say you?"
"No! I was generally liked on board; and had the sailors possessed the right of electing a captain, their choice would have fallen on me. There was only one person among the crew who had any feeling of ill will toward me. I had quarreled with him some time previously, and had even challenged him to fight me; but he refused."
"Now we are getting on. And what was this man's name?"
"Danglars."
"What rank did he hold on board?"
"He was supercargo."
"And had you been captain, should you have retained him in his employment?"
"Not if the choice had remained with me, for I had frequently observed inaccuracies in his accounts."
"Good again! Now then, tell me, was any person present during your last conversation with Captain Leclere?"
"No; we were quite alone."
"Could your conversation be overheard by any one?"
"It might, for the cabin door was open; — and — stay; now I recollect, — Danglars himself passed by just as Captain Leclere was giving me the packet for the grand-maréchal."
"That will do," cried the abbé; "now we are on the right scent. Did you take anybody with you when you put into the port of Elba?"
"Nobody."
"Somebody there received your packet, and gave you a letter in place of it, I think?"
"Yes; the grand-maréchal did."
"And what did you do with that letter?"
"Put it into my pocket-book."
"Ah! indeed! You had your pocket-book with you, then? Now, how could a pocket-book, large enough to contain an official letter, find sufficient room in the pockets of a sailor?"
"You are right: I had it not with me, it was left on board."
"Then it was not till your return to the ship that you placed the letter in the pocket-book?"
"No."
"And what did you do with this same letter while returning from Porto-Ferrajo to your vessel?"
"I carried it in my hand."
"So that when you went on board the Pharaon, everybody could perceive you held a letter in your hand?"
"To be sure they could."
"Danglars, as well as the rest?"
"Ye; he as well as others."
"Now, listen to me, and try to recall every circumstance attending your arrest. Do you recollect the words in which the information against you was couched?"
"Oh, yes! I read it over three times, and the words sank deeply into my memory."
"Repeat it to me."
Dantès paused a few instants, as though collecting his ideas, then said, "This is it, word for word: 'M, le Procureur du Roi is informed, by a friend to the throne and religion, that an individual, named Edmond Dantès, second in command on board the Pharaon, this day arrived from Smyrna, after having touched at Naples and Porto-Ferrajo, has been charged by Murat with a packet for the usurper; again, by the usurper, with a letter for the Bonapartist Club in Paris. This proof of his guilt may be procured by his immediate arrest, as the letter will be found either about his person, at his father's residence, or in his cabin on board the Pharaon.'"
The abbé shrugged up his shoulders. "The thing is clear as day," said he; "and you must have had a very unsuspecting nature, as well as a good heart, not to have suspected the origin of the whole affair."
"Do you really think so? Ah, that would indeed be the treachery of a villain!"
How did Danglars usually write?"
"Oh! extremely well."
"And how was the anonymous letter written?"
"All the wrong way — backward, you know."
Again the abbé smiled. "In fact, it was a disguised hand?"
"I don't know; it was very boldly written, if disguised."
"Stop a bit," said the abbé, taking up what he called his pen, and, after dipping it into the ink, he wrote on a morsel of prepared linen, with his left hand, the first two or three words of the accusation. Dantès drew back, and gazed on the abbé with a sensation almost amounting to terror.
"How very astonishing!" cried he at length. "Why, your writing exactly resembles that of the accusation!"
"Simply because that accusation had been written with the left hand; and I have always remarked one thing———"
"What is that?"
"That whereas all writing done with the right hand varies, that performed with the left hand is invariably similar."
"You have evidently seen and observed everything."
"Let us proceed."
"Oh! yes, yes! Let us go on."
"Now, as regards the second question. Was there any person whose interest it was to prevent your marriage with Mercédès?"
"Yes, a young man who loved her."
"And his name was———"
"Fernand."
"That is a Spanish name, I think?"
"He was a Catalan."
"You imagine him capable of writing the letter?"
"Oh, no! he would more likely have got rid of me by sticking a knife into me."
"That is in strict accordance with the Spanish character; an assassination they will unhesitatingly commit, but an act of cowardice, never."
"Besides," said Dantès, "the various circumstances mentioned in the letter were wholly unknown to him."
"You had never spoken of them yourself to any one?"
"To no person whatever."
"Not even to your mistress?"
"No, not even to my betrothed bride."
"Then it is Danglars, beyond a doubt."
"I feel quite sure of it now."
"Wait a little. Pray, was Danglars acquainted with Fernand?"
"No———yes, he was. Now I recollect———"
"What?"
"To have seen them both sitting at the table together beneath an arbor at Père Pamphile's the evening before the day fixed for my wedding. They were in earnest conversation. Danglars was joking in a friendly way, but Fernand looked pale and agitated."
"Were they alone?"
"There was a third person with them whom I knew perfectly well, and who had, in all probability, made their acquaintance; he was a tailor named Caderousse, but he was quite intoxicated. Stay! — stay! — How strange that it should not have occurred to me before! Now I remember quite well, that on the table round which they were sitting were pens, ink, and paper. Oh! the heartless, treacherous scoundrels!" exclaimed Dantès, pressing his hand to his throbbing brows.
"Is there anything else I can assist you in discovering, besides the villainy of your friends?" inquired the abbé.
"Yes, yes," replied Dantès, eagerly; "I would beg of you, who see so completely to the depths of things, and to whom the greatest mystery seems but an easy riddle, to explain to me how it was that I underwent no second examination, was never brought to trial, and, above all, my being condemned without ever having had sentence passed on me."
"That is a more serious matter," responded the abbé. "The ways of justice are frequently too dark and mysterious to be easily penetrated. All we have hitherto done in the matter has been child's play. On this matter, you must give me the most minute information on every point."
"Gladly. So pray begin, my dear abbé, and ask me whatever questions you please; for you see my past life far better than I could do myself."
"In the first place, then, who examined you, — the procureur du roi, his deputy, or a magistrate?"
"The deputy."
"Was he young or old?"
"About six or seven and twenty years of age, I should say."
"To be sure," answered the abbé. "Old enough to be ambitious, but not sufficiently so to have hardened his heart. And how did he treat you?"
"With more of mildness than severity."
"Did you tell him your whole story?"
"I did."
"And did his conduct change at all in the course of your examination?"
"Yes; certainly he did appear much disturbed when he read the letter that had brought me into this scrape. He seemed quite overcome at the danger I was in."
"You were in?"
"Yes; for whom else could he have felt any apprehensions?"
"Then you feel quite convinced he sincerely pitied your misfortune?"
"Why, he gave me one great proof of his sympathy, at least."
"And what was that?"
"He burned the sole proof that could at all have criminated me."
"Do you mean the letter of accusation?"
"Oh, no! the letter I was intrusted to convey to Paris."
"Are you sure he burned it?"
"He did so before my eyes."
"Ay, indeed! that alters the case; this man might, after all, be a greater scoundrel than I at first believed."
"Upon my word," said Dantès, "you make me shudder. Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?"
"Only remember that two-legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than those that walk on four."
"Never mind, let us go on."
"With all my heart! You tell me he burned the letter in your presence?"
"He did; saying at the same time, 'You see I thus destroy the only proof existing against you.'"
"This action is somewhat too sublime to be natural."
"You think so?"
"I am sure of it. To whom was this letter addressed?"
"To M. Noirtier, No. 13 Rue Coq-Héron, Paris."
"Now, can you conceive any interest your heroic deputy procureur could by possibility have had in the destruction of that letter?"
"Why, he might have had, for he made me promise several times never to speak of that letter to any one; and, more than this, he insisted on my taking a solemn oath never to utter the name mentioned in the address."
"Noirtier!" repeated the abbé; "Noirtier! — I knew a person of that name at the court of the queen of Etruria, — a Noirtier, who had been a Girondin during the Revolution! What was your deputy called?"
"De Villefort!"
The abbé burst into a fit of laughter, while Dantès gazed on him in utter astonishment. "What ails you?" said he, at length.
"Do you see this ray of light?"
"I do."
"Well! I see my way more clearly than you discern that sunbeam. Poor fellow! poor young man! And this magistrate expressed sympathy for you?"
"He did!"
"And the worthy man destroyed your compromising letter?"
"He burned it before me!"
"And then this purveyor for the scaffold made you swear never to utter the name of Noirtier?"
"Certainly."
"Why, you poor, short-sighted simpleton! Can you not guess who this Noirtier was, whose very name he was so careful to keep concealed? This Noirtier was his father!"
Had a thunderbolt fallen at the feet of Dantès, or hell opened before him, he could not have been more completely transfixed with horror than at the words so wholly unexpected. Starting up, he clasped his hands around his head as though to prevent his very brain from bursting, and exclaimed:
"His father! oh, no! not his father, surely!"
"His own father, I assure you," replied the abbé; "his right name was Noirtier de Villefort!"
At this instant a bright light shot through the mind of Dantès, and cleared up all that had been dark and obscure before. The change that had come over Villefort during the examination; the destruction of the letter, the exacted promise, the almost supplicating tones of the magistrate, who seemed rather to implore mercy than denounce punishment, all returned to his memory. A cry of agony escaped his lips, and he staggered like a drunken man; then he hurried to the opening conducting from the abbé's cell to his own, and said:
"I must be alone, to think over all this."
When he regained his dungeon, he threw himself on his bed, where the turnkey found him at his evening visit, sitting with fixed gaze and contracted features, still and motionless as a statue; but, during these hours of deep meditation, which to him had seemed but as minutes, he had formed a fearful resolution, and bound himself to its fulfillment by a solemn oath.
Dantès was at length roused from his reverie by the voice of Faria, who, having also been visited by his jailer, had come to invite his fellow-sufferer to share his supper. The reputation of being out of his mind, though harmlessly and even amusingly so, had procured for the abbé greater privileges than were allowed to prisoners in general. He was supplied with bread of a finer, whiter description than the usual prison fare, and each Sunday with a small quantity of wine; the present day chanced to be Sunday, and the abbé came, delighted at having such luxuries to offer his new friend.
Dantès followed him; his features had lost their contraction, and now wore their usual expression; but there was that in his whole appearance that bespoke one who had come to a fixed resolve. Faria bent on him his penetrating eye.
"I regret now," said he, "having helped you in your late inquiries, or having given you the information I did."
"Why so?" inquired Dantès.
"Because it has instilled a new passion in your heart — that of vengeance."
A bitter smile played over the features of the young man. "Let us talk of something else," said he.
Again the abbé looked at him, then mournfully shook his head; but, in accordance with Dantès' request, he began to speak of other matters. The elder prisoner was one of those persons whose conversation, like that of all who have experienced many trials, contained many useful hints as well as sound information; but it was never egotistical, for the unfortunate man never alluded to his own sorrows. Dantès listened with admiring attention to all he said; some of his remarks corresponded with what he already knew, or applied to the sort of knowledge his nautical life had enabled him to acquire. A part of the good abbé's words, however, were wholly incomprehensible to him; but, like those auroras boreales which light the navigators in northern latitudes, they sufficed to open to the inquiring mind of the listener fresh views and new horizons, illumined by the meteoric flash, enabling him justly to estimate the delight an intellectual mind would have in following this towering spirit in all the giddiest heights of science, moral, social, or philosophical.
"You must teach me a small part of what you know," said Dantès, "if only to prevent your growing weary of me. I can well believe that you would prefer solitude to the company of one as ignorant and uninformed as myself. If you will only agree to my request, I promise you never to mention another word about escaping."
The abbé smiled.
"Alas! my child," said he, "human knowledge is confined within very narrow limits; and when I have taught you mathematics, physics, history, and the three or four modern languages with which I am acquainted, you will know as much as I do myself. Now, it will scarcely require two years for me to communicate to you the stock of learning I possess."
"Two years!" exclaimed Dantès; "do you really believe I can acquire all these things in so short a time?"
"Not their application, certainly, but their principles you may; to learn is not to know; there are the learners and the learned. Memory makes the one, philosophy the other."
"But can I not learn philosophy as well as other things?"
"My son, philosophy, as I understand it, is reducible to no rules by which it can be learned; it is the amalgamation of all the sciences, the golden cloud on which Christ placed his feet to remount to heaven."
"Well, then," said Dantès, "tell me what you shall teach me first? When shall we commence?"
"Directly, if you will," said the abbé.
And that very evening the prisoners sketched a plan of education, to be entered upon the following day. Dantès possessed a prodigious memory, an astonishing quickness of conception; the mathematical turn of his mind rendered him apt at all kinds of calculation, while his naturally poetical feelings corrected the dry reality of arithmetical computation or the rigid severity of lines. He already knew Italian, and a little of the Romaic dialect, picked up during his different voyages to the East; and by the aid of these two languages he easily comprehended the construction of all the others, so that at the end of six months he began to speak Spanish, English, and German.
In strict accordance with the promise made to the abbé, Dantès never even alluded to flight: it might have been that the delight his studies afforded him supplied the place of liberty; or, probably, the recollection of his pledged word (a point, as we have already seen, to which he paid rigid attention) kept him from reverting to any plan for escape; but, absorbed in the acquisition of knowledge, days, even months, passed by unheeded in one rapid and instructive course; time flew on, and at the end of a year Dantès was a new man. With Faria, on the contrary, Dantès remarked that, spite of the relief his society afforded, he daily grew sadder; one thought seemed incessantly to harass and distract his mind. Sometimes he would fall into long reveries, sigh heavily and involuntarily, then suddenly rise, and, with folded arms, begin pacing the confined space of his dungeon. One day he stopped all at once in the midst of these so often-repeated promenades, and exclaimed:
"Ah, if there were no sentinel!"
"There shall not be one a minute longer than you please," said Dantès, who had followed the working of his thoughts as accurately as though his brain were inclosed in crystal.
"I have already told you," answered the abbé, "that I loathe the idea of shedding blood."
"Still, in our case, it would be a necessary step to secure our own personal safety and preservation."
"No matter! I could never agree to it."
"Still, you have thought of it?"
"Incessantly, alas!" cried the abbé.
"And you have discovered a means of regaining our freedom, have you not?" asked Dantès eagerly.
"I have; if it were only possible to place a deaf and blind sentinel in the gallery beyond us."
"I will undertake to render him both," replied the young man, with an air of determined resolution that made his companion shudder.
"No, no," cried the abbé; "I tell you the thing is impossible; name it no more!"
In vain did Dantès endeavor to renew the subject; the abbé shook his head in token of disapproval, but refused any further conversation respecting it. Three months passed away.
"Do you feel yourself strong?" inquired the abbé of Dantès. The young man, in reply, took up the chisel, bent it into the form of a horseshoe, and then as readily straightened it.
"And will you engage not to do any harm to the sentry, except as a last extremity?"
"I promise on my honor not to hurt a hair of his head, unless positively obliged for our mutual preservation."
"Then," said the abbé, "we may hope to put our design into execution."
"And how long shall we be in accomplishing the necessary work?"
"At least a year."
"And shall we begin at once?"
"Directly."
"We have lost a year to no purpose!" cried Dantès.
"Do you consider the last twelve months as wasted?" asked the abbé, in a tone of mild reproach.
"Forgive me!" cried Edmond, blushing deeply; "I am indeed ungrateful to have hinted such a thing."
"Tut, tut!" answered the abbé; "man is but man at last, and you are about the best I have ever known. Come, let me show you my plan."
The abbé then showed Dantès the sketch he had made for their escape. It consisted of a plan of his own cell and that of Dantès, with the corridor which united them. In this passage he proposed to form a tunnel, such as is employed in mines; this tunnel would conduct the two prisoners immediately beneath the gallery where the sentry kept watch; once there, a large excavation would be made, and one of the flag-stones with which the gallery was paved be so completely loosened that at the desired moment it would give way beneath the soldier's feet, who, falling into the excavation below, would be immediately bound and gagged, ere, stunned by the effects of his fall, he had power to offer any resistance. The prisoners were then to make their way through one of the gallery windows, and to let themselves down from the outer walls by means of the abbé's ladder of cords.
The eyes of Dantès sparkled with joy, and he rubbed his hands with delight at the idea of a plan so simple, yet apparently so certain to succeed. That very day the miners commenced their labor, and that with so much more vigor, as it succeeded to a long rest from fatigue and was destined, in all probability, to carry out the dearest wish of the heart of each. Nothing interrupted the progress of their work except the necessity of returning to their respective cells against the hour in which their jailer was in the habit of visiting them; they had learned to distinguish the almost imperceptible sound of his footsteps as he descended toward their dungeons, and, happily, never failed being prepared for his coming. The fresh earth excavated during their present work, and which would have entirely blocked up the old passage, was thrown, by degrees and with the utmost precaution, out of the window in either Faria's or Dantès' cell, the rubbish being first pulverized so finely that the night wind carried it far away without permitting the smallest trace to remain.
More than a year had been consumed in this undertaking, the only tools for which had been a chisel, a knife, and a wooden lever; Faria still continuing to instruct Dantès by conversing with him, sometimes in one language, sometimes in another; at others, relating to him the history of nations and great men who from time to time have left behind them one of those bright tracks called glory. The abbé was a man of the world, and had, moreover, mixed in the first society of the day; he had, too, that air of melancholy dignity which Dantès, thanks to the imitative powers bestowed on him by nature, easily acquired, as well as that outward politeness he had before been wanting in, and which is seldom possessed except by constant intercourse with persons of high birth and breeding.
At the end of fifteen months the tunnel was made, and the excavation completed beneath the gallery, and the two workmen could distinctly hear the measured tread of the sentinel as he paced to and fro over their heads. Compelled, as they were, to await a night sufficiently dark to favor their flight, they were obliged to defer their final attempt till that auspicious moment should arrive; their greatest dread now was lest the stone through which the sentry was doomed to fall should give way before its right time, and this they had in some measure provided against by placing under it, as a kind of prop, a sort of bearer they had discovered among the foundations. Dantès was occupied in arranging this piece of wood when he heard Faria, who had remained in Edmoud's cell for the purpose of cutting a peg to secure their rope ladder, call to him in accents of pain and suffering. Dantès hastened to his dungeon, where he found him standing in the middle of the room, pale as death, his forehead streaming with perspiration, and his hands clenched tightly.
"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Dantès, "what is the matter? what has happened?"
"Quick! quick!" returned the abbé, "listen to what I have to say."
Dantès looked at the livid countenance of Faria, whose eyes were circled by a halo of a bluish cast, his lips were white, and his very hair seemed to stand on end. In his alarm he let fall the chisel he held in his hand.
"For God's sake!" cried Dantès, "tell me what ails you?"
"Alas!" faltered out the abbé, "all is over with me. I am seized with a terrible, perhaps mortal, illness; I can feel that the paroxysm is fast approaching. I had a similar attack the year previous to my imprisonment. This malady admits but of one remedy; I will tell you what that is. Go into my cell as quickly as you can; draw out one of the feet that support the bed; you will find it has been hollowed out; you will find there a small phial half filled with a red-looking fluid. Bring it to me—or rather, no, no! I may be found here; therefore, help me back to my room while I have any strength. Who knows what may happen, or how long the fit may last?"
Spite of the magnitude of the misfortune, Dantès lost not his presence of mind, but descended into the corridor, dragging his unfortunate companion with him; then, half carrying, half supporting him, he man
aged to reach the abbé's chamber, when he immediately laid the sufferer on his bed.
"Thanks!" said the poor abbé, shivering in every limb as though emerging from freezing water; "I am seized with a fit of catalepsy; I may, probably, lie still and motionless, uttering neither sigh nor groan. I may fall into convulsions that cover my lips with foam and force from me piercing shrieks. Let no one hear my cries, for if they are heard I should be removed to another part of the prison, and we be separated forever. When I become quite motionless, cold, and rigid as a corpse, then, and not before, you understand, force open my teeth with a chisel, pour from eight to ten drops of the liquor contained in the phial down my throat, and I may perhaps revive."
"Perhaps!" exclaimed Dantès in grief-stricken tones.
"Help! help!" cried the abbe, "I — I — die — I———"
So sudden and violent was the fit, that the unfortunate prisoner was unable to complete the sentence begun; a cloud came over his brow, dark as a storm at sea, his eyes started from their sockets, his mouth was drawn on one side, his cheeks became purple, he struggled, foamed, and uttered dreadful cries, which Dantès deadened by covering his head with the blanket. The fit lasted two hours; then, more helpless than an infant, and colder and paler than marble, more broken than a reed trampled under foot, he fell, stiffened with a last convulsion, and became livid.
Edmond waited till life seemed extinct in the body of his friend; then, taking up the chisel, he with difficulty forced open the closely fixed jaws, carefully poured the appointed number of drops down the rigid throat, and anxiously awaited the result. An hour passed away without the old man's giving the least sign of returning animation. Dantès began to fear he had delayed too long ere he administered the remedy, and, thrusting his hands into his hair, continued gazing on his friend in an agony of despair. At length a slight color tinged the cheeks, consciousness returned to the dull, open eyeballs, a faint sigh issued from the lips, and the sufferer made a feeble effort to move.
"He is saved! he is saved!" cried Dantès, in a paroxysm of delight. The sick man was not yet able to speak, but he pointed with evident anxiety toward the door. Dantès listened, and plainly distinguished the approaching steps of the jailer. It was therefore near seven o'clock; but Edmond's anxiety had put all thoughts of time out of his head.
The young man sprang to the entrance, darted through it, carefully drawing the stone over the opening, and hurried to his cell. He had scarcely done so before the door opened and disclosed to the jailer's inquisitorial gaze the prisoner seated as usual on the side of his bed. Almost before the key had turned in the lock, and before the steps of the jailer had died away in the corridor, Dantès, consumed by anxiety, without any desire to touch the food, hurried back to the abbe's chamber, and, raising the stone by pressing his head against it, was soon beside the sick man's couch. Faria had now fully regained his consciousness, but he still lay helpless and exhausted on his miserable bed.
"I did not expect to see you again," said he, feebly, to Dantès.
"And why not?" asked the young man. "Did you fancy yourself dying?"
"No, I had no such idea; "but, as all was ready for your flight, I considered you were gone."
The deep glow of indignation suffused the cheeks of Dantès.
"And did you really think so meanly of me," cried he, "as to believe I would depart without you?"
"At least," said the abbé, "I now see how wrong such an opinion would have been. Alas, alas! I am fearfully exhausted and debilitated."
"Be of good cheer," replied Dantès; "your strength will return."
And as he spoke he seated himself on the bed beside Faria, and tenderly chafed his chilled hands. The abbé shook his head.
"The former of these fits," said he, "lasted but half an hour, at the termination of which I experienced a sensation of hunger, and I rose from my bed without requiring help; now I can neither move my right arm or leg, and my head seems uncomfortable, proving a rush of blood to the brain. The next of these fits will either carry me off or leave me paralyzed for life."
"No, no!" cried Dantès; "you are mistaken — you will not die! And your third attack (if, indeed, you should have another) will find you at liberty. We shall save you another time, as we have done this, only with a better chance, because we shall be able to command every requisite assistance."
"My good Edmond," answered the abbé, "be not deceived. The attack which has just passed away condemns me forever to the walls of a prison. None can fly from their dungeon but those who can walk."
"Well, well, we can wait, say a week, a month, — two, if necessary; by that time you will be quite well and strong; and as it only remains with us to fix the hour and minute, we will choose the first instant that you feel able to swim to execute our project."
"I shall never swim again," replied Faria. "This arm is paralyzed; not for a time, but forever. Lift it, and judge by its weight if I am mistaken."
The young man raised the arm, which fell back by its own weight, perfectly inanimate and helpless. A sigh escaped him.
"You are convinced now, Edmond, are you not?" asked the abbé. "Depend upon it, I know what I say. Since the first attack I experienced of this malady, I have continually reflected on it. Indeed, I expected it, for it is a family inheritance, both my father and grandfather
having been taken off by it. The physician who prepared for me the remedy was no other than the celebrated Cabanis, and he predicted a similar end for me."
"The physician may be mistaken!" exclaimed Dantès. "And as for your poor arm, what difference will that make in our escape? I can take you on my shoulders and swim for both of us."
"My son," said the abbé, "you, who are a sailor and a swimmer, must know as well as I do that a man so loaded would sink ere he had advanced fifty yards in the sea. Cease, then, to allow yourself to be duped by vain hopes that even your own excellent heart refuses to believe in. Here I shall remain till the hour of my deliverance arrives; and that, in all human probability, will be the hour of my death. As for you, who are young and active, delay not on my account, but fly — go — I give you back your promise."
"It is well," said Dantès. "And now hear my determination also." Then, rising and extending his hand with an air of solemnity over the old man's head, he slowly added:
"Here I swear to remain with you so long as life is spared to you."
Faria gazed fondly on his noble-minded but single-hearted young friend, and read in his honest, open countenance ample confirmation of truthfulness as well as sincere, affectionate, and faithful devotion.
"Thanks, my child," murmured the invalid, extending the one hand of which he still retained the use. "Thanks for your generous offer, which I accept as frankly as it was made." Then, after a short pause, he added, "You may one of these days reap the reward of your disinterested devotion. But, as I cannot, and you will not, quit this place, it becomes necessary to fill up the excavation beneath the soldier's gallery; he might, by chance, find out the hollow sound above the excavated ground, and call the attention of his officer to the circumstance. We should be discovered and separated. Go, then, and set about this work, in which, unhappily, I can offer you no assistance; keep at it all night, if necessary, and do not return here to-morrow till after the jailer has visited me. I shall have something of the greatest importance to communicate to you."
Dantès took the hand of the abbé, who smiled encouragingly on him, and retired to his task, filled with a determination to discharge the vow which bound him to his friend.