The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (best book club books .TXT) 📕

himself to be covered with earth, and then, as it was night, the gravediggers could scarcely have turned their backs before he would have worked his way through the yielding soil and escaped. He hoped that the weight of earth would not be so great that he could not overcome it. If he was detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, he would be stifled, and then⁠—so much the better, all would be over.

Dantès had not eaten since the preceding evening, but he had not thought of hunger, nor did he think of it now. His situation was too precarious to allow him even time to reflect on any thought but one.

The first risk that Dantès ran was, that the jailer, when he brought him his supper at seven o’clock, might perceive the change that had been made; fortunately, twenty times at least, from misanthropy or fatigue, Dantès had received his jailer in bed, and then the man placed his bread and soup on the table, and went away without saying a word. This time the jailer might not be as silent as usual, but speak to Dantès, and seeing that he received no reply, go to the bed, and thus discover all.

When seven o’clock came, Dantès’ agony really began. His hand placed upon his heart was unable to redress its throbbings, while, with the other he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to time chills ran through his whole body, and clutched his heart in a grasp of ice. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed on without any unusual disturbance, and Dantès knew that he had escaped the first peril. It was a good augury.

At length, about the hour the governor had appointed, footsteps were heard on the stairs. Edmond felt that the moment had arrived, summoned up all his courage, held his breath, and would have been happy if at the same time he could have repressed the throbbing of his veins. The footsteps⁠—they were double⁠—paused at the door⁠—and Dantès guessed that the two gravediggers had come to seek him⁠—this idea was soon converted into certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down the hand-bier.

The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantès’ eyes through the coarse sack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a third remaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men, approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities.

“He’s heavy, though, for an old and thin man,” said one, as he raised the head.

“They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones,” said another, lifting the feet.

“Have you tied the knot?” inquired the first speaker.

“What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?” was the reply, “I can do that when we get there.”

“Yes, you’re right,” replied the companion.

“What’s the knot for?” thought Dantès.

They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmond stiffened himself in order to play the part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted by the man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he felt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantès knew that the mistral was blowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were strangely mingled.

The bearers went on for twenty paces, then stopped, putting the bier down on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantès heard his shoes striking on the pavement.

“Where am I?” he asked himself.

“Really, he is by no means a light load!” said the other bearer, sitting on the edge of the handbarrow.

Dantès’ first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did not attempt it.

“Give us a light,” said the other bearer, “or I shall never find what I am looking for.”

The man with the torch complied, although not asked in the most polite terms.

“What can he be looking for?” thought Edmond. “The spade, perhaps.”

An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the gravedigger had found the object of his search. “Here it is at last,” he said, “not without some trouble, though.”

“Yes,” was the answer, “but it has lost nothing by waiting.”

As he said this, the man came towards Edmond, who heard a heavy metallic substance laid down beside him, and at the same moment a cord was fastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence.

“Well, have you tied the knot?” inquired the gravedigger, who was looking on.

“Yes, and pretty tight too, I can tell you,” was the answer.

“Move on, then.” And the bier was lifted once more, and they proceeded.

They advanced fifty paces farther, and then stopped to open a door, then went forward again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks on which the château is built, reached Dantès’ ear distinctly as they went forward.

“Bad weather!” observed one of the bearers; “not a pleasant night for a dip in the sea.”

“Why, yes, the abbé runs a chance of being wet,” said the other; and then there was a burst of brutal laughter.

Dantès did not comprehend the jest, but his hair stood erect on his head.

“Well, here we are at last,” said one of them.

“A little farther⁠—a little farther,” said the other. “You know very well that the last was stopped on his way, dashed on the rocks, and the governor told us next day that we were careless fellows.”

They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantès felt that they took him, one by the head and the other by the heels, and swung him to and fro.

“One!” said the gravediggers, “two! three!”

And at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird, falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his blood curdle. Although drawn downwards by the heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the fall lasted for a century. At last, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the ice-cold water,