The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

Next morning the preparations for burying the dead man were made, the body being placed in a sack and left in the cell till the evening. Dantès came into the cell again.

"Ah!" he muttered. "Since the dead leave this dungeon, let me assume the place of the dead!"

Opening the sack, he took out the dead body of his friend, and dragged it through the tunnel to his own cell. Placing it on his own bed, he covered it with the rags he wore himself. Then he sewed himself in the sack with one of the abbé's needles. In his hand he held the dead man's knife, and with palpitating heart awaited events.

Slowly the hours dragged on, until at length he heard the heavy footsteps of the gaolers descending to the cell. They lifted the sack, and carried him on a bier through the castle passages, until they came to a door, which was opened. On passing through this, the noise of the waves was heard as they dashed on the rocks below.

Then Dantès felt that they took him by the head and by the heels, and flung him into the sea, into whose depths he was dragged by a thirty-six-pound shot tied to his feet. The sea is the cemetery of Château d'If!

Although giddy, and almost suffocated, he had yet sufficient presence of mind to hold his breath; and as his right hand held his knife, he rapidly ripped up the sack, extricated his arm, and then, by a desperate effort, severed the cord that bound his legs at the moment he was suffocating. With a vigorous spring he rose to the surface, paused to breathe, and then dived again, in order to avoid being seen. When he rose again, he struck boldly out to sea, and, fortunately, was picked up by a sailing-vessel.

Now at liberty, fourteen years after his arrest, he renewed an oath of implacable vengeance against Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort. Nor was it long before he had discovered the secret cave in the island of Monte Cristo, with all its dazzling wealth, as the Abbe Faria had truly foretold. He now stood possessed of such means of vengeance as never in his wildest dreams had any innocent prisoner hoped to be able to command.

III.--Vengeance Begins

Some two years later Caspar Caderousse, the keeper of an inn near Beaucaire, was lounging listlessly at his door, when a traveller on horseback dismounted at his door and entered. The visitor--Monte Cristo--gave the name of Abbe Busoni, and astonished Caderousse by showing a minute knowledge of his earlier history. The abbé explained that he had been present at the death of Edmond Dantès in prison, and said that even in his dying moments the prisoner had protested he was utterly ignorant of the cause of his imprisonment.

"And so he was!" exclaimed Caderousse. "How should he have been otherwise?"

The abbè had heard of the death of Edmond's aged father, and now he was told the old man had died of starvation.

"Thus Heaven recompenses virtue," said Caderousse. "I am in destitution and shall die of hunger, as old Dantès did, whilst Fernand and Danglars roll in wealth. All their malpractices have turned to luck. Danglars speculated and made a fortune. He is a millionaire, and now Count Danglars. Fernand played traitor at the battle of Ligny, and that served for his recommendation to the Bourbons. Afterwards he became Count de Morcerf, and got a considerable sum by the betrayal of Ali Pasha in the Greek war of independence."

The abbé, making an effort, said, "And Mercédès--she disappeared?"

"Yes, as the sun, to rise next day with more splendour. She is rich, the Countess de Morcerf--she waited two hopeless years for Dantès--and yet I am sure she is not happy."

"And M. de Villefort?" asked the abbé.

"Some time after having arrested Dantès, he married and left Marseilles; no doubt but he has been as lucky as the rest."

"God may seem sometimes to forget for a time," said the abbé, "while His justice reposes, but there always comes a moment when He remembers."