Page:The Count of Monte-Cristo (1887 Volume 2).djvu/26

6 "This dangerous man's name was"

"Edmond Dantès. It appears, sir, that this Edmond Dantès had procured tools, or made them, for they found a passage by which the prisoners communicated."

"This passage was formed, no doubt, with an intention of escape?"

"No doubt; but unfortunately for the prisoners, the Abbé Faria had an attack of catalepsy, and died."

"That must have cut short the projects of escape."

"For the dead man, yes," replied M. de Boville, "but not for the survivor; on the contrary, this Dantès saw a means of accelerating his escape. He, no doubt, thought that prisoners who died in the Château d'If were interred in a burial-ground as usual, and he conveyed the dead man into his own cell, assumed his place in the sack in which they had sewn up the defunct, and awaited the moment of interment."

"It was a bold step, and one that indicated some courage," remarked the Englishman.

"As I have already told you, sir, he was a very dangerous man; and, fortunately, by his own act disembarrassed the Government of the fears it had on his account."

"How was that?"

"How? do you not comprehend?"

"No."

"The Château d'If has no cemetery, and they simply throw the dead into the sea, after having fastened a thirty-six pound bullet to their feet."

"Well?" observed the Englishman, as if he were slow of comprehension.

"Well, they fastened a thirty-six pound cannon-ball to his feet, and threw him into the sea."

"Really!" exclaimed the Englishman.

"Yes, sir," continued the inspector of prisons. "You may imagine the amazement of the fugitive when he found himself flung headlong beneath the rocks! I should like to have seen his face at that moment."

"That would have been difficult."

"No matter," replied M. de Boville, in supreme good-humor at the certainty of recovering his two hundred thousand francs,—"no matter, I can fancy it."

And he shouted with laughter.

"So can I," said the Englishman, and he laughed too; but he laughed as the English do, at the end of his teeth.

"And so," continued the Englishman, who first gained his composure, "he was drowned?"