The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre Dumas

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       16 A Learned Italian

      RUSHING TOWARDS THE friend so long and ardently desired, Dantès almost carried him towards the window, in order to obtain a better view of his features by the aid of the imperfect light that struggled through the grating of the prison.

      He was a man of small stature, with hair blanched rather by suffering and sorrow than years. A deepset, penetrating eye, almost buried beneath the thick gray eyebrow, and a long (and still black) beard reaching down to his breast.

      The meagreness of his features, deeply furrowed by care, joined to the bold outline of his strongly marked features, announced a man more accustomed to exercise his moral faculties than his physical strength. Large drops of perspiration were now standing on his brow, while his garments hung about him in such rags as to render it useless to form a guess as to their primitive description.

      The stranger might have numbered sixty or sixty-five years, but a certain briskness and appearance of vigour in his movements made it probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time. He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections seemed rekindled and invigorated by his contact with one so warm and ardent. He thanked him with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome, although he must at that moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where he had fondly reckoned on discovering a means of regaining his liberty.

      “Let us first see,” said he, “whether it is possible to remove the traces of my entrance here—our future comforts depend upon our gaolers being entirely ignorant of it.” Advancing to the opening, he stooped and raised the stone as easily as though it had not weighed an ounce; then fitting it into its place, he said:

      “You removed this stone very carelessly; but I suppose you had no tools to aid you.”

      “Why!” exclaimed Dantès, with astonishment, “do you possess any?”

      “I made myself some; and with the exception of a file, I have all that are necessary—a chisel, pincers, and lever.”

      “Oh! how I should like to see these products of your industry and patience!”

      “Well! in the first place, here is my chisel!”

      So saying, he displayed a sharp strong blade, with a handle made of beechwood.

      “And with what did you contrive to make that?” inquired Dantès.

      “With one of the clamps of my bedstead; and this very tool has sufficed me to hollow out the road by which I came hither, a distance of at least fifty feet.”

      “Fifty feet!!” re-echoed Dantès, with a species of terror.

      “Do not speak so loud, young man!—don’t speak so loud! It frequently occurs in a state prison like this, that persons are stationed outside the doors of the cells purposely to overhear the conversation of the prisoners.”

      “But they believe I am shut up alone here!”

      “That makes no difference.”

      “And you say that you penetrated a length of fifty feet to arrive here?”

      “I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine—only unfortunately I did not curve aright: for want of the necessary geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I have made fifty. I expected, as I told you, to reach the outer wall, pierce through it, and throw myself into the sea; I have, however, kept along the corridor on which your chamber opens, instead of going beneath it. My labour is all in vain, for I find that the corridor looks into a courtyard filled with soldiers.”

      “That’s true,” said Dantès; “but the corridor you speak of only bounds one side of my cell: there are three others,—do you know anything of their situation?”

      “This one is built against the solid rock, and it would take ten experienced miners, duly furnished with the requisite tools, as many years to perforate it;—this adjoins the lower part of the governor’s apartments, and were we to work our way through, we should only get into some lock-up cellars, where we must necessarily be recaptured;—the fourth and last side of your cell looks out—looks out—stop a minute, now where does it open to?”

      The side which thus excited curiosity was the one in which was fixed the loophole by which the light was admitted into the chamber. This loophole, which gradually diminished as it approached the outside, until only an opening through which a child could not have passed, was, for better security, furnished with three iron bars, so as to quiet all apprehensions even in the mind of the most suspicious gaoler as to the possibility of a prisoner’s escape.

      As the stranger finished his self-put question, he dragged the table beneath the window.

      “Climb up,” said he to Dantès.—The young man obeyed, mounted on the table, and, divining the intentions of his companion, placed his back securely against the wall, and held out both hands. The stranger, whom as yet Dantès knew only by his assumed title of the number of his cell, sprang up with an agility by no means to be expected in a person of his years, and, light and steady as the bound of a cat or a lizard, climbed from the table to the outstretched hands of Dantès, and from them to his shoulders; then, almost doubling himself in two, for the ceiling of the dungeon prevented his holding himself erect, he managed to slip his head through the top bar of the window, so as to be able to command a perfect view from top to bottom.

      An instant afterwards he hastily drew back his head, saying, “I thought so!” and sliding from the shoulders of Dantès, as dexterously as he had ascended, he nimbly leapt from the table to the ground.

      “What made you say those words?” asked the young man, in an anxious tone, in his turn descending from the table.

      The elder prisoner appeared to meditate. “Yes,” said he at length, “it is so. This side of your chamber looks out upon a kind of open gallery, where patrols are continually passing, and sentries keep watch day and night.”

      “Are you quite sure of that?”

      “Certain. I saw the soldier’s shako and the top of his musket: that made me draw in my head so quickly, for I was fearful he might also see me.”

      “Well?” inquired Dantès.

      “You perceive, then, the utter impossibility of escaping through your dungeon?”

      “Then,” pursued the young man eagerly———

      “Then,” answered the elder prisoner, “the will of God be done!” and as the old man slowly pronounced those words, an air of profound resignation spread itself over his care-worn countenance.

      Dantès СКАЧАТЬ