The Count of Monte Cristo. Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
can he be looking for?” thought Edmond. “The spade, perhaps.”
An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the grave-digger 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 and sounding substance laid down beside him, and the same moment a cord was fastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence.
“Well, have you tied the knot?” inquired the grave-digger, 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 progressed.
“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 grave-diggers. “Two! Three, and away!”
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 same heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the time were a century. At last, with a terrific dash, he entered the ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment by his immersion beneath the waves.
Dantès had been flung 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.
DANTÈS, ALTHOUGH GIDDY and almost suffocated, had yet sufficient presence of mind to hold his breath; and as his right hand (prepared as he was for every chance) held his knife open, he rapidly ripped up the sack, extricated his arm, and then his body; but in spite of all his efforts to free himself from the bullet he felt it dragging him down still lower; he then bent his body, and 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 of the sea, whilst the bullet bore to its depths the sack that had so nearly become his shroud.
Dantès merely paused to breathe, and then dived again in order to avoid being seen.
When he arose a second time he was fifty paces from where he had first sunk. He saw over head a black and tempestuous sky, over which the wind was driving the fleeting vapours that occasionally suffered a twinkling star to appear: before him was the vast expanse of waters, sombre and terrible, whose waves foamed and roared as if before the approach of a storm. Behind him, blacker than the sea, blacker than the sky, rose like a phantom the giant of granite, whose projecting crags seemed like arms extended to seize their prey; and on the highest rock was a torch that lighted two figures. He fancied these two forms were looking at the sea; doubtless these strange grave-diggers had heard his cry. Dantès dived again, and remained a long time beneath the water. This manœuvre was already familiar to him, and usually attracted a crowd of spectators in the bay before the lighthouse at Marseilles when he swam there, who, with one accord pronounced him the best swimmer in the port.
When he rose again the light had disappeared.
It was necessary to strike out to sea. Ratonneau and Pomègue are the nearest isles of all those that surround the Château d’If. But Ratonneau and Pomègue are inhabited, together with the islet of Daume; Tiboulen or Lemaire were the most secure. The isles of Tiboulen and Lemaire are a league from the Château d’If. Dantès, nevertheless, determined to make for them; but how could he find his way in the darkness of the night?
At this moment he saw before him, like a brilliant star, the lighthouse of Planier.
By leaving this light on the right, he kept the isle of Tiboulen a little on the left; by turning to the left, therefore, he would find it. But, as we have said, it was at least a league from the Château d’If to this island.
Often in prison Faria had said to him when he saw him idle and inactive:
“Dantès, you must not give way to this listlessness; you will be drowned, if you seek to escape; and your strength has not been properly exercised and prepared for exertion.”
These words rang in Dantès’ ears even beneath the waves: he hastened to cleave his way through them to see if he had not lost his strength; he found with pleasure that his captivity had taken away nothing of his power, and that he was still master of that element on whose bosom he had so often sported as a boy.
Fear, that relentless pursuer, clogged Dantès’ efforts; he listened if any noise was audible; each time that he rose over the waves his looks scanned the horizon, and strove to penetrate the darkness; every wave seemed a boat in his pursuit, and he redoubled exertions that increased his distance from the Château, but the repetition of which weakened his strength. He swam on still, and already the terrible Château had disappeared in the darkness. He could not see it, but he felt its presence. An hour passed, during which Dantès, excited by the feeling of freedom, continued to cleave the waves.
“Let us see,” said he, “I have swam above an hour; but as the wind is against me, that has retarded my speed; however, if I am not mistaken, I must be close to the isle of Tiboulen. But what if I were mistaken?”
A shudder passed over him. He sought to tread water in order to rest himself, but the sea was too violent, and he felt that he could not make use of this means of repose.
“Well,” said he, “I will swim on until I am worn out, or the cramp seizes me, and then I shall sink;” and he struck out with the energy of despair.
Suddenly the sky seemed to him to become still darker and more dense, and compact clouds lowered towards him; at the same time he felt a violent pain in his knee. His imagination told him a ball had struck him, and that in a moment he would hear the report; but he heard nothing. Dantès put out his hand and felt resistance; he then extended his leg and felt the land, and in an instant guessed the nature of the object he had taken for a cloud.
Before him rose a mass of strangely formed rocks that resembled nothing so much as a vast fire petrified at the moment of its most fervent combustion. It was the isle of Tiboulen.
Dantès rose, advanced a few steps, and, with a fervent prayer of gratitude, stretched himself on the granite, which seemed to him softer than down. Then, in spite of the wind and rain, he fell into the deep sweet sleep of those worn out by fatigue.
At the expiration of an hour Edmond was awakened by the roar of the thunder. The tempest was unchained and let loose in all its fury; from time to time a flash of lightning stretched across the heavens like a fiery serpent lighting up the clouds that rolled on like the waves of an immense chaos.
Dantès had not been deceived—he had reached the first of the two isles, which was in reality Tiboulen. He knew that it was barren