Chapter 20. The Cemetery of the Château d’If
On the bed, at full length, and faintly illuminated by the pale lightthat came from the window, lay a sack of canvas, and under its rudefolds was stretched a long and stiffened form; it was Faria’s lastwinding-sheet,—a winding-sheet which, as the turnkey said, cost solittle. Everything was in readiness. A barrier had been placed betweenDantès and his old friend. No longer could Edmond look into those wide-open eyes which had seemed to be penetrating the mysteries of death; nolonger could he clasp the hand which had done so much to make hisexistence blessed. Faria, the beneficent and cheerful companion, withwhom he was accustomed to live so intimately, no longer breathed. Heseated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fell intomelancholy and gloomy reverie.
Alone! he was alone again! again condemned to silence—again face to facewith nothingness! Alone!—never again to see the face, never again tohear the voice of the only human being who united him to earth! Was notFaria’s fate the better, after all—to solve the problem of life at itssource, even at the risk of horrible suffering?
The idea of suicide, which his friend had driven away and kept away byhis cheerful presence, now hovered like a phantom over the abbé’s deadbody.
“If I could die,” he said, “I should go where he goes, and shouldassuredly find him again. But how to die? It is very easy,” he went onwith a smile; “I will remain here, rush on the first person that opensthe door, strangle him, and then they will guillotine me.”
But excessive grief is like a storm at sea, where the frail bark istossed from the depths to the top of the wave. Dantès recoiled from theidea of so infamous a death, and passed suddenly from despair to anardent desire for life and liberty.
“Die? oh, no,” he exclaimed—“not die now, after having lived andsuffered so long and so much! Die? yes, had I died years ago; but now todie would be, indeed, to give way to the sarcasm of destiny. No, I wantto live; I shall struggle to the very last; I will yet win back thehappiness of which I have been deprived. Before I die I must not forgetthat I have my executioners to punish, and perhaps, too, who knows, somefriends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and I shall die in mydungeon like Faria.”
As he said this, he became silent and gazed straight before him like oneoverwhelmed with a strange and amazing thought. Suddenly he arose,lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain were giddy, paced twice orthrice round the dungeon, and then paused abruptly by the bed.
“Just God!” he muttered, “whence comes this thought? Is it from thee?Since none but the dead pass freely from this dungeon, let me take theplace of the dead!”
Without giving himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed,that he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his desperateresolution, he bent over the appalling shroud, opened it with the knifewhich Faria had made, drew the corpse from the sack, and bore it alongthe tunnel to his own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around itshead the rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with hiscounterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried vainly toclose the resisting eyes, which glared horribly, turned the head towardsthe wall, so that the jailer might, when he brought the evening meal,believe that he was asleep, as was his frequent custom; entered thetunnel again, drew the bed against the wall, returned to the other cell,took from the hiding-place the needle and thread, flung off his rags,that they might feel only naked flesh beneath the coarse canvas, andgetting inside the sack, placed himself in the posture in which the deadbody had been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack from the inside.
He would have been discovered by the beating of his heart, if by anymischance the jailers had entered at that moment. Dantès might havewaited until the evening visit was over, but he was afraid that thegovernor would change his mind, and order the dead body to be removedearlier. In that case his last hope would have been destroyed.
Now his plans were fully made, and this is what he intended to do. Ifwhile he was being carried out the grave-diggers should discover thatthey were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantès did not intendto give them time to recognize him, but with a sudden cut of the knife,he meant to open the sack from top to bottom, and, profiting by theiralarm, escape; if they tried to catch him, he would use his knife tobetter purpose.
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If they took him to the cemetery and laid him in a grave, he would allowhimself to be covered with earth, and then, as it was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turned their backs before he would haveworked his way through the yielding soil and escaped. He hoped that theweight of earth would not be so great that he could not overcome it. Ifhe was detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, he would bestifled, and then—so much the better, all would be over.
Dantès had not eaten since the preceding evening, but he had not thoughtof hunger, nor did he think of it now. His situation was too precariousto allow him even time to reflect on any thought but one.
The first risk that Dantès ran was, that the jailer, when he brought himhis supper at seven o’clock, might perceive the change that had beenmade; fortunately, twenty times at least, from misanthropy or fatigue,Dantès had received his jailer in bed, and then the man placed his breadand soup on the table, and went away without saying a word. This timethe jailer might not be as silent as usual, but speak to Dantès, andseeing that he received no reply, go to the bed, and thus discover all.
When seven o’clock came, Dantès’ agony really began. His hand placedupon his heart was unable to redress its throbbings, while, with theother he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to timechills ran through his whole body, and clutched his heart in a grasp ofice. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed onwithout any unusual disturbance, and Dantès knew that he had escaped thefirst peril. It was a good augury.
At length, about the hour the governor had appointed, footsteps wereheard on the stairs. Edmond felt that the moment had arrived, summonedup all his courage, held his breath, and would have been happy if at thesame time he could have repressed the throbbing of his veins. Thefootsteps—they were double—paused at the door—and Dantès guessed thatthe two grave-diggers had come to seek him—this idea was soon convertedinto certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down thehand-bier.
The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantès’ eyes through the coarsesack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a thirdremaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men, approachingthe ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities.
“He’s heavy, though, for an old and thin man,” said one, as he raisedthe head.
“They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones,” saidanother, 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 himselfin order to play the part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted bythe man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly hefelt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantès knew that the mistral wasblowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were strangelymingled.
The bearers went on for twenty paces, then stopped, putting the bierdown on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantès heard his shoesstriking on the pavement.
“Where am I?” he asked himself.
“Really, he is by no means a light load!” said the other bearer, sittingon the edge of the hand-barrow.
Dantès’ first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did not attemptit.
“Give us a light,” said the other bearer, “or I shall never find what Iam looking for.”
The man with the torch complied, although not asked in the most politeterms.
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“What can he be looking for?” thought Edmond. “The spade, perhaps.”
An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the grave-digger had foundthe object of his search. “Here it is at last,” he said, “not withoutsome 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 metallicsubstance laid down beside him, and at the same moment a cord wasfastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence.
“Well, have you tied the knot?” inquired the grave-digger, who waslooking 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, thenwent forward again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks onwhich the château is built, reached Dantès’ ear distinctly as they wentforward.
“Bad weather!” observed one of the bearers; “not a pleasant night for adip in the sea.”
“Why, yes, the abbé runs a chance of being wet,” said the other; andthen there was a burst of brutal laughter.
Dantès did not comprehend the jest, but his hair stood erect on hishead.
“Well, here we are at last,” said one of them.
“A little farther—a little farther,” said the other. “You know very wellthat the last was stopped on his way, dashed on the rocks, and thegovernor told us next day that we were careless fellows.”
They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantès felt that theytook him, one by the head and the other by the heels, and swung him toand fro.
“One!” said the grave-diggers, “two! three!”
And at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like awounded bird, falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his bloodcurdle. Although drawn downwards by the heavy weight which hastened hisrapid descent, it seemed to him as if the fall lasted for a century. Atlast, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the ice-coldwater, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment byhis immersion beneath the waves.
Dantès had been flung into the sea, and was dragged into its depths by athirty-six-pound shot tied to his feet.
The sea is the cemetery of the Château d’If.
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The Count of Monte Cristo, Illustrated Page 21