On the bed, at full length, and faintly illuminated by thepale light that came from the window, lay a sack of canvas,and under its rude folds was stretched a long and stiffenedform; it was Faria's last winding-sheet, - a winding-sheetwhich, as the turnkey said, cost so little. Everything wasin readiness. A barrier had been placed between Dantes andhis old friend. No longer could Edmond look into thosewide-open eyes which had seemed to be penetrating themysteries of death; no longer could he clasp the hand whichhad done so much to make his existence blessed. Faria, thebeneficent and cheerful companion, with whom he wasaccustomed to live so intimately, no longer breathed. Heseated himself on the edge of that terrible bed, and fellinto melancholy and gloomy revery.

Alone - he was alone again - again condemned to silence - again face to face with nothingness! Alone! - never againto see the face, never again to hear the voice of the onlyhuman being who united him to earth! Was not Faria's fatethe better, after all - to solve the problem of life at itssource, even at the risk of horrible suffering? The idea ofsuicide, which his friend had driven away and kept away byhis cheerful presence, now hovered like a phantom over theabbe's dead body.

"If I could die," he said, "I should go where he goes, andshould assuredly find him again. But how to die? It is veryeasy," he went on with a smile; "I will remain here, rush onthe first person that opens the door, strangle him, and thenthey will guillotine me." But excessive grief is like astorm at sea, where the frail bark is tossed from the depthsto the top of the wave. Dantes recoiled from the idea of soinfamous a death, and passed suddenly from despair to anardent desire for life and liberty.

"Die? oh, no," he exclaimed - "not die now, after havinglived and suffered so long and so much! Die? yes, had I diedyears ago; but now to die would be, indeed, to give way tothe sarcasm of destiny. No, I want to live; I shall struggleto the very last; I will yet win back the happiness of whichI have been deprived. Before I die I must not forget that Ihave my executioners to punish, and perhaps, too, who knows,some friends to reward. Yet they will forget me here, and Ishall die in my dungeon like Faria." As he said this, hebecame silent and gazed straight before him like oneoverwhelmed with a strange and amazing thought. Suddenly hearose, lifted his hand to his brow as if his brain woregiddy, paced twice or thrice round the dungeon, and thenpaused abruptly by the bed.

"Just God!" he muttered, "whence comes this thought? Is itfrom thee? Since none but the dead pass freely from thisdungeon, let me take the place of the dead!" Without givinghimself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, thathe might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from hisdesperate resolution, he bent over the appalling shroud,opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew thecorpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to hisown chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head therag he wore at night around his own, covered it with hiscounterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and triedvainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly,turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might,when he brought the evening meal, believe that he wasasleep, as was his frequent custom; entered the tunnelagain, drew the bed against the wall, returned to the othercell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread,flung off his rags, that they might feel only naked fleshbeneath the coarse canvas, and getting inside the sack,placed himself in the posture in which the dead body hadbeen laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack from theinside.

He would have been discovered by the beating of his heart,if by any mischance the jailers had entered at that moment.Dantes might have waited until the evening visit was over,but he was afraid that the governor would change his mind,and order the dead body to be removed earlier. In that casehis last hope would have been destroyed. Now his plans werefully made, and this is what he intended to do. If while hewas being carried out the grave-diggers should discover thatthey were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantes didnot intend to give them time to recognize him, but with asudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from topto bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if theytried to catch him, he would use his knife to betterpurpose.

If they took him to the cemetery and laid him in a grave, hewould allow himself to be covered with earth, and then, asit was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turnedtheir backs before he would have worked his way through theyielding soil and escaped. He hoped that the weight of earthwould not be so great that he could not overcome it. If hewas detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, hewould be stifled, and then - so much the better, all wouldbe over. Dantes had not eaten since the preceding evening,but he had not thought of hunger, nor did he think of itnow. His situation was too precarious to allow him even timeto reflect on any thought but one.

The first risk that Dantes ran was, that the jailer, when hebrought him his supper at seven o'clock, might perceive thechange that had been made; fortunately, twenty times atleast, from misanthropy or fatigue, Dantes had received hisjailer in bed, and then the man placed his bread and soup onthe table, and went away without saying a word. This timethe jailer might not be as silent as usual, but speak toDantes, and seeing that he received no reply, go to the bed,and thus discover all.

When seven o'clock came, Dantes' agony really began. Hishand placed upon his heart was unable to redress itsthrobbings, while, with the other he wiped the perspirationfrom his temples. From time to time chills ran through hiswhole body, and clutched his heart in a grasp of ice. Thenhe thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed onwithout any unusual disturbance, and Dantes knew that he hadescaped the first 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 hadarrived, summoned up all his courage, held his breath, andwould have been happy if at the same time he could haverepressed the throbbing of his veins. The footsteps - theywere double - paused at the door - and Dantes guessed thatthe two grave-diggers had come to seek him - this idea wassoon converted into certainty, when he heard the noise theymade in putting down the hand-bier. The door opened, and adim light reached Dantes' eyes through the coarse sack thatcovered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed, a thirdremaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men,approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by itsextremities.

"He's heavy though for an old and thin man," said one, as heraised the head.

"They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of thebones," said another, lifting the feet.

"Have you tied the knot?" inquired the first speaker.

"What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?" wasthe reply, "I can do that when we get there."

"Yes, you're right," replied the companion.

"What's the knot for?" thought Dantes.

They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmondstiffened himself in order to play the part of a dead man,and then the party, lighted by the man with the torch, whowent first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he felt the freshand sharp night air, and Dantes knew that the mistral wasblowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain werestrangely mingled. The bearers went on for twenty paces,then stopped, putting the bier down on the ground. One ofthem went away, and Dantes heard his shoes striking on thepavement.

"Where am I?" he asked himself.

"Really, he is by no means a light load!" said the otherbearer, sitting on the edge of the hand-barrow. Dantes'first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did notattempt it.

"Give us a light," said the other bearer, "or I shall neverfind what I am looking for." The man with the torchcomplied, although not asked in the most polite terms.

"What can he be looking for?" thought Edmond. "The spade,perhaps." An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that thegrave-digger had found the object of his search. "Here it isat 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 aheavy metallic substance laid down beside him, and at thesame moment a cord was fastened round his feet with suddenand 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 theyproceeded.

They advanced fifty paces farther, and then stopped to opena door, then went forward again. The noise of the wavesdashing against the rocks on which the chateau is built,reached Dantes' ear distinctly as they went forward.

"Bad weather!" observed one of the bearers; "not a pleasantnight for a dip in the sea."

"Why, yes, the abbe runs a chance of being wet," said theother; and then there was a burst of brutal laughter. Dantesdid not comprehend the jest, but his hair stood erect on hishead.

"Well, here we are at last," said one of them. "A littlefarther - a little farther," said the other. "You know verywell that the last was stopped on his way, dashed on therocks, and the governor told us next day that we werecareless fellows."

They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantes feltthat they took him, one by the head and the other by theheels, and swung him to and fro. "One!" said thegrave-diggers, "two! three!" And at the same instant Dantesfelt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird,falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his bloodcurdle. Although drawn downwards by the heavy weight whichhastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the falllasted for a century.

At last, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrowinto the ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered ashrill cry, stifled in a moment by his immersion beneath thewaves.

Dantes had been flung into the sea, and was dragged into itsdepths by a thirty-six pound shot tied to his feet. The seais the cemetery of the Chateau d'If.