Dantes, although stunned and almost suffocated, hadsufficient presence of mind to hold his breath, and as hisright hand (prepared as he was for every chance) held hisknife open, he rapidly ripped up the sack, extricated hisarm, and then his body; but in spite of all his efforts tofree himself from the shot, he felt it dragging him downstill lower. He then bent his body, and by a desperateeffort severed the cord that bound his legs, at the momentwhen it seemed as if he were actually strangled. With amighty leap he rose to the surface of the sea, while theshot dragged down to the depths the sack that had so nearlybecome his shroud.

Dantes waited only to get breath, and then dived, in orderto avoid being seen. When he arose a second time, he wasfifty paces from where he had first sunk. He saw overhead ablack and tempestuous sky, across which the wind was drivingclouds that occasionally suffered a twinkling star toappear; before him was the vast expanse of waters, sombreand terrible, whose waves foamed and roared as if before theapproach of a storm. Behind him, blacker than the sea,blacker than the sky, rose phantom-like the vast stonestructure, whose projecting crags seemed like arms extendedto seize their prey, and on the highest rock was a torchlighting two figures. He fancied that these two forms werelooking at the sea; doubtless these strange grave-diggershad heard his cry. Dantes dived again, and remained a longtime beneath the water. This was an easy feat to him, for heusually attracted a crowd of spectators in the bay beforethe lighthouse at Marseilles when he swam there, and wasunanimously declared to be the best swimmer in the port.When he came up again the light had disappeared.

He must now get his bearings. Ratonneau and Pomegue are thenearest islands of all those that surround the Chateau d'If,but Ratonneau and Pomegue are inhabited, as is also theislet of Daume, Tiboulen and Lemaire were therefore thesafest for Dantes' venture. The islands of Tiboulen andLemaire are a league from the Chateau d'If; Dantes,nevertheless, determined to make for them. But how could hefind his way in the darkness of the night? At this moment hesaw the light of Planier, gleaming in front of him like astar. By leaving this light on the right, he kept the Islandof Tiboulen a little on the left; by turning to the left,therefore, he would find it. But, as we have said, it was atleast a league from the Chateau d'If to this island. Oftenin prison Faria had said to him, when he saw him idle andinactive, "Dantes, you must not give way to thislistlessness; you will be drowned if you seek to escape, andyour strength has not been properly exercised and preparedfor exertion." These words rang in Dantes' ears, evenbeneath the waves; he hastened to cleave his way throughthem to see if he had not lost his strength. He found withpleasure that his captivity had taken away nothing of hispower, and that he was still master of that element on whosebosom he had so often sported as a boy.

Fear, that relentless pursuer, clogged Dantes' efforts. Helistened for any sound that might be audible, and every timethat he rose to the top of a wave he scanned the horizon,and strove to penetrate the darkness. He fancied that everywave behind him was a pursuing boat, and he redoubled hisexertions, increasing rapidly his distance from the chateau,but exhausting his strength. He swam on still, and alreadythe terrible chateau had disappeared in the darkness. Hecould not see it, but he felt its presence. An hour passed,during which Dantes, excited by the feeling of freedom,continued to cleave the waves. "Let us see," said he, "Ihave swum above an hour, but as the wind is against me, thathas retarded my speed; however, if I am not mistaken, I mustbe close to Tiboulen. But what if I were mistaken?" Ashudder passed over him. He sought to tread water, in orderto rest himself; but the sea was too violent, and he feltthat he could not make use of this means of recuperation.

"Well," said he, "I will swim on until I am worn out, or thecramp seizes me, and then I shall sink;" and he struck outwith the energy of despair.

Suddenly the sky seemed to him to become still darker andmore dense, and heavy clouds seemed to sweep down towardshim; at the same time he felt a sharp pain in his knee. Hefancied for a moment that he had been shot, and listened forthe report; but he heard nothing. Then he put out his hand,and encountered an obstacle and with another stroke knewthat he had gained the shore.

Before him rose a grotesque mass of rocks, that resemblednothing so much as a vast fire petrified at the moment ofits most fervent combustion. It was the Island of Tiboulen.Dantes rose, advanced a few steps, and, with a ferventprayer of gratitude, stretched himself on the granite. whichseemed to him softer than down. Then, in spite of the windand rain, he fell into the deep, sweet sleep of utterexhaustion. At the expiration of an hour Edmond was awakenedby the roar of thunder. The tempest was let loose andbeating the atmosphere with its mighty wings; from time totime a flash of lightning stretched across the heavens likea fiery serpent, lighting up the clouds that rolled on invast chaotic waves.

Dantes had not been deceived - he had reached the first ofthe two islands, which was, in fact, Tiboulen. He knew thatit was barren and without shelter; but when the sea becamemore calm, he resolved to plunge into its waves again, andswim to Lemaire, equally arid, but larger, and consequentlybetter adapted for concealment.

An overhanging rock offered him a temporary shelter, andscarcely had he availed himself of it when the tempest burstforth in all its fury. Edmond felt the trembling of the rockbeneath which he lay; the waves, dashing themselves againstit, wetted him with their spray. He was safely sheltered,and yet he felt dizzy in the midst of the warring of theelements and the dazzling brightness of the lightning. Itseemed to him that the island trembled to its base, and thatit would, like a vessel at anchor, break moorings, and bearhim off into the centre of the storm. He then recollectedthat he had not eaten or drunk for four-and-twenty hours. Heextended his hands, and drank greedily of the rainwater thathad lodged in a hollow of the rock.

As he rose, a flash of lightning, that seemed to rive theremotest heights of heaven, illumined the darkness. By itslight, between the Island of Lemaire and Cape Croiselle, aquarter of a league distant, Dantes saw a fishing-boatdriven rapidly like a spectre before the power of winds andwaves. A second after, he saw it again, approaching withfrightful rapidity. Dantes cried at the top of his voice towarn them of their danger, but they saw it themselves.Another flash showed him four men clinging to the shatteredmast and the rigging, while a fifth clung to the brokenrudder.

The men he beheld saw him undoubtedly, for their cries werecarried to his ears by the wind. Above the splintered mast asail rent to tatters was waving; suddenly the ropes thatstill held it gave way, and it disappeared in the darknessof the night like a vast sea-bird. At the same moment aviolent crash was heard, and cries of distress. Dantes fromhis rocky perch saw the shattered vessel, and among thefragments the floating forms of the hapless sailors. Thenall was dark again.

Dantes ran down the rocks at the risk of being himselfdashed to pieces; he listened, he groped about, but he heardand saw nothing - the cries had ceased, and the tempestcontinued to rage. By degrees the wind abated, vast grayclouds rolled towards the west, and the blue firmamentappeared studded with bright stars. Soon a red streak becamevisible in the horizon, the waves whitened, a light playedover them, and gilded their foaming crests with gold. It wasday.

Dantes stood mute and motionless before this majesticspectacle, as if he now beheld it for the first time; andindeed since his captivity in the Chateau d'If he hadforgotten that such scenes were ever to be witnessed. Heturned towards the fortress, and looked at both sea andland. The gloomy building rose from the bosom of the oceanwith imposing majesty and seemed to dominate the scene. Itwas about five o'clock. The sea continued to get calmer.

"In two or three hours," thought Dantes, "the turnkey willenter my chamber, find the body of my poor friend, recognizeit, seek for me in vain, and give the alarm. Then the tunnelwill be discovered; the men who cast me into the sea and whomust have heard the cry I uttered, will be questioned. Thenboats filled with armed soldiers will pursue the wretchedfugitive. The cannon will warn every one to refuse shelterto a man wandering about naked and famished. The police ofMarseilles will be on the alert by land, whilst the governorpursues me by sea. I am cold, I am hungry. I have lost eventhe knife that saved me. O my God, I have suffered enoughsurely! Have pity on me, and do for me what I am unable todo for myself."

As Dantes (his eyes turned in the direction of the Chateaud'If) uttered this prayer, he saw off the farther point ofthe Island of Pomegue a small vessel with lateen sailskimming the sea like a gull in search of prey; and with hissailor's eye he knew it to be a Genoese tartan. She wascoming out of Marseilles harbor, and was standing out to searapidly, her sharp prow cleaving through the waves. "Oh,"cried Edmond, "to think that in half an hour I could joinher, did I not fear being questioned, detected, and conveyedback to Marseilles! What can I do? What story can I invent?under pretext of trading along the coast, these men, who arein reality smugglers, will prefer selling me to doing a goodaction. I must wait. But I cannot - -I am starving. In a fewhours my strength will be utterly exhausted; besides,perhaps I have not been missed at the fortress. I can passas one of the sailors wrecked last night. My story will beaccepted, for there is no one left to contradict me."

As he spoke, Dantes looked toward the spot where thefishing-vessel had been wrecked, and started. The red cap ofone of the sailors hung to a point of the rock and sometimbers that had formed part of the vessel's keel, floatedat the foot of the crag. It an instant Dantes' plan wasformed. he swam to the cap, placed it on his head, seizedone of the timbers, and struck out so as to cut across thecourse the vessel was taking.

"I am saved!" murmured he. And this conviction restored hisstrength.

He soon saw that the vessel, with the wind dead ahead, wastacking between the Chateau d'If and the tower of Planier.For an instant he feared lest, instead of keeping in shore,she should stand out to sea; but he soon saw that she wouldpass, like most vessels bound for Italy, between the islandsof Jaros and Calaseraigne. However, the vessel and theswimmer insensibly neared one another, and in one of itstacks the tartan bore down within a quarter of a mile ofhim. He rose on the waves, making signs of distress; but noone on board saw him, and the vessel stood on another tack.Dantes would have shouted, but he knew that the wind woulddrown his voice.

It was then he rejoiced at his precaution in taking thetimber, for without it he would have been unable, perhaps,to reach the vessel - certainly to return to shore, shouldhe be unsuccessful in attracting attention.

Dantes, though almost sure as to what course the vesselwould take, had yet watched it anxiously until it tacked andstood towards him. Then he advanced; but before they couldmeet, the vessel again changed her course. By a violenteffort he rose half out of the water, waving his cap, anduttering a loud shout peculiar to sailers. This time he wasboth seen and heard, and the tartan instantly steeredtowards him. At the same time, he saw they were about tolower the boat.

An instant after, the boat, rowed by two men, advancedrapidly towards him. Dantes let go of the timber, which henow thought to be useless, and swam vigorously to meet them.But he had reckoned too much upon his strength, and then herealized how serviceable the timber had been to him. Hisarms became stiff, his legs lost their flexibility, and hewas almost breathless.

He shouted again. The two sailors redoubled their efforts,and one of them cried in Italian, "Courage!"

The word reached his ear as a wave which he no longer hadthe strength to surmount passed over his head. He rose againto the surface, struggled with the last desperate effort ofa drowning man, uttered a third cry, and felt himselfsinking, as if the fatal cannon shot were again tied to hisfeet. The water passed over his head, and the sky turnedgray. A convulsive movement again brought him to thesurface. He felt himself seized by the hair, then he saw andheard nothing. He had fainted.

When he opened his eyes Dantes found himself on the deck ofthe tartan. His first care was to see what course they weretaking. They were rapidly leaving the Chateau d'If behind.Dantes was so exhausted that the exclamation of joy heuttered was mistaken for a sigh.

As we have said, he was lying on the deck. A sailor wasrubbing his limbs with a woollen cloth; another, whom herecognized as the one who had cried out "Courage!" held agourd full of rum to his mouth; while the third, an oldsailer, at once the pilot and captain, looked on with thategotistical pity men feel for a misfortune that they haveescaped yesterday, and which may overtake them to-morrow.

A few drops of the rum restored suspended animation, whilethe friction of his limbs restored their elasticity.

"Who are you?" said the pilot in bad French.

"I am," replied Dantes, in bad Italian, "a Maltese sailor.We were coming from Syracuse laden with grain. The storm oflast night overtook us at Cape Morgion, and we were wreckedon these rocks."

"Where do you come from?"

"From these rocks that I had the good luck to cling to whileour captain and the rest of the crew were all lost. I sawyour vessel, and fearful of being left to perish on thedesolate island, I swam off on a piece of wreckage to tryand intercept your course. You have saved my life, and Ithank you," continued Dantes. "I was lost when one of yoursailors caught hold of my hair."

"It was I," said a sailor of a frank and manly appearance;"and it was time, for you were sinking."

"Yes," returned Dantes, holding out his hand, "I thank youagain."

"I almost hesitated, though," replied the sailor; "youlooked more like a brigand than an honest man, with yourbeard six inches, and your hair a foot long." Dantesrecollected that his hair and beard had not been cut all thetime he was at the Chateau d'If.

"Yes," said he, "I made a vow, to our Lady of the Grotto notto cut my hair or beard for ten years if I were saved in amoment of danger; but to-day the vow expires."

"Now what are we to do with you?" said the captain.

"Alas, anything you please. My captain is dead; I havebarely escaped; but I am a good sailor. Leave me at thefirst port you make; I shall be sure to find employment."

"Do you know the Mediterranean?"

"I have sailed over it since my childhood."

"You know the best harbors?"

"There are few ports that I could not enter or leave with abandage over my eyes."

"I say, captain," said the sailor who had cried "Courage!"to Dantes, "if what he says is true, what hinders hisstaying with us?"

"If he says true," said the captain doubtingly. "But in hispresent condition he will promise anything, and take hischance of keeping it afterwards."

"I will do more than I promise," said Dantes.

"We shall see," returned the other, smiling.

"Where are you going?" asked Dantes.

"To Leghorn."

"Then why, instead of tacking so frequently, do you not sailnearer the wind?"

"Because we should run straight on to the Island of Rion."

"You shall pass it by twenty fathoms."

"Take the helm, and let us see what you know." The young mantook the helm, felt to see if the vessel answered the rudderpromptly and seeing that, without being a first-rate sailer,she yet was tolerably obedient, -

"To the sheets," said he. The four seamen, who composed thecrew, obeyed, while the pilot looked on. "Haul taut." - They obeyed.

"Belay." This order was also executed; and the vesselpassed, as Dantes had predicted, twenty fathoms to windward.

"Bravo!" said the captain.

"Bravo!" repeated the sailors. And they all looked withastonishment at this man whose eye now disclosed anintelligence and his body a vigor they had not thought himcapable of showing.

"You see," said Dantes, quitting the helm, "I shall be ofsome use to you, at least during the voyage. If you do notwant me at Leghorn, you can leave me there, and I will payyou out of the first wages I get, for my food and theclothes you lend me."

"Ah," said the captain, "we can agree very well, if you arereasonable."

"Give me what you give the others, and it will be allright," returned Dantes.

"That's not fair," said the seaman who had saved Dantes;"for you know more than we do."

"What is that to you, Jacopo?" returned the Captain. "Everyone is free to ask what he pleases."

"That's true," replied Jacopo; "I only make a remark."

"Well, you would do much better to find him a jacket and apair of trousers, if you have them."

"No," said Jacopo; "but I have a shirt and a pair oftrousers."

"That is all I want," interrupted Dantes. Jacopo dived intothe hold and soon returned with what Edmond wanted.

"Now, then, do you wish for anything else?" said the patron.

"A piece of bread and another glass of the capital rum Itasted, for I have not eaten or drunk for a long time." Hehad not tasted food for forty hours. A piece of bread wasbrought, and Jacopo offered him the gourd.

"Larboard your helm," cried the captain to the steersman.Dantes glanced that way as he lifted the gourd to his mouth;then paused with hand in mid-air.

"Hollo! what's the matter at the Chateau d'If?" said thecaptain.

A small white cloud, which had attracted Dantes' attention,crowned the summit of the bastion of the Chateau d'If. Atthe same moment the faint report of a gun was heard. Thesailors looked at one another.

"What is this?" asked the captain.

"A prisoner has escaped from the Chateau d'If, and they arefiring the alarm gun," replied Dantes. The captain glancedat him, but he had lifted the rum to his lips and wasdrinking it with so much composure, that suspicions, if thecaptain had any, died away.

"At any rate," murmured he, "if it be, so much the better,for I have made a rare acquisition." Under pretence of beingfatigued, Dantes asked to take the helm; the steersman, gladto be relieved, looked at the captain, and the latter by asign indicated that he might abandon it to his new comrade.Dantes could thus keep his eyes on Marseilles.

"What is the day of the month?" asked he of Jacopo, who satdown beside him.

"The 28th of February."

"In what year?"

"In what year - you ask me in what year?"

"Yes," replied the young man, "I ask you in what year!"

"You have forgotten then?"

"I got such a fright last night," replied Dantes, smiling,"that I have almost lost my memory. I ask you what year isit?"

"The year 1829," returned Jacopo. It was fourteen years dayfor day since Dantes' arrest. He was nineteen when heentered the Chateau d'If; he was thirty-three when heescaped. A sorrowful smile passed over his face; he askedhimself what had become of Mercedes, who must believe himdead. Then his eyes lighted up with hatred as he thought ofthe three men who had caused him so long and wretched acaptivity. He renewed against Danglars, Fernand, andVillefort the oath of implacable vengeance he had made inhis dungeon. This oath was no longer a vain menace; for thefastest sailer in the Mediterranean would have been unableto overtake the little tartan, that with every stitch ofcanvas set was flying before the wind to Leghorn.