Nine

NUMBER 34 AND NUMBER 27

Days and weeks passed, and Dantes began to think that the visit of the Officer had been only a dream.

At first he had hoped to be set free in a month. This month went by. Then he thought, "He has other prisons to visit and he will not do anything until he gets back to Paris." He therefore fixed it at three months. Three months went by, and nothing happened. Nothing would happen. Dantes looked back over his past life, and he looked forward into what was yet to come. What lay beyond death and the grave? Some other life in heaven? Or nothingness? Neither could be harder to bear than this death-in-life which he suffered now.

"Sometimes," said he, "on my ship when I was a man and commanded other men, I have seen the sky become dark, and the storm rise and cover the sky with its black wings. The angry waves and the sight of dangerous rocks told me that death was near; and the thought of death made me afraid. I used all my power, as a man and as seaman, to escape. But I did so because I was happy, because I had not courted death, because I did not wish that I, a living thing made for the service of God, should become food for the birds and beasts of the sea. But now it is different. I have lost all that there is to love in life; death seems beautiful, a long, long rest. I die tired out and broken-hearted, as I fall asleep when I have walked three thousand times round this floor."

"When my morning and evening meals are brought," thought he, "I will throw them out of the window, and they will believe that I have eaten them."

He did this. Twice a day he threw the food between the bars, at first quite happily, then with thought and care, later with sadness. Only the thought of the promise which he had made to himself gave him the strength to go on doing it. Hunger made the food, bad as it was, seem pleasing to him. He held the food in his hand sometimes for a whole hour, and looked at the piece of bad fish and the black bread. It was the last desire of life battling within him. He was still young; he had many years to live. Some unknown happenings might open the prison door and set him free. He raised the food to his mouth. And then he thought of his promise, and at last he had the strength to throw his evening meal out of the window.

On the next morning he could neither see nor hear; the keeper thought that he was dangerously ill. Edmond hoped that he was about to die.

The day passed away thus. Edmond felt a strange dreamy feeling coming over him. He no longer felt the desire for food. When he closed his eyes he saw thousands of lights dancing before them, like stars. Evening and starlight in that strange country called Death!

Suddenly in the evening, at about nine, Edmond heard a sound in the wall against which he was lying. He raised his head and listened. The noise continued. It was as if some powerful animal was eating away the stones. Perhaps it was only a dream, one of those dreams that come just before death. But no, he still heard the sound. Then he heard the noise of something falling; and all was silent.

Some hours after that it began again, nearer and more clear. Then the keeper entered. For a week Edmond had not spoken to him, had not answered when he asked him how he felt. But now the man might hear this noise and put an end to it, thus destroying the last glimmer of something like hope in his last hours of life.

The keeper had brought him his breakfast. Dantes raised himself and began to talk about everything: about the badness of the food, the coldness of the room, speaking loud and angrily. The keeper had asked for white bread and some fish for his sick prisoner, and had brought it. So at first the man was angry; then he thought that perhaps Dantes did not know what he was saying, because of his illness. So he put the food down on the table and went away.

Edmond listened, and the sound became louder and clearer.

There could be no doubt, he thought, that it was some prisoner trying to escape. Or was it only a labourer working under orders of the Governor? How could he find out? He felt too weak to think.

There was only one way of making himself more able to find an answer to his question. He turned his eyes towards the food which the keeper had brought. He rose, went towards it and ate every bit of it.

He did not wish to die.

He felt better: he could think now. "If it is a labourer," he said to himself, "and I make a noise on the wall, he may stop his work for a little to find out what the noise is; but he will soon go on again. But, if it is a prisoner, the noise will make him afraid. He will stop work and will not begin again until he thinks that everyone is asleep.

Edmond rose. Now he felt strong, and his eyesight was clear. He went to a corner, pulled out a bit of stone, and with it he hit the wall where the sound came from. He hit it three times.

The sound stopped at once. Two hours passed, and no sound was heard.

The day passed.

"It is a prisoner," said Edmond joyfully.

Then in the evening, after the keeper had visited him for the last time, he thought he heard a little sound. He put his ear against the wall. There was no doubt that something was happening on the other side. The prisoner had discovered the danger and was now working very quietly.

Full of joy at discovering this, Edmond wished to help. He began by moving his bed. Then he looked round the room for any object with which he might cut away the wall and take a stone out of its place. All that was in the room was a bed, a chair, a table, and a water-pot. There was only one thing to do, and that was to break the water-pot (which was very hard and strong) and use one of the pointed bits. He threw the pot on the floor: it broke to pieces. He hid two or three of the most pointed bits in his bed.

When the keeper entered next morning he told him that the water-pot had fallen from his hands when he was drinking. The man was angry with him for his carelessness, but he went away to bring another; and he did not trouble to take away the broken pieces of the former one. He soon came back, told the prisoner to be more careful, and then went away again.

Dantes joyfully heard the key turn. He listened till the sound of the man's feet died away. Then he started to work. The wall was soft with age. It came away in small pieces, it is true; but at the end of half an hour he had got together quite a lot. Working as quickly as this he might in two years have made a path twenty feet long and two feet broad. Why, he asked himself, had he wasted all those hours in weeping?

At last he got the stone out from the wall. It left a hole a foot and a half across. He carefully gathered together all the dust and dirt, carried it into the corners of the room and covered it with earth. He put back the stone, and put his bed back to hide it, before the keeper came with his evening meal. As soon as the man had gone, he started to work again, and continued all night. He noticed that the prisoner on the other side had stopped working. Well, all the more reason for going on: if his neighbour would not come, he would go to him.

On the next night he started work again. He wished to be sure whether his neighbour had really given up his work.

He listened.

All was silent.

Well, that was sad: it was clear that his neighbour did not trust him. He laboured on all night without losing hope. Then he came to a stop. There was something in his way which he could neither cut nor move. He felt it; it was wood. This great wooden mass crossed the hole which Dantes had made, completely stopping the way.

The unhappy young man had not thought of this.

"Oh, my God, my God!" he cried, "I have prayed to you so long that I hoped you would have heard me. Having taken free life from me, having taken death from me, having given me hope again, my God, look upon me now and let me die, for I have lost all hope."

"Who talks of God and yet has lost all hope?" said a voice under the earth—as it were, a voice from the grave.

Edmond's hair stood on end, and he rose on his knees. "Ah!" he said, "I hear a voice—of a man." Edmond had not heard anyone speak, except the prison officer and his keeper, ever since he came to the prison; and the keeper is not a man to a prisoner; he is a living door.

"In the name of heaven," cried Dantes, "speak again, though the sound of your voice fills me with fear."

"Who are you?" said the voice.

"An unhappy prisoner," replied Dantes.

"Of what country?"

"A Frenchman."

"Your name?"

"Edmond Dantes."

"What are you?"

"A seaman."

"Why are you in prison?"

"I did nothing wrong."

"What are you supposed to have done?"

"To have tried to help Napoleon to return to France."

"To 'return'! Is he no longer there then?"

"He was sent to the Island of Elba in 1814. How long have you been here, if you do not know that?"

"Since 1811."

"Four years longer than I," cried Dantes.

"Do not work any more," said the voice: "Only tell me how high up you are."

"In a line with the floor of my room."

"How is the opening hidden?"

"By my bed."

"Onto what does your room open?"

"Onto a way leading into the courtyard."

"Ah! All is lost!"

"Oh, what is it?" cried Dantes.

"I was wrong. A mistake of a line in the plan has put me fifteen feet out. I mistook the wall where you are working for the outside wall of the prison."

"Then you were close to the sea?"

"That was what I had hoped."

"And, if you had made your way through?"

"I should have thrown myself into the sea and tried to swim to one of the islands near here—the Island of Daume or the Island of Tiboulen, and then I should be safe."

"Can you swim so far?"

"God would have given me strength. But now all is lost."

"All?"

"Yes. Stop up the opening of the hole that you have made. Do it carefully. Do not work any more. Wait till you hear from me."

"Tell me at least who you are," cried Edmond.

"I am—I am Number 27."

"You do not trust me then?"

Edmond thought that he heard a laugh from the unknown.

"Oh," cried Dantes, believing that the man meant to have no more to do with him, "I promise to you in the name of Christ Jesus who died for us that I will not say one word to the keepers. But, I pray you, do not leave me alone. If you do, I shall throw myself against the wall and kill myself, and my death will be caused by you."

"How old are you? Your voice is the voice of a young man."

"I was just twenty when I was brought here."

"So young. At that age he cannot be—"

"Oh no, no, no!" cried Dantes. "I say again, rather than be untrue to you, they shall cut me to pieces!"

"You have done well to speak to me and pray to me, for I was about to form another plan and leave you. But your age leads me to trust you. I will not forget you. Expect me."

"When?"

"I must think what chances we have got."

"But you will not leave me; you will come to me, or you will let me come to you. We will escape; or, if we cannot escape, we will talk, I of those whom I love, and you of those whom you love. You must love someone."

"No. I am alone in the world."

"Then you will love me. If you are young, I will be your friend. If you are old, I will be as your son."

"It is well," said the voice. "Tomorrow."

It was clear from the way in which these words were said that the speaker now trusted Dantes. Edmond went back to his room. He closed the opening in the wall, carefully hid the bits which he had cut out, and put back the bed in its place. He then gave himself up to his happiness. He would no longer be alone. He was perhaps going to escape; at least he would have a friend to talk to. All day he walked up and down. Sometimes a fear came to him that the keeper might move his bed and find the place where he had worked. If that happened, he would kill the man.

The keeper came in the evening. Dantes was on his bed: it seemed to him that he could better guard the opening in the wall thus. Perhaps there was a strange look in his eyes, for the man said:

"Are you going mad again?"

Dantes did not answer: he dared not trust his voice. The keeper looked grave and went away.

Night came. Dantes hoped that his neighbour would come during the night; but he did not.

The next morning, just as he moved his bed away from the wall, he heard a sound. He got down on his knees.

"Is it you?" said he. "I am here."

"Is your keeper gone?"

"Yes; he will not return until the evening. We have twelve hours before us."

"I can work then," said the voice.

"Yes, yes, this minute, I pray you."

Soon after that the floor on which Dantes' two hands were resting fell away. He threw himself back while a mass of stones and earth went down into the opening. Then, from the bottom of the hole (he could not tell how deep it was), there appeared the arms and head of a man. He climbed up into the room.