THE ESCAPE
The years passed by. They could no longer think of escaping, for Faria was too weak and ill. The old man again urged Dante to go alone, but he refused. If they could not escape together, there would be no escape at all.
One night, while they were talking together in Faria's cell, the old priest had another attack. He knew that this time he would die. He beckoned Dante to kneel beside him. Then he raised himself with a final effort.
' Monte Cristo,' he gasped. 'Forget not Monte Cristo! Goodbye, Edmond.'
His breathing stopped and he fell back on to his bed.
Dante sadly crept back through the tunnel to his own cell, and waited for the jailer to arrive with his morning food. As soon as it had been placed on the floor of his cell, he went back along the tunnel to find out what was happening in Faria's cell. He knelt outside with his ear to the wall. He heard the jailer open the door and then utter a loud cry. He must have seen the old man's body lying there. The jailer rushed away and returned later with the Governor of the prison. There was a tramp of feet as the Governor entered with several guards.
The Governor told the guards to sew up the body in a sack, and to take it away in the evening for burial. After that, Dante heard the guards lifting up the body. They must be putting it into the sack. They stayed a little longer to sew up the sack, and left the cell, banging the door behind them.
As soon as he was sure that the guards would not come back, Dante opened the tunnel and crawled into Faria's cell. There he saw the sack containing the old man's body, lying on the bed. It had been sewn up ready for the guards to collect in the evening.
Dante was very unhappy and lonely. There was now no one to talk to, nobody to care about him. He felt that he had lost everything worth living for. He hoped he would soon die. That would be the only way to get out of the prison.
'Yes,' he said to himself, ' I expect I shall leave these dungeons in the same way as poor Faria --- tied up in a sack.'
As he said these words, he suddenly stood still. He had an idea. Without giving himself time for second thoughts, he went to the hiding place in Faria's cell. He took out the old man's knife, his needle and some of his thread. Quickly he opened the sack, removed the body and dragged it along the tunnel to his own cell. He put it on his bed and covered it with his sheet. He wound around the Abbe Faria's head the piece of cloth which he always wore round his own head at night. Then he turned the body with its face to the wall so that, when the guard came in at night, he would think it was Dante lying there asleep. He entered the tunnel once more, closing the stone slab behind him. Back in Faria's cell, he closed the entrance to the tunnel at that end also.
Now he crawled into the sack, holding the knife and needle and thread in his hands. He lay down on Faria's bed and sewed himself into the sack from the inside. All that he had to do now was to lie still and wait for the night to come. The guards would take him away, instead of Faria.
If anything should go wrong---if he were discovered, he would stab the guards with his knife and try to escape by running away. But, if all went well, he would be buried in the ground. He would cut himself from his sack and burrow his way through the loose earth on top of him. He would then jump into the sea and swim away.
So he waited for the night to come and for the guards to take the 'body' away.
The time came for the food to be brought to the prisoners. Would the jailer find that it was not Dante who lay on the bed in his cell? He waited in fear and trembling. Would his trick be discovered? But luck was with him. There were no cries of alarm.
When at last the guards came to take 'Faria's body' away, Dante held himself as stiff as he could, so that he would seem like a dead man.
Two guards picked him up and put him on a stretcher, while a third held a light by the doorway. He felt himself carried up and out of the dungeons. He could feel the cool night air around his body and could hear the scream of a night owl overhead. He knew that he must now be somewhere outside the prison.
When he had been placed upon the ground, he heard one of the guards say ' It is time to tie the knot.'
Dante wondered what this 'knot' could be. He heard something heavy placed on the ground beside him. Now a cord was being fastened tightly around his feet.
He was picked up by the head and the feet and swung to and fro.
' One, two, three and away ', shouted the guards.
At the same moment, Dante felt himself being flung into space. He was falling, falling rapidly downwards. Now he felt a tug on his feet and a heavy weight upon them which made him fall faster and faster. Suddenly he crashed into icy cold water. Now he was under the water and still going downwards.
So he was not being buried in the ground after all!
Dante had been flung into the sea with a thirty-six pound cannon ball tied to his feet.
The sea was the burial ground of the Chateau d'If.
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