Stories to remember - Chapter 15

THE SMUGGLERS

Dante sat up.

'Who are you?' asked the captain of the ship, 'and why were you floating in the sea on a piece of wreckage?'

'I am a Maltese sailor,' answered Dante, 'My ship was wrecked in the storm last night and all my ship-mates were drowned. I would also have been drowned, but your sailors saved me.'

At this moment he looked back towards Marseilles and saw a small white cloud appear above the Chateau d'If. Then the faint report of a gun was heard. The captain looked back.

'Hullo! What's the matter at the Chateau d'If?' he said.

'Oh, a prisoner must have escaped and they are firing the alarm gun,' said Dante calmly. He picked up a jar of wine which the sailors had placed by his side and began to drink from it. The captain looked closely at Dante with his long hair and matted beard, and wondered whether he could be the escaped prisoner. Dante was not even looking at the Chateau d'If. He was drinking his wine.

'Well, if he is the escaped prisoner,' thought the captain to himself, 'so much the better.'

His ship was no ordinary sailing ship. It was a smugglers' ship. The captain was always afraid that any stranger coming on board might be a customs officer sent to spy on him. If Dante was the escaped prisoner, he had nothing to worry about.

Being an experienced sailor, Dante soon made himself useful on the Young Amelia, which was the name of the ship which had rescued him. Before long the captain was very pleased that he had picked him up.

The very first day on the ship, Dante made friends with a young sailor named Jacopo.

'What day of the month is it?' said Edmond to Jacopo.

'The 28th of February.'

'In what year?'

'In what year! Why do you ask me in what year?' said Jacopo.

'I was so frightened in the storm last night,' said Dante, 'that I seem to have lost my memory. What year is it?'

'Why,' said Jacopo, 'it is the year 1829!'

Dante was amazed. He had been a prisoner for exactly fourteen years. When he went into the Chateau d'If, he was nineteen years old. Now he was thirty-three.

Jacopo took Dante below the deck and showed him the place where he would sleep. Dante looked at his face in a mirror. He found that his appearance had completely changed. When he went into prison, he had been a young man with a round and happy face. Now his face was thin and long, with a stern mouth. His eyes were deep, with a burning light in them. His voice had a different tone and his complexion, which had been brown from the sun, now was deathly pale from his years of living in a dark cell. Because he had been so long in the darkness, he could see things at night which other people could not see. He now had the sight of a wolf or a hyena. Also, because he had gained so much learning from the Abbe Faria, he had a very intelligent look about him. Dante smiled. Even his best friend would not recognise him now. He could hardly recognise himself.

Dante spent many months on this smuggling ship, sailing from ports in Italy to other ports all over the Mediterranean sea. Whenever they landed their cargo at night on some lonely coast and the captain received his money for it, a good share was handed out to the crew. Dante saved his money and hoped that some day he would have enough to buy a small boat. When he had a boat, he would sail to the island of Monte Cristo to look for Faria's 'treasure'.

One day the captain of the Young Amelia arranged to take over some cargo from another smuggling ship coming from Turkey. The Turkish ship would have to land the goods in a lonely place and the Young Amelia would go there to pick them up. The captain of the Turkish ship suggested landing the cargo on the island of Monte Cristo, which was very lonely and used only by smugglers. The captain of the Young Amelia agreed.

When Dante heard of it, he could hardly wait for the Young Amelia to set sail. At last he would be able to see the island of Monte Cristo, and perhaps he would have a chance to find out whether Faria's 'treasure' really existed.

Stories to remember - Chapter 14

THE RESCUE

Dante held his breath. He must act quickly or die. With his knife he ripped open the sack and tried to get his feet free from the heavy ball which was pulling him down. He struggled, but he was still sinking. His lungs seemed to be bursting. Gathering all his strength, he bent double and cut the cord around his legs. The cannon ball sank slowly to the bottom of the sea pulling with it the sack which had nearly become his shroud. Dante shot upwards. As soon as he reached the surface he gulped air into his lungs. Then he dived under the water again so that he would not be seen.

He swam about fifty yards under the water and came up again. He looked up at the Chateau d'If and could just see the guards looking down at the spot in the sea where they had thrown him. He dived under the water again and swam farther away.

When he came up the next time, he was so far away that nobody could have seen him. Now he swam on the surface. He swam on and on, and the terrible prison disappeared in the darkness. After swimming for several hours, he came to a small rocky island. No one appeared to live there, for it was quite barren.

Dante was tired out. He pulled himself out of the water and lay down in the shelter of a rock to go to sleep.

Not long afterwards, he was awakened by the noise of thunder. A storm was gathering. Soon he was being lashed by wind and rain. He crawled as far as possible under his sheltering rock, but it was not much protection.

Suddenly a very bright flash of lightning lit up his little island and the sea around it. He caught a glimpse of a fishing boat being driven rapidly towards the island. A minute later there was a cracking noise and the boat was smashed to pieces on the rocks. There were cries from the sailors and, in another flash of lightning, he saw their heads bobbing about in the frothy waters.

Dante left his shelter and ran to the water's edge, hoping to save some of the drowning men. But all he could see was the black swirling water. The fishing boat and all the men on it had disappeared. Dante sadly returned to the shelter of his rock.

When the sun came up the next morning, he went again to the scene of the wreck. The sea was dotted with broken pieces of wood and on a rock near by lay a red fisherman's cap.

Dante looked across the sea. In the distance he could now see the outline of the Chateau d'If. Very soon, they would find out that he had escaped and the alarm would be sounded. The guards would be sent all over the fortress to look for him; boats would go to the nearby islands to search for him and bring him back. It would not be long before he was found.

He looked around him. There was no place to hide. He looked again out to sea, towards the Chateau d'If. As he watched, he saw a sailing ship come out of the harbour of Marseilles. It sailed on, past the Chateau d'If and towards the island on which Dante stood. He could see that it would soon pass by on its way to the open sea.

If he could get on that ship, it would take him far away from the Chateau d'If. He could reach another country from which he could not be brought back to France---back again to prison. He decided to swim out to the ship and to pretend that he was one of the fishermen wrecked in the storm. All the sailors had been drowned, so no one could contradict him.

He quickly seized the fisherman's cap and put it on his head. He jumped into the sea, taking with him a large piece of wooden wreckage from the fishing boat. The wood helped to support him in the water. He needed its help, for he was still tired from his hours of swimming, and the restless night in the storm. He made his way slowly through the water to the place where he knew the sailing ship would pass.

Now the ship was coming closer. When it was only about a hundred yards away, Dante called out for help. The sailors heard him. They lowered a boat and rowed towards him. As they pulled him out of the water, Dante collapsed in their arms.

When he recovered consciousness, he found himself lying on the deck of the sailing ship looking up into the faces of the sailors who had rescued him.

Stories to remember - Chapter 13

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.

Stories to remember - Chapter 12

FARIA'S TREASURE

Dante had heard the guards of the Chateau d'If say that Faria was mad because he talked about a 'fortune' which he did not have. When the old man again began to speak of his 'treasure', Dante felt sure that he was once more losing his mind.

'You are ill, my friend,' he said. 'Stay quiet and rest awhile.'

Faria looked at him.

'You think I am mad, but the treasure is there, Dante. Only hear me and afterwards you can decide if I speak the truth.'

Then he  told Dante his story.

Cardinal Spada, whose secretary Faria had been, was the last remaining member of a very old Roman family.

At the end of the fifteenth century this family had been forced to hide their wealth, so that it would not fall into the hands of the powerful Caesar Borgia.

The head of the Spada family at that time was named Caesar Spada. He hid the family fortune so well that, after he was poisoned by Caesar Borgia, not only could his murderer not find it, but neither could his family. Caesar Spada did not have time before his death to let his family know where the treasure was hidden. He was thought to have made a will, but this could not be found either.

Cardinal Spada, the last member of the Spada family, spent much of his lifetime trying to find a clue to the whereabouts of the fortune, but he did not succeed. When he died, having no heirs, he left his papers to his secretary, the Abbe Faria.

One day when he was looking through these, Faria picked up a sheet of paper with no writing on it. It was getting dark, so he used the paper to light a candle. As he put it in the fire, he suddenly saw yellowish letters appearing on it. Quickly he put out the flames, realising that something was written there in invisible ink. The letters only showed when the paper was heated.

He managed to save most of the paper and then he warmed it to make the rest of the writing appear. Where the paper had been burnt, some of the words were missing. This is what he saw.

This 25th day of April, 1498, I was inv......

dinner with the great Caesar B......

that he will poison me in order to......

my wealth. I therefore declare to my neph......

Spada, that I have buried it in the c......

island of  Monte Cristo. It is worth........

two million Roman crowns.......

       raising the twentieth rock from........

to the east in a ri......

in the farthest angle of the sec......

the caves. I bequeath every........

as my sole heir.

25th April, 1498                       Cae.....

Faria could see that this was the last will and testament of Caesar Spada, which the Spada family had been seeking for 300 years. He thought carefully and, because he was a clever man, he was able to fill in the missing portion where the paper had been burnt. He wrote it down on another piece of paper like this.

ited to

orgia. I am afraid

lay hands on

ew Guido

aves on the

about

and it can be found by

the small creek

ght line. The treasure is

and opening in 

thing to my nephew

sar Spada.

Faria had learnt it all by heart and he now wrote everything again on two pieces of paper for Dante to read. This is what Dante saw when he put the two pieces together.

This 25th day of April 1498, I was invited to 

dinner with the great Caesar Borgia. I am afraid 

that he will poison me in order to lay hands on 

my wealth. I therefore declare to my nephew Guido 

Spada, that I have buried it in the caves on the 

island of Monte Cristo. It is worth about 

two million Roman crowns and it can be found by

raising the twentieth rock from the small creek 

to the east in a right line. The treasure is 

in the farthest angle in the second opening in 

the caves. I bequeath everything to my nephew 

as my sole heir.

25th April 1498                           Caesar Spada

Before Faria could go in search of tthe treasure, he was arrested. So he had not been able to see whether the wealth of the Spadas was still lying in the hiding place or not.

Now Faria told Dante that if they ever escaped from the prison together they would share the Spada fortune between them.

'But this treasure belongs to you, my dear friend,' said Dante. 'I am no relative of yours.'

'You are my son, Edmond. That is how I think of you now that we have been together so long,' said the old priest.

The young man threw himself at the feet of Faria and wept. 

 

 

Stories to remember - Chapter 11

YEARS OF HARD WORK

When he saw how his so-called friends had tricked him, Dante vowed to take revenge on them all.

But the priest shook his head sadly.

'It is wrong to think of revenge,' he said, 'I am sorry now that I helped you.'

The young man smiled bitterly.

'Let's talk of other things,' he said.

In the days that followed Faria did talk of many other things. Dante became interested. He wanted to learn. So, every day, Faria gave him lessons in mathematics, science, history, foreign languages, literature and medicine.

Dante already knew some Italian, and by the end of six months, he also began to speak Spanish, English and German.

After a year Dante knew so much on every subject, that no one would have thought that he was just a simple sailor. He was very quick to learn and the priest was a very clever teacher. Faria said that by the end of another year, Dante would know as much as he knew.

So time went on. About two years after their first meeting, the prisoners began to think again about escaping from the Chateau d'If. They planned to make a new tunnel, which would lead from the tunnel connecting their cells. It would go under a gallery where a sentry was on guard. Here they would make a pit. The paving covering the pit would give way when the sentry stepped upon it and he would fall into the tunnel. They would overpower the sentry and escape by lowering Faria's cotton ladder through a window down to the sea.

Although they were now working hard on the new tunnel, Faria continued to teach Dante. The young man became as learned as his friend. By talking every day to this gentle priest, Dante also lost his rough seaman's ways. He became polite, elegant and good-mannered  in the way that only those with the highest and best education usually become.

After almost another two years their tunneling came to a sudden end. The Abbe Faria fell ill. He had a sudden attack and became almost helpless. He begged Dante to continue the work alone and to escape by himself, but the young man would not think of leaving his old friend. He was determined to stay with him until he was well again. If they could not escape together, then he did not wish to escape at all. So there was no more tunneling.

Faria was surprised by the young man's devotion and friendship. He began to look upon him as his son. And so he decided to share with him the secret of his 'fortune'.

Stories to remember - Chapter 10

FARIA SOLVES THE MYSTERY

Dante wondered whether a person so wise and clever as the Abbe Faria could perhaps help him to clear up the mystery of his own misfortunes.

He told the priest the story of his wedding day. He told him how the soldiers had arrested him and how he had been locked up inn the Chateau d'If after the Assistant State Prosecutor had promised to set him free. He asked if Faria could understand what had happened.

'Why am I a prisoner?' he asked. 'I am innocent.'

When Dante had finished speaking, Faria thought carefully. Then he said, 'If you wish to discover the person behind a bad action, you must first try to find out who would benefit by it. Now, in your case, who would profit by your disappearance?'

'No one,' replied Dante 'I was not important.'

'Everyone is of some importance to somebody else,' said Faria. 'You say that you were about to be made captain of the Pharaon, and were to be married to a young and lovely girl. Could anyone have wanted to stop these two things from happening? Did anyone wish you not to become the captain of the Pharaon?'

'No, I think that the sailors would have liked it,' replied Dante. 'There was only one man who ever quarreled with me. That was Danglars, the supercargo.

'And if you had become captain, would you have kept this man on as supercargo?'

'No, for I often found that his accounts were full of mistakes.'

'Now we are getting somewhere,' said Faria. 'And when you landed on the island of Elba, you were given a letter to take to Paris. Did anyone see you bringing this letter back to the ship?'

'Anyone might have seen me,' replied Dante, 'for I had it in my hand.'

'Then it is quite clear to me,' said Faria, 'that Danglars must have seen you with this letter. He had something to do with the accusation which was sent to the State Prosecutor. You must have a very good heart and a trusting nature if you did not suspect him from the start.'

'Oh, what a villain he must be!' said Dante.

'Now,' continued Faria, 'what about your marriage to Mercedes? Was anyone interested in preventing that?'

'Well,' replied Dante, 'her cousin Fernand loved her, but he knew nothing of the things mentioned in the letter. I am sure now that only Danglars could have written it.'

'But did Danglars know Fernand?' asked the priest.

'No,.....yes, he did. Now I remember!'

'What?'

'I saw them both sitting together with my neighbour Caderousse, on the terrace at La Reserve. It was the day we arrived at Marseilles. I was walking with Mercedes and --- I never thought of it before, but there were pens and ink and paper on the table before them --- of course, that explains it all.'

'Are you satisfied?' asked Father Faria.

'Oh yes, now I understand it all,' replied Dante, 'but there is still something I would like to know. How have I been condemned to imprisonment without a trial?'

'That is a different matter,' said the priest. 'You told me that it was not the State Prosecutor who questioned you, but his assistant; a young man of about twenty-seven years. He was probably very ambitious. How did he treat you?'

'He was very kind to me.'

'But did he change his manner at all during the examination?'

'Yes, when he read the letter that I had to take from Elba to Paris, he seemed worried to think of the danger I was in.'

'The danger you were in? Are you sure that it was your misfortune he was worried about?' asked Faria.

'Why, yes,' said Dante, 'he proved that he wanted to help me by burning the letter.'

'Are you sure he burned it?'

'He did so before my eyes, saying that he was destroying the only proof against me.'

'That action was almost too kind to be natural. Do you think he could have had any interest himself in destroying the letter?'

'Well,' said Dante, 'he did make me promise never to speak of it to anyone, and on no account to mention the name of the person to whom it was addressed. I remember that name well. It was Noirtier.'

'Noirtier!' repeated Faria after him. 'Noirtier! I knew a French diplomat of that name in Italy. He had been a nobleman before the Revolution, and had changed his name. Do you remember the name of the Assistant State Prosecutor?'

'Yes, it was Villefort,' replied Dante.

Faria burst out laughing.

'No wonder that good man destroyed your letter and told you, for your own good, never to mention the name of Noirtier. Do you know who this Noirtier was? It was his own father. Noirtier de Villefort.'

 

  

Stories to remember - Chapter 9

 

THE TWO PRISONERS

After this first meeting the two prisoners made nightly visits to each other's cells, taking care to be back before the jailer came to bring their food. Dante learned that his fellow prisoner's name was the Abbe Faria. He was an Italian priest who had been a prisoner in the Chateau d'If since the year 1808, seven years longer than Dante.

He was a small man, aged not by years, but by the sorrow and misery in which he had lived. His hair was long and white and his face was marked by suffering. In spite of his white hair he had a long black beard which reached his waist. His eyes were dark and strong. He was dressed, like Dante, in torn and dirty rags.

Before his imprisonment Father Faria had been secretary to a Cardinal Spada in Rome. Soon after the Cardinal's death, he was arrested and accused of plotting against the state. That was why he was a prisoner in the Chateau d'If.

He had been placed among the mad prisoners in the dungeons because he was always talking about the ' great treasure' he possessed. He had even promised some of this treasure to the jailer if he would help him to escape from prison. But everyone knew that he had neither wealth nor possessions.

Father Faria was a very learned man. He spoke many languages and had a great knowledge of mathematics, science, medicine and literature. As well as making the tools which he used for tunneling, he had made pens and ink and paper. He made pens from fish bones and ink from soot, which he dissolved in a little wine which he managed to beg from his jailer. When he had no ink, he  even cut himself and used his blood to write with. He made paper from his shirts, specially treated with a liquid he had invented which made linen as smooth as parchment. With these materials he had written a book.

Besides all these things he had made needles and a knife from small bones, and an escape ladder from cotton unraveled from sheets.

'But where have you hidden all these things?' asked Dante.

'In an old fire place, behind the wall of my cell,' answered Faria. 'That is also where I found the soot for making my ink.'

He told Dante that he had hoped to use this ladder when his tunnel reached the outside of the fortress. He would lower it over walls or high rocks and could then escape by jumping into the sea. Then he would swim away.

But, alas! He was wrong. Instead of reaching the outside of the prison, his tunnel had led only to Dante's cell.