These few words were uttered with an accent that left no doubt of his
sincerity; Dantes rose, dispersed the fragments with the same precaution
as before, and pushed his bed back against the wall. He then gave
himself up to his happiness. He would no longer be alone. He was,
perhaps, about to regain his liberty; at the worst, he would have a
companion, and captivity that is shared is but half captivity. Plaints made
in common are almost prayers, and prayers where two or three are
gathered together invoke the mercy of heaven.

All day Dantes walked up and down his cell. He sat down occasionally
on his bed, pressing his hand on his heart. At the slightest noise he
bounded towards the door. Once or twice the thought crossed his mind
that he might be separated from this unknown, whom he loved already;
and then his mind was made up—when the jailer moved his bed and
stooped to examine the opening, he would kill him with his water jug.
He would be condemned to die, but he was about to die of grief and
despair when this miraculous noise recalled him to life.

The jailer came in the evening. Dantes was on his bed. It seemed to him
that thus he better guarded the unfinished opening. Doubtless there was a
strange expression in his eyes, for the jailer said, “Come, are you going
mad again?”

Dantes did not answer; he feared that the emotion of his voice would
betray him. The jailer went away shaking his head. Night came; Dantes
hoped that his neighbor would profit by the silence to address him, but
he was mistaken. The next morning, however, just as he removed his bed
from the wall, he heard three knocks; he threw himself on his knees.

“Is it you?” said he; “I am here.”

“Is your jailer gone?”

“Yes,” said Dantes; “he will not return until the evening; so that we have
twelve hours before us.”

“I can work, then?” said the voice.

“Oh, yes, yes; this instant, I entreat you.”

In a moment that part of the floor on which Dantes was resting his two
hands, as he knelt with his head in the opening, suddenly gave way; he
drew back smartly, while a mass of stones and earth disappeared in a
hole that opened beneath the aperture he himself had formed. Then from
the bottom of this passage, the depth of which it was impossible to
measure, he saw appear, first the head, then the shoulders, and lastly the
body of a man, who sprang lightly into his cell.

---

Seizing in his arms the friend so long and ardently desired, Dantes
almost carried him towards the window, in order to obtain a better view
of his features by the aid of the imperfect light that struggled through the
grating.

He was a man of small stature, with hair blanched rather by suffering
and sorrow than by age. He had a deep–set, penetrating eye, almost
buried beneath the thick gray eyebrow, and a long (and still black) beard
reaching down to his breast. His thin face, deeply furrowed by care, and
the bold outline of his strongly marked features, betokened a man more
accustomed to exercise his mental faculties than his physical strength.
Large drops of perspiration were now standing on his brow, while the
garments that hung about him were so ragged that one could only guess
at the pattern upon which they had originally been fashioned.

The stranger might have numbered sixty or sixty–five years; but a
certain briskness and appearance of vigor in his movements made it
probable that he was aged more from captivity than the course of time.
He received the enthusiastic greeting of his young acquaintance with
evident pleasure, as though his chilled affections were rekindled and
invigorated by his contact with one so warm and ardent. He thanked him
with grateful cordiality for his kindly welcome, although he must at that
moment have been suffering bitterly to find another dungeon where he
had fondly reckoned on discovering a means of regaining his liberty.

“Let us first see,” said he, “whether it is possible to remove the traces of
my entrance here—our future tranquillity depends upon our jailers being
entirely ignorant of it.” Advancing to the opening, he stooped and raised
the stone easily in spite of its weight; then, fitting it into its place, he
said,—

“You removed this stone very carelessly; but I suppose you had no tools
to aid you.”

“Why,” exclaimed Dantes, with astonishment, “do you possess any?”

“I made myself some; and with the exception of a file, I have all that are
necessary,—a chisel, pincers, and lever.”

“Oh, how I should like to see these products of your industry and
patience.”

“Well, in the first place, here is my chisel.” So saying, he displayed a
sharp strong blade, with a handle made of beechwood.

“And with what did you contrive to make that?” inquired Dantes.

“With one of the clamps of my bedstead; and this very tool has sufficed
me to hollow out the road by which I came hither, a distance of about
fifty feet.”

“Fifty feet!” responded Dantes, almost terrified.

“Do not speak so loud, young man—don’t speak so loud. It frequently
occurs in a state prison like this, that persons are stationed outside the
doors of the cells purposely to overhear the conversation of the
prisoners.”

“But they believe I am shut up alone here.”

“That makes no difference.”

“And you say that you dug your way a distance of fifty feet to get here?”

“I do; that is about the distance that separates your chamber from mine;
only, unfortunately, I did not curve aright; for want of the necessary
geometrical instruments to calculate my scale of proportion, instead of
taking an ellipsis of forty feet, I made it fifty. I expected, as I told you, to
reach the outer wall, pierce through it, and throw myself into the sea; I
have, however, kept along the corridor on which your chamber opens,
instead of going beneath it. My labor is all in vain, for I find that the
corridor looks into a courtyard filled with soldiers.”

“That’s true,” said Dantes; “but the corridor you speak of only bounds
one side of my cell; there are three others—do you know anything of
their situation?”