The Count of Monte Cristo

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uselessly the previous evening in attacking the stone instead of
removing the plaster that surrounded it.

The damp had rendered it friable, and Dantes was able to break it
off--in small morsels, it is true, but at the end of half an hour he had
scraped off a handful; a mathematician might have calculated that in
two years, supposing that the rock was not encountered, a passage twenty
feet long and two feet broad, might be formed.

The prisoner reproached himself with not having thus employed the hours
he had passed in vain hopes, prayer, and despondency. During the six
years that he had been imprisoned, what might he not have accomplished?

In three days he had succeeded, with the utmost precaution, in removing
the cement, and exposing the stone-work. The wall was built of rough
stones, among which, to give strength to the structure, blocks of hewn
stone were at intervals imbedded. It was one of these he had uncovered,