The Count of Monte Cristo

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give the devil the wicked delight of sending him a priest." A shout of
laughter followed this brutal jest. Meanwhile the operation of putting
the body in the sack was going on.

"This evening," said the governor, when the task was ended.

"At what hour?" inquired a turnkey.

"Why, about ten or eleven o'clock."

"Shall we watch by the corpse?"

"Of what use would it be? Shut the dungeon as if he were alive--that
is all." Then the steps retreated, and the voices died away in the
distance; the noise of the door, with its creaking hinges and bolts
ceased, and a silence more sombre than that of solitude ensued,--the
silence of death, which was all-pervasive, and struck its icy chill to