The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

vessel at anchor, break moorings, and bear him off into the centre
of the storm. He then recollected that he had not eaten or drunk for
four-and-twenty hours. He extended his hands, and drank greedily of the
rainwater that had lodged in a hollow of the rock.

As he rose, a flash of lightning, that seemed to rive the remotest
heights of heaven, illumined the darkness. By its light, between the
Island of Lemaire and Cape Croiselle, a quarter of a league distant,
Dantes saw a fishing-boat driven rapidly like a spectre before the power
of winds and waves. A second after, he saw it again, approaching with
frightful rapidity. Dantes cried at the top of his voice to warn them of
their danger, but they saw it themselves. Another flash showed him four
men clinging to the shattered mast and the rigging, while a fifth clung
to the broken rudder.

The men he beheld saw him undoubtedly, for their cries were carried to
his ears by the wind. Above the splintered mast a sail rent to tatters