The Count of Monte Cristo

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free of duties, and land it on the shores of Corsica, where certain
speculators undertook to forward the cargo to France. They sailed;
Edmond was again cleaving the azure sea which had been the first horizon
of his youth, and which he had so often dreamed of in prison. He left
Gorgone on his right and La Pianosa on his left, and went towards the
country of Paoli and Napoleon. The next morning going on deck, as he
always did at an early hour, the patron found Dantes leaning against
the bulwarks gazing with intense earnestness at a pile of granite rocks,
which the rising sun tinged with rosy light. It was the Island of Monte
Cristo. The Young Amelia left it three-quarters of a league to the
larboard, and kept on for Corsica.

Dantes thought, as they passed so closely to the island whose name was
so interesting to him, that he had only to leap into the sea and in
half an hour be at the promised land. But then what could he do without
instruments to discover his treasure, without arms to defend himself?
Besides, what would the sailors say? What would the patron think? He