The Count of Monte Cristo

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superiority of Dantes over the crew and himself. He saw in the young man
his natural successor, and regretted that he had not a daughter, that
he might have bound Edmond to him by a more secure alliance. At seven
o'clock in the evening all was ready, and at ten minutes past seven they
doubled the lighthouse just as the beacon was kindled. The sea was calm,
and, with a fresh breeze from the south-east, they sailed beneath a
bright blue sky, in which God also lighted up in turn his beacon lights,
each of which is a world. Dantes told them that all hands might turn in,
and he would take the helm. When the Maltese (for so they called
Dantes) had said this, it was sufficient, and all went to their bunks
contentedly. This frequently happened. Dantes, cast from solitude into
the world, frequently experienced an imperious desire for solitude; and
what solitude is more complete, or more poetical, than that of a ship
floating in isolation on the sea during the obscurity of the night, in
the silence of immensity, and under the eye of heaven?

Now this solitude was peopled with his thoughts, the night lighted up by