The Count of Monte Cristo

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leaf by leaf, knew too well the value of time to waste it in replacing
this rock. I will go down."

Then he descended, a smile on his lips, and murmuring that last word of
human philosophy, "Perhaps!" But instead of the darkness, and the thick
and mephitic atmosphere he had expected to find, Dantes saw a dim and
bluish light, which, as well as the air, entered, not merely by the
aperture he had just formed, but by the interstices and crevices of
the rock which were visible from without, and through which he could
distinguish the blue sky and the waving branches of the evergreen oaks,
and the tendrils of the creepers that grew from the rocks. After having
stood a few minutes in the cavern, the atmosphere of which was rather
warm than damp, Dantes' eye, habituated as it was to darkness, could
pierce even to the remotest angles of the cavern, which was of granite
that sparkled like diamonds. "Alas," said Edmond, smiling, "these are
the treasures the cardinal has left; and the good abbe, seeing in a
dream these glittering walls, has indulged in fallacious hopes."