The Count of Monte Cristo

Back Forward Menu

feeding at a little distance. This would have been a favorable occasion
to secure his dinner; but Dantes feared lest the report of his gun
should attract attention.

He thought a moment, cut a branch of a resinous tree, lighted it at the
fire at which the smugglers had prepared their breakfast, and descended
with this torch. He wished to see everything. He approached the hole he
had dug, and now, with the aid of the torch, saw that his pickaxe had in
reality struck against iron and wood. He planted his torch in the ground
and resumed his labor. In an instant a space three feet long by two feet
broad was cleared, and Dantes could see an oaken coffer, bound with cut
steel; in the middle of the lid he saw engraved on a silver plate, which
was still untarnished, the arms of the Spada family--viz., a sword,
pale, on an oval shield, like all the Italian armorial bearings, and
surmounted by a cardinal's hat; Dantes easily recognized them, Faria had
so often drawn them for him. There was no longer any doubt: the treasure
was there--no one would have been at such pains to conceal an empty