him
the abbe showed him a paper, half-burnt, and rolled in a cylinder.

"This paper," said Faria, "is my treasure; and if I have not been
allowed to possess it, you will. Who knows if another attack may not
come, and all be finished?"

The abbe had been secretary to the last of the Counts of Spada, one of
the most powerful families of mediaeval Italy, and he, dying in poverty,
had left Faria an old breviary, which had been in the family since the
days of the Borgias. In this, by chance, Faria found a piece of yellowed
paper, on which, when put in the fire, writing began to appear. From the
remains of the paper he made out during the early days of his
imprisonment, that a Cardinal Spada, at the end of the fifteenth
century, fearing poisoning at the hands of Pope Alexander VI., had
buried in the Island of Monte Cristo, a rock between Corsica and Elba,
all his ingots, gold, money, and jewels, amounting then to nearly two
million Roman crowns.

"The last Count of Spada made me his heir," said the abbe. "The treasure
now amounts to nearly thirteen millions of money!"

The abbe remained paralysed, and had given up all hope of enjoying the
treasure himself; and presently another seizure took him, and one night
Dantes was alone with the corpse.

Next morning the preparations for burying the dead man were made, the
body being placed in a sack and left in the cell till the evening.
Dantes came into the cell again.

"Ah!" he muttered. "Since the dead leave this dungeon, let me assume the
place of the dead!"

Opening the sack, he took out the dead body of his friend, and dragged
it through the tunnel to his own cell. Placing it on his own bed, he
covered it with the rags he wore himself. Then he sewed himself in the
sack with one of the abbe's needles. In his hand he held the dead man's
knife, and with palpitating heart awaited events.

Slowly the hours dragged on, until at length he heard the heavy
footsteps of the gaolers descending to the cell. They lifted the sack,
and carried him on a bier through the castle passages, until they came
to a door, which was opened. On passing through this, the noise of the
waves was heard as they dashed on the rocks below.

Then Dantes felt that they took him by the head and by the heels, and
flung him into the sea, into whose depths he was dragged by a thirty-
six-pound shot tied to his feet. The sea is the cemetery of Chateau
d'If!

Although giddy, and almost suffocated, he had yet