if there
were no sentinel!"

"There shall not be one a minute longer than you please," said Dantes,
who had followed the working of his thoughts as accurately as though
his brain were enclosed in crystal so clear as to display its minutest
operations.

"I have already told you," answered the abbe, "that I loathe the idea of
shedding blood."

"And yet the murder, if you choose to call it so, would be simply a
measure of self-preservation."

"No matter! I could never agree to it."

"Still, you have thought of it?"

"Incessantly, alas!" cried the abbe.

"And you have discovered a means of regaining our freedom, have you
not?" asked Dantes eagerly.

"I have; if it were only possible to place a deaf and blind sentinel in
the gallery beyond us."

"He shall be both blind and deaf," replied the young man, with an air of
determination that made his companion shudder.

"No, no," cried the abbe; "impossible!" Dantes endeavored to renew the
subject; the abbe shook his head in token of disapproval, and refused to
make any further response. Three months passed away.

"Are you strong?" the abbe asked one day of Dantes. The young man, in
reply, took up the chisel, bent it into the form of a horseshoe, and
then as readily straightened it.

"And will you engage not to do any harm to the sentry, except as a last
resort?"

"I promise on my honor."

"Then," said the abbe, "we may hope to put our design into execution."

"And how long shall we be in accomplishing the necessary work?"

"At least a year."

"And shall we begin at once?"

"At once."

"We have lost a year to no purpose!" cried Dantes.

"Do you consider the last twelve months to have been wasted?" asked the
abbe.

"Forgive me!" cried Edmond, blushing deeply.

"Tut, tut!" answered the abbe, "man is but man after all, and you are
about the best specimen of the genus I have ever known. Come, let me
show you my plan." The abbe then showed Dantes the sketch he had made
for their escape. It consisted of a plan of his own cell and that of
Dantes, with the passage which united them. In this passage he proposed
to drive a level as they do in mines; this level would bring the two
prisoners immediately beneath the gallery where the sentry kept watch;
once there, a large excavation would be made, and one of the flag-stones
with which the gallery was paved be so completely loosened that at the
desired moment it would give way beneath the feet of the soldier, who,