Chapter 20 - Page 2

it
from thee? Since none but the dead pass freely from this
dungeon, let me take the place of the dead!" Without giving
himself time to reconsider his decision, and, indeed, that
he might not allow his thoughts to be distracted from his
desperate resolution, he bent over the appalling shroud,
opened it with the knife which Faria had made, drew the
corpse from the sack, and bore it along the tunnel to his
own chamber, laid it on his couch, tied around its head the
rag he wore at night around his own, covered it with his
counterpane, once again kissed the ice-cold brow, and tried
vainly to close the resisting eyes, which glared horribly,
turned the head towards the wall, so that the jailer might,
when he brought the evening meal, believe that he was
asleep, as was his frequent custom; entered the tunnel
again, drew the bed against the wall, returned to the other
cell, took from the hiding-place the needle and thread,
flung off his rags, that they might feel only naked flesh
beneath the coarse canvas, and getting inside the sack,
placed himself in the posture in which the dead body had
been laid, and sewed up the mouth of the sack from the
inside.

He would have been discovered by the beating of his heart,
if by any mischance the jailers had entered at that moment.
Dantes might have waited until the evening visit was over,
but he was afraid that the governor would change his mind,
and order the dead body to be removed earlier. In that case
his last hope would have been destroyed. Now his plans were
fully made, and this is what he intended to do. If while he
was being carried out the grave-diggers should discover that
they were bearing a live instead of a dead body, Dantes did
not intend to give them time to recognize him, but with a
sudden cut of the knife, he meant to open the sack from top
to bottom, and, profiting by their alarm, escape; if they
tried to catch him, he would use his knife to better
purpose.

If they took him to the cemetery and laid him in a grave, he
would allow himself to be covered with earth, and then, as
it was night, the grave-diggers could scarcely have turned
their backs before he would have worked his way through the
yielding soil and escaped. He hoped that the weight of earth
would not be so great that he could not overcome it. If he
was detected in this and the earth proved too heavy, he
would be stifled, and then -- so much the better, all would
be over. Dantes had not eaten since the preceding evening,
but he had not thought of hunger, nor did he think of it
now. His situation was too precarious to allow him even time
to reflect on any thought but one.

The first risk that Dantes ran was, that the jailer, when he