Chapter 21

CHAPTER 21
The Island of Tiboulen.

Dantes, although stunned and almost suffocated, had
sufficient presence of mind to hold his breath, and as his
right hand (prepared as he was for every chance) held his
knife open, he rapidly ripped up the sack, extricated his
arm, and then his body; but in spite of all his efforts to
free himself from the shot, he felt it dragging him down
still lower. He then bent his body, and by a desperate
effort severed the cord that bound his legs, at the moment
when it seemed as if he were actually strangled. With a
mighty leap he rose to the surface of the sea, while the
shot dragged down to the depths the sack that had so nearly
become his shroud.

Dantes waited only to get breath, and then dived, in order
to avoid being seen. When he arose a second time, he was
fifty paces from where he had first sunk. He saw overhead a
black and tempestuous sky, across which the wind was driving
clouds that occasionally suffered a twinkling star to
appear; before him was the vast expanse of waters, sombre
and terrible, whose waves foamed and roared as if before the
approach of a storm. Behind him, blacker than the sea,
blacker than the sky, rose phantom-like the vast stone
structure, whose projecting crags seemed like arms extended
to seize their prey, and on the highest rock was a torch
lighting two figures. He fancied that these two forms were
looking at the sea; doubtless these strange grave-diggers
had heard his cry. Dantes dived again, and remained a long
time beneath the water. This was an easy feat to him, for he
usually attracted a crowd of spectators in the bay before
the lighthouse at Marseilles when he swam there, and was
unanimously declared to be the best swimmer in the port.
When he came up again the light had disappeared.

He must now get his bearings. Ratonneau and Pomegue are the
nearest islands of all those that surround the Chateau d'If,
but Ratonneau and Pomegue are inhabited, as is also the
islet of Daume, Tiboulen and Lemaire were therefore the
safest for Dantes' venture. The islands of Tiboulen and
Lemaire are a league from the Chateau d'If; Dantes,
nevertheless, determined to make for them. But how could he
find his way in the darkness of the night? At this moment he
saw the light of Planier, gleaming in front of him like a
star. By leaving this light on the right, he kept the Island
of Tiboulen a little on the left; by turning to the left,
therefore, he would find it. But, as we have said, it was at
least a league from the Chateau d'If to this island. Often
in prison Faria had said to him, when he saw him idle and
inactive, "Dantes, you must not give way to this
listlessness; you will be drowned if you seek to