, which showed that it
had been added since his confinement. The inspector could not contend
against this accusation; he simply wrote,--"Nothing to be done."

This visit had infused new vigor into Dantes; he had, till then,
forgotten the date; but now, with a fragment of plaster, he wrote the
date, 30th July, 1816, and made a mark every day, in order not to lose
his reckoning again. Days and weeks passed away, then months--Dantes
still waited; he at first expected to be freed in a fortnight. This
fortnight expired, he decided that the inspector would do nothing until
his return to Paris, and that he would not reach there until his circuit
was finished, he therefore fixed three months; three months passed
away, then six more. Finally ten months and a half had gone by and
no favorable change had taken place, and Dantes began to fancy the
inspector's visit but a dream, an illusion of the brain.

At the expiration of a year the governor was transferred; he had
obtained charge of the fortress at Ham. He took with him several of his
subordinates, and amongst them Dantes' jailer. A new governor arrived;
it would have been too tedious to acquire the names of the prisoners;
he learned their numbers instead. This horrible place contained fifty
cells; their inhabitants were designated by the numbers of their cell,
and the unhappy young man was no longer called Edmond Dantes--he was now
number 34.

Chapter 15. Number 34 and Number 27.

Dantes passed through all the stages of torture natural to prisoners in
suspense. He was sustained at first by that pride of conscious innocence
which is the sequence to hope; then he began to doubt his own innocence,
which justified in some measure the governor's belief in his mental
alienation; and then, relaxing his sentiment of pride, he addressed his
supplications, not to God, but to man. God is always the last resource.
Unfortunates, who ought to begin with God, do not have any hope in him
till they have exhausted all other means of deliverance.

Dantes asked to be removed from his present dungeon into another; for
a change, however disadvantageous, was still a change, and would afford
him some amusement. He entreated to be allowed to walk about, to have
fresh air, books, and writing materials. His requests were not granted,
but he went on asking all the same. He accustomed himself to speaking to
the new jailer, although the latter was, if possible, more taciturn
than the old one; but