nected with this prison besides the one
relating to the poisoning of Mirabeau?" asked the count; "are there any
traditions respecting these dismal abodes,--in which it is difficult to
believe men can ever have imprisoned their fellow-creatures?"

"Yes, sir; indeed, the jailer Antoine told me one connected with this
very dungeon."

Monte Cristo shuddered; Antoine had been his jailer. He had almost
forgotten his name and face, but at the mention of the name he recalled
his person as he used to see it, the face encircled by a beard, wearing
the brown jacket, the bunch of keys, the jingling of which he still
seemed to hear. The count turned around, and fancied he saw him in the
corridor, rendered still darker by the torch carried by the concierge.
"Would you like to hear the story, sir?"

"Yes; relate it," said Monte Cristo, pressing his hand to his heart to
still its violent beatings; he felt afraid of hearing his own history.

"This dungeon," said the concierge, "was, it appears, some time ago
occupied by a very dangerous prisoner, the more so since he was full of
industry. Another person was confined in the Chateau at the same time,
but he was not wicked, he was only a poor mad priest."

"Ah, indeed?--mad!" repeated Monte Cristo; "and what was his mania?"

"He offered millions to any one who would set him at liberty."

Monte Cristo raised his eyes, but he could not see the heavens; there
was a stone veil between him and the firmament. He thought that there
had been no less thick a veil before the eyes of those to whom Faria
offered the treasures. "Could the prisoners see each other?" he asked.

"Oh, no, sir, it was expressly forbidden; but they eluded the vigilance
of the guards, and made a passage from one dungeon to the other."

"And which of them made this passage?"

"Oh, it must have been the young man, certainly, for he was strong and
industrious, while the abbe was aged and weak; besides, his mind was too
vacillating to allow him to carry out an idea."

"Blind fools!" murmured the count.

"However, be that as it may, the young man made a tunnel, how or by
what means no one knows; but he made it, and there is the evidence yet
remaining of his work. Do you see it?" and the man held the torch to the
wall.

"Ah, yes; I see," said the count, in a voice hoarse from emotion.

"The result was that the two men communicated with one another; how long
they did so, nobody knows. One day the old man fell ill and