ne brought
to me every Sunday, and I assure you a better ink cannot be desired. For
very important notes, for which closer attention is required, I pricked
one of my fingers, and wrote with my own blood."

"And when," asked Dantes, "may I see all this?"

"Whenever you please," replied the abbe.

"Oh, then let it be directly!" exclaimed the young man.

"Follow me, then," said the abbe, as he re-entered the subterranean
passage, in which he soon disappeared, followed by Dantes.

Chapter 17. The Abbe's Chamber.

After having passed with tolerable ease through the subterranean
passage, which, however, did not admit of their holding themselves
erect, the two friends reached the further end of the corridor, into
which the abbe's cell opened; from that point the passage became much
narrower, and barely permitted one to creep through on hands and knees.
The floor of the abbe's cell was paved, and it had been by raising one
of the stones in the most obscure corner that Faria had to been able
to commence the laborious task of which Dantes had witnessed the
completion.

As he entered the chamber of his friend, Dantes cast around one eager
and searching glance in quest of the expected marvels, but nothing more
than common met his view.

"It is well," said the abbe; "we have some hours before us--it is now
just a quarter past twelve o'clock." Instinctively Dantes turned round
to observe by what watch or clock the abbe had been able so accurately
to specify the hour.

"Look at this ray of light which enters by my window," said the abbe,
"and then observe the lines traced on the wall. Well, by means of these
lines, which are in accordance with the double motion of the earth, and
the ellipse it describes round the sun, I am enabled to ascertain the
precise hour with more minuteness than if I possessed a watch; for that
might be broken or deranged in its movements, while the sun and earth
never vary in their appointed paths."

This last explanation was wholly lost upon Dantes, who had always
imagined, from seeing the sun rise from behind the mountains and set in
the Mediterranean, that it moved, and not the earth. A double movement
of the globe he inhabited, and of which he could feel nothing, appeared
to him perfectly impossible. Each word that fell from his companion's
lips seemed fraught with the mysteries of science, as worthy of digging
out as the gold and diamonds in the mines of Guzerat and Golconda,
which he cou