g
vessels.

"As for the ink," said Faria, "I told you how I managed to obtain
that--and I only just make it from time to time, as I require it."

"One thing still puzzles me," observed Dantes, "and that is how you
managed to do all this by daylight?"

"I worked at night also," replied Faria.

"Night!--why, for heaven's sake, are your eyes like cats', that you can
see to work in the dark?"

"Indeed they are not; but God has supplied man with the intelligence
that enables him to overcome the limitations of natural conditions. I
furnished myself with a light."

"You did? Pray tell me how."

"I separated the fat from the meat served to me, melted it, and so made
oil--here is my lamp." So saying, the abbe exhibited a sort of torch
very similar to those used in public illuminations.

"But light?"

"Here are two flints and a piece of burnt linen."

"And matches?"

"I pretended that I had a disorder of the skin, and asked for a little
sulphur, which was readily supplied." Dantes laid the different things
he had been looking at on the table, and stood with his head drooping
on his breast, as though overwhelmed by the perseverance and strength of
Faria's mind.

"You have not seen all yet," continued Faria, "for I did not think it
wise to trust all my treasures in the same hiding-place. Let us shut
this one up." They put the stone back in its place; the abbe sprinkled
a little dust over it to conceal the traces of its having been removed,
rubbed his foot well on it to make it assume the same appearance as the
other, and then, going towards his bed, he removed it from the spot it
stood in. Behind the head of the bed, and concealed by a stone fitting
in so closely as to defy all suspicion, was a hollow space, and in this
space a ladder of cords between twenty-five and thirty feet in length.
Dantes closely and eagerly examined it; he found it firm, solid, and
compact enough to bear any weight.

"Who supplied you with the materials for making this wonderful work?"

"I tore up several of my shirts, and ripped out the seams in the sheets
of my bed, during my three years' imprisonment at Fenestrelle; and when
I was removed to the Chateau d'If, I managed to bring the ravellings
with me, so that I have been able to finish my work here."

"And was it not discovered that your sheets were unhemmed?"

"Oh, no, for when I had taken out the thread I required, I hemmed the
edges over again."

"With what?"

"With this need