ons could do
to his enemies.

The abbe did not know the Island of Monte Cristo; but Dantes knew
it, and had often passed it, situated twenty-five miles from Pianosa,
between Corsica and the Island of Elba, and had once touched there. This
island was, always had been, and still is, completely deserted. It is a
rock of almost conical form, which looks as though it had been thrust
up by volcanic force from the depth to the surface of the ocean. Dantes
drew a plan of the island for Faria, and Faria gave Dantes advice as to
the means he should employ to recover the treasure. But Dantes was far
from being as enthusiastic and confident as the old man. It was past a
question now that Faria was not a lunatic, and the way in which he had
achieved the discovery, which had given rise to the suspicion of his
madness, increased Edmond's admiration of him; but at the same time
Dantes could not believe that the deposit, supposing it had ever
existed, still existed; and though he considered the treasure as by no
means chimerical, he yet believed it was no longer there.

However, as if fate resolved on depriving the prisoners of their last
chance, and making them understand that they were condemned to perpetual
imprisonment, a new misfortune befell them; the gallery on the sea
side, which had long been in ruins, was rebuilt. They had repaired it
completely, and stopped up with vast masses of stone the hole Dantes had
partly filled in. But for this precaution, which, it will be remembered,
the abbe had made to Edmond, the misfortune would have been still
greater, for their attempt to escape would have been detected, and they
would undoubtedly have been separated. Thus a new, a stronger, and more
inexorable barrier was interposed to cut off the realization of their
hopes.

"You see," said the young man, with an air of sorrowful resignation, to
Faria, "that God deems it right to take from me any claim to merit for
what you call my devotion to you. I have promised to remain forever with
you, and now I could not break my promise if I would. The treasure will
be no more mine than yours, and neither of us will quit this prison. But
my real treasure is not that, my dear friend, which awaits me beneath
the sombre rocks of Monte Cristo, it is your presence, our living
together five or six hours a day, in spite of our jailers; it is the
rays of intelligence you have elicited from my brain, the languages you
have implanted in my memory, and which