ntes' agony really began. His hand placed
upon his heart was unable to redress its throbbings, while, with the
other he wiped the perspiration from his temples. From time to time
chills ran through his whole body, and clutched his heart in a grasp
of ice. Then he thought he was going to die. Yet the hours passed on
without any unusual disturbance, and Dantes knew that he had escaped
the first peril. It was a good augury. At length, about the hour the
governor had appointed, footsteps were heard on the stairs. Edmond
felt that the moment had arrived, summoned up all his courage, held
his breath, and would have been happy if at the same time he could
have repressed the throbbing of his veins. The footsteps--they
were double--paused at the door--and Dantes guessed that the two
grave-diggers had come to seek him--this idea was soon converted
into certainty, when he heard the noise they made in putting down the
hand-bier. The door opened, and a dim light reached Dantes' eyes through
the coarse sack that covered him; he saw two shadows approach his bed,
a third remaining at the door with a torch in its hand. The two men,
approaching the ends of the bed, took the sack by its extremities.

"He's heavy though for an old and thin man," said one, as he raised the
head.

"They say every year adds half a pound to the weight of the bones," said
another, lifting the feet.

"Have you tied the knot?" inquired the first speaker.

"What would be the use of carrying so much more weight?" was the reply,
"I can do that when we get there."

"Yes, you're right," replied the companion.

"What's the knot for?" thought Dantes.

They deposited the supposed corpse on the bier. Edmond stiffened himself
in order to play the part of a dead man, and then the party, lighted by
the man with the torch, who went first, ascended the stairs. Suddenly he
felt the fresh and sharp night air, and Dantes knew that the mistral was
blowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were strangely
mingled. The bearers went on for twenty paces, then stopped, putting
the bier down on the ground. One of them went away, and Dantes heard his
shoes striking on the pavement.

"Where am I?" he asked himself.

"Really, he is by no means a light load!" said the other bearer, sitting
on the edge of the hand-barrow. Dantes' first impulse was to escape, but
fortunately he did not attempt it.

"Give us a light," said the other bearer, "or I shall never find what I