am looking for." The man with the torch complied, although not asked in
the most polite terms.

"What can he be looking for?" thought Edmond. "The spade, perhaps." An
exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the grave-digger had found
the object of his search. "Here it is at last," he said, "not without
some trouble though."

"Yes," was the answer, "but it has lost nothing by waiting."

As he said this, the man came towards Edmond, who heard a heavy metallic
substance laid down beside him, and at the same moment a cord was
fastened round his feet with sudden and painful violence.

"Well, have you tied the knot?" inquired the grave-digger, who was
looking on.

"Yes, and pretty tight too, I can tell you," was the answer.

"Move on, then." And the bier was lifted once more, and they proceeded.

They advanced fifty paces farther, and then stopped to open a door, then
went forward again. The noise of the waves dashing against the rocks on
which the chateau is built, reached Dantes' ear distinctly as they went
forward.

"Bad weather!" observed one of the bearers; "not a pleasant night for a
dip in the sea."

"Why, yes, the abbe runs a chance of being wet," said the other; and
then there was a burst of brutal laughter. Dantes did not comprehend the
jest, but his hair stood erect on his head.

"Well, here we are at last," said one of them. "A little farther--a
little farther," said the other. "You know very well that the last was
stopped on his way, dashed on the rocks, and the governor told us next
day that we were careless fellows."

They ascended five or six more steps, and then Dantes felt that they
took him, one by the head and the other by the heels, and swung him to
and fro. "One!" said the grave-diggers, "two! three!" And at the same
instant Dantes felt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird,
falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his blood curdle. Although
drawn downwards by the heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it
seemed to him as if the fall lasted for a century.

At last, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the
ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a
moment by his immersion beneath the waves.

Dantes had been flung into the sea, and was dragged into its depths by
a thirty-six pound shot tied to his feet. The sea is the cemetery of the
Chateau d'If.

Chapter 21. The Island of Tiboulen.

Dantes, although stunned and al