most suffocated, had sufficient presence
of mind to hold his breath, and as his right hand (prepared as he was
for every chance) held his knife open, he rapidly ripped up the sack,
extricated his arm, and then his body; but in spite of all his efforts
to free himself from the shot, he felt it dragging him down still lower.
He then bent his body, and by a desperate effort severed the cord that
bound his legs, at the moment when it seemed as if he were actually
strangled. With a mighty leap he rose to the surface of the sea, while
the shot dragged down to the depths the sack that had so nearly become
his shroud.

Dantes waited only to get breath, and then dived, in order to avoid
being seen. When he arose a second time, he was fifty paces from where
he had first sunk. He saw overhead a black and tempestuous sky, across
which the wind was driving clouds that occasionally suffered a twinkling
star to appear; before him was the vast expanse of waters, sombre and
terrible, whose waves foamed and roared as if before the approach of
a storm. Behind him, blacker than the sea, blacker than the sky, rose
phantom-like the vast stone structure, whose projecting crags seemed
like arms extended to seize their prey, and on the highest rock was a
torch lighting two figures. He fancied that these two forms were looking
at the sea; doubtless these strange grave-diggers had heard his cry.
Dantes dived again, and remained a long time beneath the water. This was
an easy feat to him, for he usually attracted a crowd of spectators in
the bay before the lighthouse at Marseilles when he swam there, and was
unanimously declared to be the best swimmer in the port. When he came up
again the light had disappeared.

He must now get his bearings. Ratonneau and Pomegue are the nearest
islands of all those that surround the Chateau d'If, but Ratonneau
and Pomegue are inhabited, as is also the islet of Daume. Tiboulen and
Lemaire were therefore the safest for Dantes' venture. The islands
of Tiboulen and Lemaire are a league from the Chateau d'If; Dantes,
nevertheless, determined to make for them. But how could he find his
way in the darkness of the night? At this moment he saw the light of
Planier, gleaming in front of him like a star. By leaving this light
on the right, he kept the Island of Tiboulen a little on the left; by
turning to the left, therefore, he would find it. But, as we have said,
it was at least a league from the Chateau d'If to this is