name?"

"The Abbe Faria."

"Oh, I recollect him perfectly," cried M. de Boville; "he was crazy."

"So they said."

"Oh, he was, decidedly."

"Very possibly; but what sort of madness was it?"

"He pretended to know of an immense treasure, and offered vast sums to
the government if they would liberate him."

"Poor devil!--and he is dead?"

"Yes, sir, five or six months ago--last February."

"You have a good memory, sir, to recollect dates so well."

"I recollect this, because the poor devil's death was accompanied by a
singular incident."

"May I ask what that was?" said the Englishman with an expression
of curiosity, which a close observer would have been astonished at
discovering in his phlegmatic countenance.

"Oh dear, yes, sir; the abbe's dungeon was forty or fifty feet distant
from that of one of Bonaparte's emissaries,--one of those who had
contributed the most to the return of the usurper in 1815,--a very
resolute and very dangerous man."

"Indeed!" said the Englishman.

"Yes," replied M. de Boville; "I myself had occasion to see this man
in 1816 or 1817, and we could only go into his dungeon with a file of
soldiers. That man made a deep impression on me; I shall never forget
his countenance!" The Englishman smiled imperceptibly.

"And you say, sir," he interposed, "that the two dungeons"--

"Were separated by a distance of fifty feet; but it appears that this
Edmond Dantes"--

"This dangerous man's name was"--

"Edmond Dantes. It appears, sir, that this Edmond Dantes had procured
tools, or made them, for they found a tunnel through which the prisoners
held communication with one another."

"This tunnel was dug, no doubt, with an intention of escape?"

"No doubt; but unfortunately for the prisoners, the Abbe Faria had an
attack of catalepsy, and died."

"That must have cut short the projects of escape."

"For the dead man, yes," replied M. de Boville, "but not for the
survivor; on the contrary, this Dantes saw a means of accelerating his
escape. He, no doubt, thought that prisoners who died in the Chateau
d'If were interred in an ordinary burial-ground, and he conveyed the
dead man into his own cell, took his place in the sack in which they had
sewed up the corpse, and awaited the moment of interment."

"It was a bold step, and one that showed some courage," remarked the
Englishman.

"As I have already told you, sir, he was a very dangerous man; and,
fortunately, by his own act dis