“Oh, here are two flints and a piece of burnt linen.”
“And matches?”
“I pretended that I had a disorder of the skin, and asked for a little sulphur, which was readily supplied.”
Dantès laid the different things he had been looking at on the table, and stood with his head drooping on his breast, as though overwhelmed by the perseverance and strength of Faria’s mind.
“You have not seen all yet,” continued Faria, “for I did not think it wise to trust all my treasures in the same hiding-place. Let us shut this one up.” They put the stone back in its place; the abbé sprinkled a little dust over it to conceal the traces of its having been removed, rubbed his foot well on it to make it assume the same appearance as the other, and then, going towards his bed, he removed it from the spot it stood in. Behind the head of the bed, and concealed by a stone fitting in so closely as to defy all suspicion, was a hollow space, and in this space a ladder of cords between twenty-five and thirty feet in length. Dantès closely and eagerly examined it; he found it firm, solid, and compact enough to bear any weight.
“Who supplied you with the materials for making this wonderful work?”
“I tore up several of my shirts, and ripped out the seams in the sheets of my bed, during my three years’ imprisonment at Fenestrelle; and when I was removed to the Château d’If, I managed to bring the ravellings with me, so that I have been able to finish my work here.”