“Ah, if there were no sentinel!”
“There shall not be one a minute longer than you please,” said Dantès, who had followed the working of his thoughts as accurately as though his brain were enclosed in crystal so clear as to display its minutest operations.
“I have already told you,” answered the abbé, “that I loathe the idea of shedding blood.”
“And yet the murder, if you choose to call it so, would be simply a measure of self-preservation.”
“No matter! I could never agree to it.”
“Still, you have thought of it?”
“Incessantly, alas!” cried the abbé.
“And you have discovered a means of regaining our freedom, have you not?” asked Dantès eagerly.
“I have; if it were only possible to place a deaf and blind sentinel in the gallery beyond us.”
“He shall be both blind and deaf,” replied the young man, with an air of determination that made his companion shudder.
“No, no,” cried the abbé; “impossible!”
Dantès endeavored to renew the subject; the abbé shook his head in token of disapproval, and refused to make any further response. Three months passed away.
“Are you strong?” the abbé asked one day of Dantès. The young man, in reply, took up the chisel, bent it into the form of a horseshoe, and then as readily straightened it.
“And will you engage not to do any harm to the sentry, except as a last resort?”
“I promise on my honor.”
“Then,” said the abbé, “we may hope to put our design into execution.”