priest

“Are you not,” he asked, “the priest who here in the Château d’If is generally thought to be—ill?”

Faria had dug his way through fifty feet, Dantès would dig a hundred; Faria, at the age of fifty, had devoted three years to the task; he, who was but half as old, would sacrifice six; Faria, a priest and savant, had not shrunk from the idea of risking his life by trying to swim a distance of three miles to one of the islands—Daume, Rattonneau, or Lemaire; should a hardy sailor, an experienced diver, like himself, shrink from a similar task; should he, who had so often for mere amusement’s sake plunged to the bottom of the sea to fetch up the bright coral branch, hesitate to entertain the same project?

God will respect his profession, and not give the devil the wicked delight of sending him a priest.” A shout of laughter followed this brutal jest.

His rider was a priest, dressed in black, and wearing a three-cornered hat; and, despite of the ardent rays of a noonday sun, the pair came on with a fair degree of rapidity.