The guide carried away the torch. The count had spoken correctly. Scarcely had a few seconds elapsed, ere he saw everything as distinctly as by daylight. Then he looked around him, and really recognized his dungeon.
“Yes,” he said, “there is the stone upon which I used to sit; there is the impression made by my shoulders on the wall; there is the mark of my blood made when one day I dashed my head against the wall. Oh, those figures, how well I remember them! I made them one day to calculate the age of my father, that I might know whether I should find him still living, and that of Mercédès, to know if I should find her still free. After finishing that calculation, I had a minute’s hope. I did not reckon upon hunger and infidelity!” and a bitter laugh escaped the count.
He saw in fancy the burial of his father, and the marriage of Mercédès. On the other side of the dungeon he perceived an inscription, the white letters of which were still visible on the green wall:
“‘Oh, God!’” he read, “‘preserve my memory!’”
“Oh, yes,” he cried, “that was my only prayer at last; I no longer begged for liberty, but memory; I dreaded to become mad and forgetful. Oh, God, thou hast preserved my memory; I thank thee, I thank thee!”
At this moment the light of the torch was reflected on the wall; the guide was coming; Monte Cristo went to meet him.
“Follow me, sir;” and without ascending the stairs the guide conducted him by a subterraneous passage to another entrance. There, again, Monte Cristo was assailed by a multitude of thoughts. The first thing that met his eye was the meridian, drawn by the abbé on the wall, by which he calculated the time; then he saw the remains of the bed on which the poor prisoner had died. The sight of this, instead of exciting the anguish experienced by the count in the dungeon, filled his heart with a soft and grateful sentiment, and tears fell from his eyes.
“This is where the mad abbé was kept, sir, and that is where the young man entered;” and the guide pointed to the opening, which had remained unclosed. “From the appearance of the stone,” he continued, “a learned gentleman discovered that the prisoners might have communicated together for ten years. Poor things! Those must have been ten weary years.”
Dantès took some louis from his pocket, and gave them to the man who had twice unconsciously pitied him. The guide took them, thinking them merely a few pieces of little value; but the light of the torch revealed their true worth.
“Sir,” he said, “you have made a mistake; you have given me gold.”