“I was called to see him on his dying bed, that I might administer to him the consolations of religion.”
“And of what did he die?” asked Caderousse in a choking voice.
“Of what, think you, do young and strong men die in prison, when they have scarcely numbered their thirtieth year, unless it be of imprisonment?” Caderousse wiped away the large beads of perspiration that gathered on his brow.
“But the strangest part of the story is,” resumed the abbé, “that Dantès, even in his dying moments, swore by his crucified Redeemer, that he was utterly ignorant of the cause of his detention.”
“And so he was,” murmured Caderousse. “How should he have been otherwise? Ah, sir, the poor fellow told you the truth.”
“And for that reason, he besought me to try and clear up a mystery he had never been able to penetrate, and to clear his memory should any foul spot or stain have fallen on it.”
And here the look of the abbé, becoming more and more fixed, seemed to rest with ill-concealed satisfaction on the gloomy depression which was rapidly spreading over the countenance of Caderousse.
“A rich Englishman,” continued the abbé, “who had been his companion in misfortune, but had been released from prison during the second restoration, was possessed of a diamond of immense value; this jewel he bestowed on Dantès upon himself quitting the prison, as a mark of his gratitude for the kindness and brotherly care with which Dantès had nursed him in a severe illness he underwent during his confinement. Instead of employing this diamond in attempting to bribe his jailers, who might only have taken it and then betrayed him to the governor, Dantès carefully preserved it, that in the event of his getting out of prison he might have wherewithal to live, for the sale of such a diamond would have quite sufficed to make his fortune.”
“Then, I suppose,” asked Caderousse, with eager, glowing looks, “that it was a stone of immense value?”