“‘Tell me where you are conducting me?’ asked Dantès of his guard.
“‘You are a native of Marseilles, and a sailor, and yet you do not know where you are going?’
“‘On my honour, I have no idea.’
“‘That is impossible.’
“‘I swear to you it is true. Tell me, I entreat.’
“‘But my orders.’
“‘Your orders do not forbid your telling me what I must know in ten minutes, in half an hour, or an hour. You see, I cannot escape, even if I intended.’
“‘Unless you are blind, or have never been outside the harbour, you must know.’
“‘I do not.’
“‘Look around you, then.’ Dantès rose and looked forward, when he saw rise within a hundred yards of him the black and frowning rock on which stands the Château d’If. This gloomy fortress, which has for more than three hundred years furnished food for so many wild legends, seemed to Dantès like a scaffold to a malefactor.