Edmond Escapes from Jail

Chapter 7

Edmond carefully undid the stitches that enclosed the shroud and kissed Faria’s forehead. Then, he ripped open the shroud down its entire length. Gently lifting the corpse, he half-pulled, half-carried it through the tunnel into his dungeon.
He arranged the corpse on his cot and covered it with his blanket, so Faria’s grey hair not show. He often lay thus, not turning when his jailor brought dinner in. The man had always ignored him, satisfied to see that his prisoner was still there.

Panting from tension and from his exertion, Edmond rushed back to Faria’s cell. The dinner hour was nearing, and the jailors would soon come by. He grabbed Faria’s knife, needle and thread from their hiding place under a stone and jumped into the shroud. Pulling its sides together around him, he began stitching from his feet up. He worked feverishly because he could hear the jailors coming closer, delivering dinner.
Edmond sewed faster and faster. He had put in the last stitch over his head and clapped his hands to his sides just as the jailors reached Faria’s cell. As they passed, they were silent out of respect for the dead. Edmond was sure they would hear his heart beating.
But they passed on. Edmond’s hand closed on the knife handle. He assumed that the men who would be burying him would not overwork themselves by digging very far down into the rocky soil. The soil they piled on him would be airy enough for him to breathe until they left. Then his knife would easily cut him free from the grave. If, however, on the way to the cemetery, the carriers became aware they held a live body, he was determined to rip open the sack and attack them with his knife.
Dinner time passed, and Edmond’s heart slowed a bit. No alarm had been sounded, so when the jailor had brought dinner to ‘Number 34’, he must have believed the body on the cot to be a sleeping Edmond.
Somewhere near midnight, Edmond heard the door open. The men with lanterns entered Faria’s cell. Edmond held his breath. He felt someone grab him under the shoulders and another take his feet. They swung him onto a stretcher placed on the floor.
One of the men gave a grunt and said, “He’s heavy for an old man. It’s good we don’t have far to go.”
Edmond felt the stretcher being lifted. He was carried from the cell, down the corridor, around corners, and up some stairs. He heard two large doors open before him and bang shut after him. Cold air penetrated the woollen shroud, and he heard the waves breaking on rocks. After fourteen years, he was out of the Chateau d’lf.
The stretcher swayed and dipped as the two carriers stumbled on the rocky ground. They stopped. One man held Edmond’s feet in the air while the other tied a rope around his ankles. A heavy weight of some kind was put in the stretcher next to his feet, and the rope was knotted to it. The men picked up the stretcher again, breathing more heavily because of the added weight and because they were walking up an incline. The sound of the waves became louder.
“Let’s do it from here,” said one.
“No,” said the other, “Up a bit higher. They made such a fuss about that last one we let fall on the rocks that we had better get the Mad Priest far out to sea.”
At these words Edmond’s heart started pounding even faster. He was not to be buried in the earth, but in water. The sea was the cemetery of the Chateau d’If!
They put down the stretcher. Edmond was gripped under the shoulders and by the feet. He was swung to and fro, to and fro.
“One, two, three, and away!” the men chanted together and let go of Edmond.
He flew through the air. Out…out…and then down. Edmond screamed in terror, a scream that was soon swallowed up in the roar of the waves. The iron weight tied to his ankles pulled him feet-first into the ice-cold water. Edmond held his breath.
Even before his whole body entered the water, Edmond had begun ripping open the shroud. But he could not free himself because of the weight tied to it. He was dragged deeper and deeper under the waves. With a tremendous effort Edmond bent and sliced the rope between his ankles. He was suffocating. In another second, his mouth would open, and the sea would pour into him. Suddenly, the weight dropped off, and his body shot to the surface.
Edmond drank in great gulps of air, all the while moving his feet vigorously to keep himself afloat. He didn’t dare stay above water for more than a few seconds at a time. He dived beneath the waves and swam harder and faster than ever before in his life. Forced to surface for air, he looked back at the cliff from which he had been thrown. He could barely make out two figures against lantern light. Edmond doubted that they could spot him in the dark, but he swam underwater again as a safety measure.
The next time he surfaced, he was a good distance from the Chateau d’If. It had started to rain, and a rumble of thunder came from the left. Edmond remembered another rocky island outside the harbour—a twin of the prison island, but uninhabited—and he headed for it at a steady pace. He wanted shelter from the approaching storm, and he also feared a cramp from the cold water. The thought that he might drown now that he was free gave Ed­mond strength.
The storm broke just as his feet touched the rocky bottom of the shallow water. Torrents of rain engulfed him as he staggered onto the beach and sank down. Though he was near exhaustion, he quickly crept towards a rock overhang where he would be protected from the lightning that was flashing across the sky. He fell asleep instantly.
In an hour, an especially loud clap of thunder woke Edmond. He shivered in his wet clothes, and he was hungry and thirsty. Lifting his face to the rain, he was able to take in some water. Then, he slept again.
When Edmond awoke the second time, the storm was over. His fears returned with a jolt because now it was daylight. His jailors would have discovered his untouched dinner and Faria’s corpse. A search must be underway at this moment.

In the bright morning light, the Chateau d’If stood out black and forbidding. As Edmond stared at it, he imagined the activity within. The jailors would probably search the island he was on, first examining the smaller rocks that peppered the sea between it and the prison’s island. Then, they would go on to Marseilles as the next logical place.
Edmond began to despair. He had lost his knife, his clothes were in rags, and he felt weak from lack of food. Even if he could reach Marseilles, did he dare show himself there? Edmond scrambled from rock to rock, trying to shield himself as much as possible in case someone with a spyglass should happen to notice movement on an island known to be uninhabited.
He found parts of a wrecked ship, a beam with the ship’s name, red woollen sailor’s cap, and nothing else.
Suddenly, Edmond gasped. A small white cloud rose from the Chateau d’If. It was followed a few seconds later by the burst of a gun. It was the alarm for him.
Just then, another movement caught his eye. A large, fast sailboat of the type used by smugglers was leaving the harbour of the island he was on. Edmond had to make an instant decision. The smugglers might turn him in for the reward, but at least it was a chance for escape.
He jammed the red cap on his head amd picked up the large wooden beam bearing the ship’s name. Ignoring the cuts of sharp-edged rocks, he ran back into the sea. Holding the beam, he swam towards the boat.

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