شماره 27

Chapter 7 Number 27

Days and weeks passed. Dantes began to think that the officer’s visit was only a dream.

Suddenly, one evening, at about nine o’clock, Edmond heard a sound in the wall next to his bed. He listened. ‘Perhaps this is only a dream, too,’ he thought. But he heard the sound again. He heard something fall — and then silence.

Some hours later, he heard the noise again, nearer and more clearly. Edmond listened. ‘I know what that sound is,’ he thought.

‘A prisoner is trying to escape.’

Edmond wanted to help. He moved his bed, then he looked round the room for a sharp tool. The only things in the room were a bed, a chair, a table, and a water pot. ‘I will break the water pot and use one of the sharp pieces,’ he thought.

He threw the pot on the floor, and it broke into pieces. He hid two or three pointed bits in his bed.

The next morning, the guard came into the room.

‘The water pot fell from my hands when I was drinking,’

Dantes said. The man was angry with him for his carelessness, but he brought another pot. He did not take away the broken pieces of the old one.

Dantes started to work. The stone wall was old and soft, and it broke into small pieces easily. At last he pulled a stone out of the wall. It left a hole half a metre wide. He carefully carried all the small pieces of stone into the corners of the room, and covered them with earth. He put back the big stone, and placed his bed in front of the hole.

Later, the guard came with his evening meal. When the man left the room, Dantes started to work again. He worked all night, making a deep hole in the wall. Then he stopped.

‘What is this?’ he cried. ‘I can’t cut through it or move it.’

It was a great piece of wood. Dantes could not make the hole deeper.

‘Oh, my God, my God!’ he cried. ‘I want to die. I have lost all hope.’

‘Who is the man who can talk at the same time about God and about hopelessness?’ said a voice under the earth.

Edmond got up on his knees. ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘ A voice — the voice of a man! In the name of God, speak again!’

‘Who are you?’ said the voice.

‘An unhappy prisoner.’

‘Why are you in prison?’

‘I did nothing wrong,’ Dantes replied. ‘They say that I tried to help Napoleon. He wanted to return to France.’

‘To return to France! Where is he now, then?’

‘They sent him to the island of Elba in 1814. Don’t you know that ? When did you come here?’

‘In 1811.’

‘Four years before me!’

‘Don’t do any more work,’ said the voice. ‘Just tell me — how high up are you?’

‘At the same height as the floor of my room,’ Dantes said.

‘What is behind the door of your room?’

’ A narrow room and then the courtyard.’

‘Oh! That is bad,’ the voice said. ‘My plan is wrong. I wanted to break through to the outside wall of the prison.’

‘And then?’

‘And then throw myself into the sea and swim to one of the islands near here. Cover the opening of the hole in the wall. Do it carefully. Stop working on the hole. Wait until you hear from me again.’

‘Tell me who you are,’ cried Edmond.

‘I am — I am Number 27.’

‘Why don’t you tell me your name?’

Edmond heard a quiet laugh. ‘Oh!’ he cried. ‘Please - please don’t leave me alone. I promise that I won’t say a word to the guards.’

‘I will talk to you again,’ said the voice. ‘Tomorrow.’

Edmond closed the opening in the wall, carefully hid the bits of stone and put his bed back in its place.

The next morning, when he moved his bed away from the wall, he heard a sound. He got down on his knees.

‘Is it you?’ he said. ‘I am here.’

Soon after that, part of the floor of Dantes’ room fell away.

Stones and earth fell down into the opening. Then, at the bottom of the hole, Dantes saw the arms and head of a man. The man climbed up into the room.

Dantes reached his hands out to his new friend. He was a small man, and his hair was white. His eyes were dark, and he had a long beard. He was not strong.

‘You seem very happy to see me!’ he said to Dantes. ‘Your happiness touches my heart.’

But Dantes knew that the man was very sad. ‘You worked hard to escape,’ he said, ‘but you haven’t reached the outside of the prison. This is just another room. But there are three other sides to the room. Do you know what is outside those walls?’

‘One wall is built against the rock. One is against the lower part of the governor’s house. If we get out there, the guards will catch us. And this side faces — where?’

They looked at the third side of the room. There was a small window high up in the wall, with three strong bars across it.

The man pulled the table across the room and put it under the window. ‘Climb on the table,’ he said to Dantes. ‘Put your back against the wall, and join your hands in front of your body.’

Then prisoner Number 27 jumped up on to the table, and from there on to Dantes’ hands and from them onto Dantes’

shoulders. He put his head through the top bars of the window, then pulled his head back quickly. Finally he said, ‘I thought so.’

He got down quickly and easily.

‘He moves as quickly as a young man,’ Dantes thought.

‘This side of your room,’ said Number 27, ‘faces an open pathway. A soldier guards it day and night. It is not possible to escape through any of these walls.’

Dantes looked at the man. ‘You really want to escape,’ he thought. ‘And now you know that you can’t. So why are you so calm?’ Then he said, ‘Tell me, please - who are you?’

‘My name is Faria,’ the other man replied. ‘I came to the Chateau d’If in the year 1811. Before that, I was in the prison of Fenestrelle for three years.’

‘But why are you here?’

‘As you know, there are a number of small countries in Italy.

Each country has a ruler. I wanted to make Italy one great country under one great king. My chosen king tried to destroy me. And now Italy will never be one country. Napoleon tried to make it one country, but he did not complete his work. Poor Italy.’ The old man’s voice was very sad.

‘Can I see your secret path behind the wall?’ Dantes asked.

‘Follow me,’ said Faria, and he went into the deep hole in the wall.

Dantes followed.