The Count of Monte Cristo

Dantès Waits for the Grave Diggers

After sealing himself inside the burial sack, Dantès waits in agonizing suspense, his heart pounding so hard he fears it will give him away. He has not eaten since the prior evening but has no time to think of hunger, focused solely on avoiding discovery until the grave diggers arrive to collect the “corpse”. When he hears the footsteps of two men approaching his cell, he holds his breath and steels himself for what comes next.

Grave Diggers Retrieve the Corpse

The two grave diggers enter Dantès’s cell, lift the sack containing him, and comment on the unexpected weight of the supposedly “old and thin” corpse. They decide not to tie the sack’s knot until they reach the cemetery, then place the bier carrying the sack on a hand-barrow and carry it out of the cell.

Journey to the Château d’If Cemetery

The grave diggers carry the bier through the prison, out into the cold night air where the mistral wind is blowing. They stop once so one digger can retrieve a spade, then continue up stairs toward the cemetery, with Dantès hearing the sound of waves crashing against the Château d’If’s rocky shore. The diggers joke crudely about the “abbé” getting wet in the bad weather, before reaching the designated burial spot at the cemetery.

Dantès Thrown into the Sea

The grave diggers swing the bier back and forth three times, then hurl it off the edge of the cemetery into the sea below. A 36-pound shot tied to Dantès’s feet drags him rapidly down into the cold, dark water, and he lets out a shrill cry that is immediately silenced by the waves.

The Sea as Château d’If’s Cemetery

Dantès is thrown into the sea, which serves as the unmarked, informal cemetery for prisoners who die or are disposed of at the Château d’If.

CHAPITRE 21. The Island of Tiboulen

Chapter 21. The Island of Tiboulen follows Edmond Dantès immediately after his fellow prisoners hurl him into the sea bound inside a weighted sack. Through a combination of luck, physical prowess, and his prepared knife, Dantès escapes drowning, swims a league through dark and storm-tossed waters, reaches the barren Island of Tiboulen, witnesses a fishing boat shattered against the rocks, and ultimately stages a desperate rescue that brings him aboard a Genoese tartan bound for Italy. Beginning as a flight from the Château d’If, the chapter becomes a series of narrow survivals—against the sack, the sea, the tempest, the wreck, and his own exhaustion—each one carrying him further from his prison and closer to a new identity as a free man at sea. This excerpt opens Chapter 21: The Island of Tiboulen, following Edmond Dantès immediately after his escape from the Château d’If, as he travels aboard a merchant tartan bound for Leghorn.

CHAPITRE 21. The Island of Tiboulen

Chapter 21. The Island of Tiboulen follows Edmond Dantès immediately after his fellow prisoners hurl him into the sea bound inside a weighted sack. Through a combination of luck, physical prowess, and his prepared knife, Dantès escapes drowning, swims a league through dark and storm-tossed waters, reaches the barren Island of Tiboulen, witnesses a fishing boat shattered against the rocks, and ultimately stages a desperate rescue that brings him aboard a Genoese tartan bound for Italy. Beginning as a flight from the Château d’If, the chapter becomes a series of narrow survivals—against the sack, the sea, the tempest, the wreck, and his own exhaustion—each one carrying him further from his prison and closer to a new identity as a free man at sea.

Escape from the Weighted Sack

Escape from the Weighted Sack Dantès, hurled into the sea inside a sack weighted with shot, preserves himself by holding his breath and using a knife he had prepared to rip the sack open. Though he successfully extracts his arm and body, the shot still drags him down until he bends double and severs the cord binding his legs just as strangulation seems inevitable. A powerful leap brings him to the surface, the weighted sack sinking away as the shroud it nearly became. He surfaces once, glimpses the Château d’If looming behind him with a torch and two figures on its highest rock, and dives again to escape detection, swimming underwater for an extended stretch—a feat at which he had once excelled, being renowned as the best swimmer in the port at Marseilles.