and sharp night air, and Dantes knew that the mistral was
blowing. It was a sensation in which pleasure and pain were
strangely mingled. The bearers went on for twenty paces,
then stopped, putting the bier down on the ground. One of
them went away, and Dantes heard his shoes striking on the
pavement.

"Where am I?" he asked himself.

"Really, he is by no means a light load!" said the other
bearer, sitting on the edge of the hand-barrow. Dantes'
first impulse was to escape, but fortunately he did not
attempt it.

"Give us a light," said the other bearer, "or I shall never
find what I am looking for." The man with the torch
complied, although not asked in the most polite terms.

"What can he be looking for?" thought Edmond. "The spade,
perhaps." An exclamation of satisfaction indicated that the
grave-digger had found the object of his search. "Here it is
at last," he said, "not without some trouble though."

"Yes," was the answer, "but it has lost nothing by waiting."

As he said this, the man came towards Edmond, who heard a
heavy metallic substance laid down beside him, and at the
same moment a cord was fastened round his feet with sudden
and painful violence.