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to the surface, supporting himself by one of those desperate efforts a drowning man makes, uttered a third cry, and felt himself sink again, as if the fatal bullet were again tied to his feet.

The water passed over his head and the sky seemed livid. A violent effort again brought him to the surface. He felt as if something seized him by the hair; but he saw and heard. nothing. He had fainted.

When he opened his eyes, Dantes found himself on the deck of the tartane. His first care was to see what direction they were pursuing. They were rapidly leaving the Chateau d'If behind. Dantes was so exhausted that the exclamation of joy he uttered was taken for a sigh.

As we have said, he was lying on the deck; a sailor was rubbing his limbs with a woolen cloth; another, whom he recognized as the one who had cried out "Courage!" held a gourd full of rum to his mouth; whilst the third, an old sailor, at once the pilot and captain, looked on with that egotistical pity men feel for a misfortune that they have escaped yesterday and which may overtake them to-morrow.

A few drops of the rum restored suspended animation, whilst the friction of his limbs restored their elasticity.

"Who are you?" said the pilot, in bad French.

"I am," replied Dantes, in bad Italian, "a Maltese sailor. We were coming from Syracuse laden with grain. The storm of last night overtook us at Cape Morigon, and we were wrecked on these rocks."

"Where do you come from?"

"From these rocks, that I had the good luck to cling to whilst our captain and the rest of the crew were all lost. I saw your ship, and fearful of being left to perish on the desolate island, I swam off on a fragment of the vessel in order to try and gain your bark. You have saved my life, and I thank you," continued Dantes. "I was lost when one of your sailors caught hold of my hair."

"It was I," said a sailor, of a frank and manly appearance; "and it was time, for you were sinking."

"Yes," returned Dantes, holding out his hand, "I thank you again."

"I almost hesitated though," replied the sailor; "you looked more like a brigand than an honest man, with your beard six inches and your hair a foot long."

Dantes recollected that his hair and beard had not been cut all the time he was at the Chateau d'If.

"Yes," said he, "I made a vow to our Lady of the Grotto not to cut my hair or beard for ten years if I were saved in a moment of danger; but to-day the vow expires."

“Now, what are we to do with you?" said the captain. "Alas! anything you please. My captain is dead; I have barely escaped; but I am a good sailor. Leave me at the first port you make; I shall be sure to find employment.'

"Do you know the Mediterranean?" "I have sailed over it since my

"You know the best harbors?"

childhood."

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"There are few ports that I could not enter or leave with my eyes blinded."

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"I say, captain," said the sailor who had cried “Courage! to Dantes, "if what he says is true, what hinders his staying with us?"

"If he says true," said the captain, doubtingly. "But in his present condition he will promise anything, and take his chance of keeping it afterwards."

"I will do more than I promise," said Dantes.
"We shall see," returned the other, smiling.
"Where are you going to?" asked Dantes.
"To Leghorn."

"Then why, instead of tacking so frequently, do you not sail nearer to the wind?”

"Because we should run straight on to the Island of Rion." "You shall pass it by twenty fathoms."

"Take the helm, and let us see what you know."

The young man took the helm, ascertaining by a slight pressure if the vessel answered the rudder, and seeing that, without being a first-rate sailor, she yet was tolerably obedient. "To the braces," said he.

The four seamen who composed the crew obeyed, whilst the pilot looked on.

"Haul taut." They obeyed.

"Belay."

This order was also executed, and the vessel passed, as Dantes had predicted, twenty fathoms to the right.

"Bravo!" said the captain.

"Bravo!" repeated the sailors.

And they all regarded with astonishment this man, whose eye had recovered an intelligence and his body a vigor they were far from suspecting.

"You see," said Dantes, quitting the helm, "I shall be of some use to you, at least, during the voyage. If you do not want me at Leghorn, you can leave me there, and I will pay you out of the first wages I get for my food and the clothes you lend me."

"Ah," said the captain, "we can agree very well if you are reasonable."

"Give me what you give the others, and all will be arranged," returned Dantes.

"That's not fair," said the seaman who had saved Dantes, "for you know more than we do."

"What is that to you, Jacopo?" returned the captain. "Every one is free to ask what he pleases."

"That's true," replied Jacopo. "I only made a remark." "Well, you would do much better to lend him a jacket and a pair of trousers, if you have them."

"No," said Jacopo; "but I have a shirt and a pair of trousers."

"That is all I want," interrupted Dantes.

Jacopo dived into the hold, and soon returned with what Edmond wanted.

"Now, then, do you wish for anything else?" said the patron.

"A piece of bread and another glass of the capital rum I tasted, for I have not eaten or drunk for a long time."

He had not tasted food for forty hours.

A piece of bread was brought, and Jacopo offered him the gourd.

"Larboard your helm," cried the captain to the steers

man.

Dantes glanced to the same side as he lifted the gourd to his mouth; but his hand stopped.

"Halloa! what's the matter at the Chateau d'If?" said the captain.

A small white cloud, which had attracted Dantes' attention, crowned the summit of the bastion of the Chateau d'If.

At the same moment the faint report of a gun was heard. The sailors looked at one another.

"What is this?" asked the captain.

"A prisoner has escaped from the Chateau d'If, and they are firing the alarm gun," replied Dantes.

The captain glanced at him, but he had lifted the rum to his lips, and was drinking it with so much composure that his suspicions, if he had any, died away.

"At any rate," murmured he, "if it be, so much the better, for I have made a rare acquisition."

Under pretense of being fatigued, Dantes asked to take the helm; the steersman, enchanted to be relieved, looked at the captain, and the latter by a sign indicated that he might abandon it to his new comrade. Dantes could thus keep his eyes on Marseilles.

"What is the day of the month?" asked he of Jacopo, who sat down beside him.

"The 28th of February!"

"In what year?"

"In what year you ask me in what year?"

"Yes," replied the young man, "I ask you in what year !" "Have you forgotten, then?"

"I have been so frightened last night,” replied Dantes, smiling, "that I have almost lost my memory. I asked you what year is it?"

"The year 1829," returned Jacopo.

It was fourteen years, day for day, since Dantes' arrest.

He was nineteen when he entered the Chateau d'If; he was thirty-three when he escaped.

A sorrowful smile passed over his face; he asked himself what had become of Mercedes, who must believe him dead.

Then his eyes lighted up with hatred as he thought of the three men who had caused him so long and wretched a captivity.

He renewed against Danglars, Fernand, and Villefort the oath of implacable vengeance he had made in his dungeon.

This oath was no longer a vain menace, for the fastest sailer in the Mediterranean would have been unable to overtake the little tartane, that with every stitch of canvas set was flying before the wind to Leghorn.

A MUSICAL ADVENTURE.

BY GEORGE SAND.

(From "Consuelo.")

[AMANTINE LUCILE AURORE DUPIN, BARONESS DUDEVANT, better known by her pseudonym George Sand, French novelist, was born at Paris, July 5, 1804, being descended on her father's side from the famous Marshal Saxe, and, after receiving her education at a convent, married, in 1822, Baron Dudevant, a retired army officer. Their union, although blessed with two children, was not happy, and in 1831 she went to Paris to make her living by literature. Her first writing was done in collaboration with Jules Sandeau, and was signed jointly "Jules Sand." Later, at the suggestion of Sandeau, she signed her works "George Sand," and under this name became famous in literature. In 1848 she settled at the château of Nohant, where she spent the rest of her life in literary activity, and died there, June 8, 1876. Her chief works are: "Consuelo," and its sequel" Countess of Rudolstadt," " Little Fadette," " Mauprat," "Miller of Angibault," ," "Jacques," "The Devil's Pool," and "The Snow Man."]

IT is not a very alarming predicament to find one's self without money when near the end of a journey, but even though our young artists had still been very far from their destination, they would not have felt less gay than they were on finding themselves entirely penniless. One must thus be without resources in an unknown country (Joseph was almost as much a stranger at this distance from Vienna as Consuelo) to know what a marvelous sense of security, what an inventive and enterprising genius, is revealed as if by magic in the artist who has just spent his last farthing. Until then, it is a species of agony, a constant fear of want, a gloomy apprehension of sufferings, embarrassments, and humiliations, which disappear as soon as you have heard the ring of your last piece of money. Then, for romantic spirits, a new world begins a holy confidence in the charity of others, and numberless charming illusions; but also an aptitude for labor and a feeling of complacency which soon enables them to triumph over the first obstacles. Consuelo, who experienced a feeling of romantic pleasure in this return to the indigence of her earlier days, and who felt happy at having done good by the exercise of self-denial, immediately found an expedient to insure their supper and night's lodging. "This is Sunday," said she to Joseph; "you shall play some dancing tunes in passing through the first village we come to; we shall

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