However, he, like Cæsar Borgia, knew the value of time and, in order to avoid fruitless toil, he sounded all the other walls with his pickaxe, struck the earth with the butt of his gun, and finding nothing that appeared suspicious, returned to that part of the wall whence issued the consoling sound he had before heard.
Then Dantès rose more agile and light than the kid among the myrtles and shrubs of these wild rocks, took his gun in one hand, his pickaxe in the other, and hastened towards the rock on which the marks he had noted terminated.
The pickaxe that had seemed so heavy, was now like a feather in his grasp he seized it, and attacked the wall.
This last proof, instead of giving him fresh strength, deprived him of it the pickaxe descended, or rather fell he placed it on the ground, passed his hand over his brow, and remounted the stairs, alleging to himself, as an excuse, a desire to be assured that no one was watching him, but in reality because he felt that he was about to faint.
Dantès struck with the sharp end of his pickaxe, which entered someway between the interstices.
This feeling was so strong that at the moment when Edmond was about to begin his labor, he stopped, laid down his pickaxe, seized his gun, mounted to the summit of the highest rock, and from thence gazed round in every direction.
After several blows he perceived that the stones were not cemented, but had been merely placed one upon the other, and covered with stucco he inserted the point of his pickaxe, and using the handle as a lever, with joy soon saw the stone turn as if on hinges, and fall at his feet.
He had nothing more to do now, but with the iron tooth of the pickaxe to draw the stones towards him one by one.
With the aid of his pickaxe, Dantès, after the manner of a labor-saving pioneer, dug a mine between the upper rock and the one that supported it, filled it with powder, then made a match by rolling his handkerchief in saltpetre.
He attacked this wall, cemented by the hand of time, with his pickaxe.
