Stunned and almost suffocating, Dantès manages to rip open the shroud-sack with a knife, and then he cuts himself free from the cannon ball that is tied around his feet. But he is still not safe. The waves around him churn and rise like phantoms. Finally, however, Dantès is able to reach the small island of Tiboulen, where, exhausted, he falls asleep on its jagged, rocky shoreline. Briefly, he wakes long enough to see a small fishing boat smashed against the rocks, its crew lost. Then, in almost disbelief, he sees a single-masted Genoese ship approaching, and snatching up a cap from one of the drowned crew of the fishing ship, he hails the tartan and is taken aboard. He tells the captain that he is Maltese, and he explains that he has a six-inch beard and foot-long hair because of a vow that he made to Our Lady of Piedigrotta. He is given trousers and a shirt and is hired on as a sailor.
Fourteen years have passed since Dantès entered prison as a handsome young stripling of nineteen. He is now thirty-three. What has happened to his beloved Mercédès in these fourteen years? And what has happened to his father? to Danglars? Fernand and Villefort? His dark eyes flash with hatred at the thought of these last three names. His spirits brighten, though, when he suddenly sees an island appear amidst the soft pink rays of the rising sun. It is the Isle of Monte Cristo, the isle of his immense, secret fortune.
