At intervals he listened to learn if the noise had not begun again, and grew impatient at the prudence of the prisoner, who did not guess he had been disturbed by a captive as anxious for liberty as himself.
Three days passed--seventy-two long tedious hours which he counted off by minutes! At length one evening, as the jailer was visiting him for the last time that night, Dantes, with his ear for the hundredth time at the wall, fancied he heard an almost imperceptible movement among the stones.

He moved away, walked up and down his cell to collect his thoughts, and then went back and listened.
The matter was no longer doubtful.

Something was at work on the other side of the wall; the prisoner had discovered the danger, and had substituted a lever for a chisel.
Encouraged by this discovery, Edmond determined to assist the indefatigable laborer.

He began by moving his bed, and looked around for anything with which he could pierce the wall, penetrate the moist cement, and displace a stone.
He saw nothing, he had no knife or sharp instrument, the window grating was of iron, but he had too often assured himself of its solidity.

All his furniture consisted of a bed, a chair, a table, a pail, and a jug.
The bed had iron clamps, but they were screwed to the wood, and it would have required a screw-driver to take them off.