This would have been a favorable occasion to secure his dinner; but Dantes feared lest the report of his gun should attract attention.
He thought a moment, cut a branch of a resinous tree, lighted it at the fire at which the smugglers had prepared their breakfast, and descended with this torch.

He wished to see everything.

He approached the hole he had dug, and now, with the aid of the torch, saw that his pickaxe had in reality struck against iron and wood.

He planted his torch in the ground and resumed his labor.

In an instant a space three feet long by two feet broad was cleared, and Dantes could see an oaken coffer, bound with cut steel; in the middle of the lid he saw engraved on a silver plate, which was still untarnished, the arms of the Spada family--viz., a sword, pale, on an oval shield, like all the Italian armorial bearings, and surmounted by a cardinal's hat; Dantes easily recognized them, Faria had so often drawn them for him.