“One!” said the gravediggers, “two! three!”
And at the same instant Dantès felt himself flung into the air like a wounded bird, falling, falling, with a rapidity that made his blood curdle. Although drawn downwards by the heavy weight which hastened his rapid descent, it seemed to him as if the fall lasted for a century. At last, with a horrible splash, he darted like an arrow into the ice-cold water, and as he did so he uttered a shrill cry, stifled in a moment by his immersion beneath the waves.
Dantès had been flung into the sea, and was dragged into its depths by a thirty-six-pound shot tied to his feet.
The sea is the cemetery of the Château d’If.