Alexander Dumas' <em>The Count of Monte Cristo</em><em> </em>tells the story of how a man was wrongly accused and imprisoned. The whole plot resides on his plans to avenge his wrongful accusations and redeem his image.
The given lines are from the very first chapter, starting paragraphs of the book. The narrator begins by talking about the approaching ship Pharoan. But as the spectators were looking anxiously for the ship to be on dock, they could also sense that something was amiss. The narrator states <em>"an air of melancholy that the onlookers, instinctively sensing misfortune, began to wonder what accident could have happened on board"</em>, but then again mentioned that <em>"experienced seamen among them saw that if there had been an accident, it could not have happened to the ship herself"</em>. This presents a mysterious sense of foreboding, unsure about what had happened but not exactly able to pinpoint the problem.
It allows him to hear the war drum that forces him to kill. The acute silence makes the narrator so uncomfortable, he must make the old man scream. The narrator thinks that only killing the old man will make all of the surrounding noises disappear
