t of those massive joints of oak fastened
together with iron nails. As to the windows, all the panes having been
broken, night birds, alarmed by the torch, flew away through their
holes. At the same time, gigantic bats began to trace their vast, silent
circles around the intruders, whilst the light of the torch made their
shadows tremble on the high stone walls. Monk concluded there could be
no man in the convent, since wild beasts and birds were there still, and
fled away at his approach.

After having passed the rubbish, and torn away more than one branch of
ivy that had made itself a guardian of the solitude, Athos arrived at
the vaults situated beneath the great hall, but the entrance of which
was from the chapel. There he stopped. "Here we are, general," said he.

"This, then, is the slab?"

"Yes."

"Ay, and here is the ring--but the ring is sealed into the stone."

"We must have a lever."

"That's a thing very easy to find."

Whilst looking round them, Athos and Monk perceived a little ash of
about three inches in diameter, which had shot up in an angle of the
wall, reaching a window, concealed by its branches.

"Have you a knife?" said Monk to the fisherman.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Cut down this tree; then."

The fisherman obeyed, but not without notching his cutlass. When the
ash was cut and fashioned into the shape of a lever, the three men
penetrated into the vault.

"Stop where you are," said Monk to the fisherman. "We are going to dig
up some powder; your light may be dangerous."

The man drew back in a sort of terror, and faithfully kept to the post
assigned him, whilst Monk and Athos turned behind a column at the foot
of which, penetrating through a crack, was a moonbeam, reflected exactly
on the stone which the Comte de la Fere had come so far in search.

"This is it," said Athos, pointing out to the general the Latin
inscription.

"Yes," said Monk.

Then, as if still willing to leave the Frenchman one means of evasion,--

"Do you not observe that this vault has already been broken into,"
continued he, "and that several statues have been knocked down?"

"My lord, you have, without doubt, heard that the religious respect
of your Scots loves to confide to the statues of the dead the valuable
objects they have possessed during their lives. Therefore, the soldiers
had reason to think that under the pedestals of the statues which
ornament most of these tombs, a treasure was hidden. They have