t to
place under the boat when the bishop's call interrupted him.

"What is the meaning of this hunt, skipper?" said Porthos.

"Eh! monseigneur, I cannot understand it," replied the Breton. "It is
not at such a moment that the Seigneur de Locmaria would hunt. No, and
yet the dogs--"

"Unless they have escaped from the kennel."

"No," said Goenne, "they are not the Seigneur de Locmaria's hounds."

"In common prudence," said Aramis, "let us go back into the grotto; the
voices evidently draw nearer, we shall soon know what we have to trust
to."

They re-entered, but had scarcely proceeded a hundred steps in the
darkness, when a noise like the hoarse sigh of a creature in distress
resounded through the cavern, and breathless, rapid, terrified, a fox
passed like a flash of lightning before the fugitives, leaped over
the boat and disappeared, leaving behind its sour scent, which was
perceptible for several seconds under the low vaults of the cave.

"The fox!" cried the Bretons, with the glad surprise of born hunters.

"Accursed mischance!" cried the bishop, "our retreat is discovered."

"How so?" said Porthos; "are you afraid of a fox?"

"Eh! my friend, what do you mean by that? why do you specify the fox? It
is not the fox alone. _Pardieu!_ But don't you know, Porthos, that after
the foxes come hounds, and after hounds men?"

Porthos hung his head. As though to confirm the words of Aramis, they
heard the yelping pack approach with frightful swiftness upon the trail.
Six foxhounds burst at once upon the little heath, with mingling yelps
of triumph.

"There are the dogs, plain enough!" said Aramis, posted on the look-out
behind a chink in the rocks; "now, who are the huntsmen?"

"If it is the Seigneur de Locmaria's," replied the sailor, "he will
leave the dogs to hunt the grotto, for he knows them, and will not enter
in himself, being quite sure that the fox will come out the other side;
it is there he will wait for him."

"It is not the Seigneur de Locmaria who is hunting," replied Aramis,
turning pale in spite of his efforts to maintain a placid countenance.

"Who is it, then?" said Porthos.

"Look!"

Porthos applied his eye to the slit, and saw at the summit of a hillock
a dozen horsemen urging on their horses in the track of the dogs,
shouting, "_Taiaut! taiaut!_"

"The guards!" said he.

"Yes, my friend, the king's guards."

"The king's guards! do you say, monseigneur?" cried the Bretons, growing