ed all he touched, the first rank drew
back in terror. No firing had replied to that of the guards, and yet
their way was stopped by a heap of dead bodies--they literally walked in
blood. Porthos was still behind his pillar. The captain, illumining with
trembling pine-torch this frightful carnage, of which he in vain
sought the cause, drew back towards the pillar behind which Porthos was
concealed. Then a gigantic hand issued from the shade, and fastened
on the throat of the captain, who uttered a stifle rattle; his
stretched-out arms beating the air, the torch fell and was extinguished
in blood. A second after, the corpse of the captain dropped close to
the extinguished torch, and added another body to the heap of dead which
blocked up the passage. All this was effected as mysteriously as though
by magic. At hearing the rattling in the throat of the captain, the
soldiers who accompanied him had turned round, caught a glimpse of his
extended arms, his eyes starting from their sockets, and then the torch
fell and they were left in darkness. From an unreflective, instinctive,
mechanical feeling, the lieutenant cried:

"Fire!"

Immediately a volley of musketry flamed, thundered, roared in the
cavern, bringing down enormous fragments from the vaults. The cavern was
lighted for an instant by this discharge, and then immediately returned
to pitchy darkness rendered thicker by the smoke. To this succeeded a
profound silence, broken only by the steps of the third brigade, now
entering the cavern.

Chapter L: The Death of a Titan.

At the moment when Porthos, more accustomed to the darkness than these
men, coming from open daylight, was looking round him to see if through
this artificial midnight Aramis were not making him some signal, he felt
his arm gently touched, and a voice low as a breath murmured in his ear,
"Come."

"Oh!" said Porthos.

"Hush!" said Aramis, if possible, yet more softly.

And amidst the noise of the third brigade, which continued to advance,
the imprecations of the guards still left alive, the muffled groans of
the dying, Aramis and Porthos glided unseen along the granite walls of
the cavern. Aramis led Porthos into the last but one compartment, and
showed him, in a hollow of the rocky wall, a barrel of powder weighing
from seventy to eighty pounds, to which he had just attached a fuse. "My
friend," said he to Porthos, "you will take this barrel, the match of
which I am going to set fire to,