arged in the darkness;
then, at ten paces off, a heap of bleeding bodies, crushed, mutilated,
in the midst of which some still heaved in the last agony, lifting the
mass as a last respiration inflating the sides of some old monster dying
in the night. Every breath of Porthos, thus vivifying the match, sent
towards this heap of bodies a phosphorescent aura, mingled with streaks
of purple. In addition to this principal group scattered about the
grotto, as the chances of death or surprise had stretched them, isolated
bodies seemed to be making ghastly exhibitions of their gaping wounds.
Above ground, bedded in pools of blood, rose, heavy and sparkling, the
short, thick pillars of the cavern, of which the strongly marked shades
threw out the luminous particles. And all this was seen by the tremulous
light of a match attached to a barrel of powder, that is to say, a torch
which, whilst throwing a light on the dead past, showed death to come.

As I have said, this spectacle did not last above two seconds. During
this short space of time an officer of the third brigade got together
eight men armed with muskets, and, through an opening, ordered them to
fire upon Porthos. But they who received the order to fire trembled so
that three guards fell by the discharge, and the five remaining balls
hissed on to splinter the vault, plow the ground, or indent the pillars
of the cavern.

A burst of laughter replied to this volley; then the arm of the giant
swung round; then was seen whirling through the air, like a falling
star, the train of fire. The barrel, hurled a distance of thirty
feet, cleared the barricade of dead bodies, and fell amidst a group of
shrieking soldiers, who threw themselves on their faces. The officer had
followed the brilliant train in the air; he endeavored to precipitate
himself upon the barrel and tear out the match before it reached the
powder it contained. Useless! The air had made the flame attached to the
conductor more active; the match, which at rest might have burnt five
minutes, was consumed in thirty seconds, and the infernal work exploded.
Furious vortices of sulphur and nitre, devouring shoals of fire which
caught every object, the terrible thunder of the explosion, this is what
the second which followed disclosed in that cavern of horrors. The rocks
split like planks of deal beneath the axe. A jet of fire, smoke, and
_debris_ sprang from the middle of the grotto, enlarging as it mounted.
The large w