os, make haste! the barrel will blow up!"

"Make haste, monseigneur!" shouted the Bretons to Porthos, who was
floundering as in a dream.

But there was no time; the explosion thundered, earth gaped, the smoke
which hurled through the clefts obscured the sky; the sea flowed back as
though driven by the blast of flame which darted from the grotto as if
from the jaws of some gigantic fiery chimera; the reflux took the
bark out twenty _toises_; the solid rocks cracked to their base, and
separated like blocks beneath the operation of the wedge; a portion
of the vault was carried up towards heaven, as if it had been built of
cardboard; the green and blue and topaz conflagration and black lava of
liquefactions clashed and combated an instant beneath a majestic dome
of smoke; then oscillated, declined, and fell successively the mighty
monoliths of rock which the violence of the explosion had not been able
to uproot from the bed of ages; they bowed to each other like grave and
stiff old men, then prostrating themselves, lay down forever in their
dusty tomb.

This frightful shock seemed to restore Porthos the strength that he had
lost; he arose, a giant among granite giants. But at the moment he was
flying between the double hedge of granite phantoms, these latter, which
were no longer supported by the corresponding links, began to roll and
totter round our Titan, who looked as if precipitated from heaven amidst
rocks which he had just been launching. Porthos felt the very earth
beneath his feet becoming jelly-tremulous. He stretched both hands to
repulse the falling rocks. A gigantic block was held back by each of his
extended arms. He bent his head, and a third granite mass sank between
his shoulders. For an instant the power of Porthos seemed about to fail
him, but this new Hercules united all his force, and the two walls of
the prison in which he was buried fell back slowly and gave him place.
For an instant he appeared, in this frame of granite, like the angel
of chaos, but in pushing back the lateral rocks, he lost his point of
support, for the monolith which weighed upon his shoulders, and the
boulder, pressing upon him with all its weight, brought the giant down
upon his knees. The lateral rocks, for an instant pushed back, drew
together again, and added their weight to the ponderous mass which would
have been sufficient to crush ten men. The hero fell without a groan--he
fell while answering Aramis with words of encour