agement and hope, for,
thanks to the powerful arch of his hands, for an instant he believed
that, like Enceladus, he would succeed in shaking off the triple load.
But by degrees Aramis beheld the block sink; the hands, strung for an
instant, the arms stiffened for a last effort, gave way, the extended
shoulders sank, wounded and torn, and the rocks continued to gradually
collapse.

"Porthos! Porthos!" cried Aramis, tearing his hair. "Porthos! where are
you? Speak!"

"Here, here," murmured Porthos, with a voice growing evidently weaker,
"patience! patience!"

Scarcely had he pronounced these words, when the impulse of the fall
augmented the weight; the enormous rock sank down, pressed by those
others which sank in from the sides, and, as it were, swallowed up
Porthos in a sepulcher of badly jointed stones. On hearing the dying
voice of his friend, Aramis had sprung to land. Two of the Bretons
followed him, with each a lever in his hand--one being sufficient to
take care of the bark. The dying rattle of the valiant gladiator guided
them amidst the ruins. Aramis, animated, active and young as at twenty,
sprang towards the triple mass, and with his hands, delicate as those of
a woman, raised by a miracle of strength the corner-stone of this great
granite grave. Then he caught a glimpse, through the darkness of that
charnel-house, of the still brilliant eye of his friend, to whom the
momentary lifting of the mass restored a momentary respiration. The
two men came rushing up, grasped their iron levers, united their triple
strength, not merely to raise it, but sustain it. All was useless. They
gave way with cries of grief, and the rough voice of Porthos, seeing
them exhaust themselves in a useless struggle, murmured in an almost
cheerful tone those supreme words which came to his lips with the last
respiration, "Too heavy!"

After which his eyes darkened and closed, his face grew ashy pale, the
hands whitened, and the colossus sank quite down, breathing his last
sigh. With him sank the rock, which, even in his dying agony he had
still held up. The three men dropped the levers, which rolled upon the
tumulary stone. Then, breathless, pale, his brow covered with sweat,
Aramis listened, his breast oppressed, his heart ready to break.

Nothing more. The giant slept the eternal sleep, in the sepulcher which
God had built about him to his measure.

Chapter LI. Porthos's Epitaph.

Aramis, silent and sad as ice, trembling