Part 37

— My good friend, said Porthos after breathing noisily, we have arrived, it seems to me; but I believe you spoke to me of three men, of three servants who were to accompany us. I do not see them; where are they then?

— Why should you see them, dear Porthos? replied Aramis. They are certainly waiting for us in the cavern, and no doubt they are resting a moment after having accomplished that harsh and difficult labor.

Aramis stopped Porthos, who was preparing to enter the underground passage.

— Will you, my good friend, said he to the giant, allow me to pass first? I know the signal I gave our men, and our fellows, not hearing it, would be liable to fire upon you or throw their knife at you in the shadows.

— Go, dear Aramis, go first, you are all wisdom and all prudence, go. Besides, here is that fatigue of which I spoke to you seizing me once again.

Aramis let Porthos sit down at the entrance of the grotto, and, bending his head, he penetrated into the interior of the cavern, imitating the cry of the owl.

A little plaintive cooing, a barely distinct cry, answered from the depths of the underground passage.

Aramis continued his prudent march, and soon he was stopped by the same cry that he had first uttered, and this cry was launched ten paces from him.

— Are you there, Yves? said the bishop.

— Yes, my lord. Goennec is there also. His son accompanies us.

— Good. Are all things ready?

— Yes, my lord.

— Go a little to the entrance of the grottoes, my good Yves, and you will find there the lord of Pierrefonds, who is resting, fatigued as he is from his run. And if, by chance, he cannot walk, lift him and bring him here near me.

The three Bretons obeyed. But Aramis's recommendation to his servants was useless. Porthos, refreshed, had already himself begun the descent, and his heavy step resounded amid the cavities formed and supported by columns of flint and granite.

As soon as the lord of Bracieux had rejoined the bishop, the Bretons lit a lantern with which they had provided themselves, and Porthos assured his friend that he felt himself thenceforth as strong as usual.

— Let us inspect the skiff, said Aramis, and let us first assure ourselves of what it contains.

— Do not bring the light too close, said the patron Yves; for, as you were good enough to recommend to me, my lord, I have placed under the stern bench, in the chest, you know, the barrel of powder and the musket charges that you had sent me from the fort.

— Good, said Aramis.

And, taking the lantern himself, he minutely visited all parts of the skiff with the precautions of a man who is neither timid nor ignorant in the face of danger.

The skiff was long, light, drawing little water, thin of keel, in short one of those that have always been so well built at Belle-Île, somewhat high of side, solid on the water, very manageable, furnished with planks which, in uncertain times, form a sort of deck upon which the waves glide, and which can protect the rowers.

In two well-closed chests, placed under the fore and aft benches, Aramis found bread, biscuit, dried fruits, a quarter of bacon, a good supply of water in skins; all forming sufficient rations for men who were never to leave the coast, and found themselves able to resupply if need commanded.

The arms, eight muskets and as many cavalry pistols, were in good condition and all loaded. He had spare oars in case of accident and that little sail called a jib, which aids the progress of the skiff while the rowers also swim, which is so useful when the breeze makes itself felt, and which does not burden the boat.

When Aramis had recognized all these things, and had shown himself content with the result of his inspection:

— Let us take counsel, said he, dear Porthos, to know whether we should try to get the boat out by the unknown extremity of the grotto, following the slope and the shadow of the underground passage, or whether it is better, in the open sky, to make it slide upon rollers, over the heather, by leveling the path of the little cliff, which is not twenty feet high, and gives at its foot, in the tide, three or four fathoms of good water on a good bottom.

— That makes no difference, my lord, replied the patron Yves respectfully; but I do not believe that by the slope of the underground passage and in the darkness in which we will be obliged to maneuver our boat, the way is as convenient as in full air. I know the cliff well, and I can certify to you that it is smooth as a garden lawn; the interior of the grotto, on the contrary, is rough; not to mention further, my lord, that, at the extremity, we shall find the narrow passage that leads to the sea, and perhaps the skiff will not pass through it.

— I have made my calculations, replied the bishop, and I have the certainty that it would pass.

— Be it so; I grant it, my lord, insisted the patron; but Your Grandeur knows well that, to make it reach the end of the passage, one must lift an enormous stone, the one under which the fox always passes, and which closes the passage like a door.

— It shall be lifted, said Porthos; it is nothing.

— Oh! I know that Monseigneur has the strength of ten men, replied Yves; only, it is hard labor for Monseigneur.

— I believe the patron may be right, said Aramis. Let us try the open sky.

— All the more, my lord, continued the fisherman, that we could not embark before day, so much work is there, and that, as soon as day appears, a good lookout, placed on the upper part of the grotto, will be necessary for us, indispensable even, to watch the maneuvers of the boats or cruisers that would lie in wait for us.

— Yes, Yves, yes, your reason is good; we shall go upon the cliff.

And the three robust Bretons were going, placing their rollers under the boat, to set it in motion, when distant barkings of dogs made themselves heard in the countryside. Aramis sprang out of the grotto; Porthos followed him.

The dawn was tinting the waves and the plain with purple and mother-of-pearl; in the half-light, one saw the melancholy little firs twist upon the stones, and long flights of crows grazed with their black wings the lean buckwheat fields.

A quarter of an hour more and the day would be full; the birds, awakened, announced it joyfully by their songs to all nature.

The barkings that had been heard, and which had stopped the three fishermen ready to move the boat, and made Aramis and Porthos come out, prolonged themselves in a deep gorge, about a league from the grotto.

— It is a pack, said Porthos; the dogs are launched on a scent.

— What is that? who hunts at such a moment? thought Aramis.

— And this way, above all, continued Porthos, this way where one fears the arrival of the royals!

— The noise is drawing near. Yes, you are right Porthos, the dogs are on a trail.

— Eh! but! suddenly cried Aramis, Yves, Yves, come here!

Yves ran up, leaving there the cylinder he still held and was about to place under the boat when this exclamation of the bishop interrupted his work.

— What is this hunt, patron? said Porthos.

— Eh! my lord, replied the Breton, I understand nothing of it. It is not at such a moment that the lord of Locmaria would hunt. No; and, yet, the dogs...

— Unless they have escaped from the kennel.

— No, said Goennec, those are not the dogs of the lord of Locmaria.

— By prudence, resumed Aramis, let us re-enter the grotto; evidently the voices are approaching, and, presently, we shall know where we stand.

They re-entered; but they had not made a hundred paces in the shadow when a noise, similar to the hoarse sigh of a frightened creature, resounded in the cavern; and, panting, rapid, frightened, a fox passed like a flash before the fugitives, leaped over the boat and disappeared leaving behind it its acrid scent, preserved a few seconds under the low vaults of the underground passage.

— The fox! cried the Bretons with the joyful surprise of the hunter.

— Accursed be we! cried the bishop, our retreat is discovered.

— How so? said Porthos; are we afraid of a fox?

— Eh! my friend, what are you saying, and why do you trouble yourself about the fox? It is not of him that we speak, pardieu! But do you not know, Porthos, that after the fox come the dogs, and that after the dogs come the men?

Porthos lowered his head.

One heard, as if to confirm the words of Aramis, the growling pack arrive with a frightful speed on the trail of the animal.

Six hounds broke out at the same instant into the little heath, with a noise of voices that resembled the fanfare of a triumph.

— There are the dogs indeed, said Aramis, posted in ambush behind a skylight contrived between two rocks; who are the hunters, now?

— If it is the lord of Locmaria, replied the patron, he will let the dogs search the grotto; for he knows them, and he will not enter it himself, assured as he will be that the fox will come out the other side; it is there that he will go to wait for it.

— It is not the lord of Locmaria who hunts, replied the bishop, turning pale in spite of himself.

— Who, then? said Porthos.

— Look.

Porthos applied his eye to the skylight and saw, at the summit of the mound, a dozen horsemen who were pushing their horses on the trace of the dogs, crying: "Tally-ho!"

— The guards! said he.

— Yes, my friend, the king's guards.

— The king's guards, do you say, my lord? cried the Bretons, turning pale in their turn.

— And Biscarrat at their head, mounted on my gray horse, continued Aramis.

The dogs, at the same moment, precipitated themselves into the grotto like an avalanche, and the depths of the cavern filled with their deafening cries.

— Ah! devil! said Aramis, recovering all his coolness at the sight of this danger, certain, inevitable. I know well that we are lost; but, at least, there remains one chance: if the guards who are going to follow their dogs, come to perceive that there is an outlet to the grottoes, no more hope; for, in entering here, they will discover the boat and ourselves. The dogs must not leave the underground passage. The masters must not enter it.

— That is just, said Porthos.

— You understand, added the bishop with the rapid precision of command: there are six dogs there, who will be forced to stop at the big stone under which the fox has slipped, but at the too narrow opening of which they will themselves be stopped and killed.

The Bretons sprang forward, knife in hand.

A few minutes later, a lamentable concert of moanings, of mortal howlings; then, nothing more.

— Good, said Aramis coldly. To the masters, now!

— What to do? said Porthos.

— Await the arrival, hide and kill.

— Kill? repeated Porthos.

— They are sixteen, said Aramis, at least for the moment.

— And well armed, added Porthos with a smile of consolation.

— That will last ten minutes, said Aramis. Come!

And, with a resolute air, he took a musket and put his hunting knife between his teeth.

— Yves, Goennec and his son, continued Aramis, will pass us the muskets. You Porthos, you will fire at point-blank. We shall have brought down eight before the others suspect it, that is certain; then all, we are five, we shall dispatch the last eight with knife in hand.

— And that poor Biscarrat? said Porthos.

Aramis reflected a moment.

— Biscarrat first, replied he coldly. He knows us.

Chapter CCLIV — The Grotto

Despite the kind of divination which was the remarkable side of Aramis's character, the event, subjected to the chances of things left to hazard, did not accomplish itself quite as the bishop of Vannes had foreseen.

Biscarrat, better mounted than his companions, arrived first at the opening of the grotto, and understood that, fox and dogs, all had engulfed themselves there. Only, struck by that superstitious terror which a dark subterranean way naturally impresses on the mind of man, he stopped at the exterior of the grotto, and waited until his companions were gathered around him.

— Well? they asked him, the young men quite out of breath, and understanding nothing of his inaction.

— Well! one no longer hears the dogs; fox and pack must be swallowed up in that underground passage.

— They have led too well, said one of the guards, to have suddenly lost the scent. Besides, one would hear them babbling on one side or the other. It must be, as Biscarrat says, that they are in this grotto.

— But then, said one of the young men, why do they give no more voice?

— It is strange, said another.

— Well! but, said a fourth, let us enter this grotto. Is it forbidden to enter, by chance?

— No, replied Biscarrat. Only, it is as black as in an oven, and one can break one's neck there.

— Witness our dogs, said a guard, who seem to have broken theirs.

— The devil, what have they become? asked the young men in chorus.

And each master called his dog by name, whistled it with his favorite fanfare, without a single one answering, either to the call or to the whistle.

— It is perhaps an enchanted grotto, said Biscarrat. Let us see.

And putting foot to ground, he made a step into the grotto.

— Wait, wait, I accompany you, said one of the guards seeing Biscarrat ready to disappear into the half-shadow.

— No, replied Biscarrat, there must be something extraordinary; let us not risk ourselves all at once. If, in ten minutes, you have no news of me, you will enter, but all together, then.

— Be it so, said the young men, who saw, besides, no great danger for Biscarrat in attempting the enterprise; we await him.

And, without dismounting from horse, they made a circle around the grotto.

Biscarrat therefore entered alone, and advanced in the darkness as far as under the musket of Porthos.

This resistance that his chest encountered astonished him; he stretched out his hand and seized the icy barrel.

At the same instant, Yves raised upon the young man a knife, which was about to fall upon him with all the force of a Breton arm, when the iron wrist of Porthos stopped it halfway.

Then, like a muffled growl, this voice made itself heard in the obscurity:

— I do not wish him killed, I.

Biscarrat found himself taken between a protection and a threat, almost as terrible one as the other.

Brave as the young man was, he let escape a cry, which Aramis immediately stifled, by bringing a handkerchief to his mouth.

— Monsieur de Biscarrat, said he to him in a low voice, we wish you no harm, and you must know it if you have recognized us; but, at the first word, at the first sigh, at the first breath, we shall be forced to kill you as we have killed your dogs.

— Yes, I recognize you, gentlemen, said the young man very low. But why are you here? what are you doing here? Unhappy! unhappy! I thought you were in the fort.

— And you, sir, you were to obtain conditions for us, it seems to me?

— I have done what I could, gentlemen; but...

— But?...

— But there are formal orders.

— To kill us?

Biscarrat answered nothing. It cost him to speak of rope to gentlemen.

Aramis understood the silence of his prisoner.

Monsieur Biscarrat, said he, you would already be dead if we had not had regard to your youth and to our former connection with your father; but you can still escape from here by swearing to us that you will not speak to your companions of what you have seen.

— Not only do I swear that I will not speak of it, said Biscarrat, but I swear further that I will do all in the world to prevent my companions from setting foot in this grotto.

— Biscarrat! Biscarrat! cried from outside several voices which came to engulf themselves like a whirlwind in the underground passage.

— Answer, said Aramis.

— Here I am! cried Biscarrat.

— Go, we rely upon your loyalty.

And he released the young man.

Biscarrat remounted toward the light.

— Biscarrat! Biscarrat! cried the voices, closer.

And one saw projected into the interior of the grotto the shadows of several human forms.

Biscarrat sprang forward to meet his friends to stop them, and rejoined them as they began to venture into the underground passage.

Aramis and Porthos lent ear with the attention of men who stake their life on a breath of air.

Biscarrat had regained the entrance of the grotto, followed by his friends.

— Oh! oh! said one of them on arriving in the daylight, how pale you are!

— Pale! cried another; you mean livid?

— Me? said the young man, trying to recall all his mastery over himself.

— But, in the name of Heaven, what has happened to you? asked all the voices.

— You have not a drop of blood in your veins, my poor friend, said another, laughing.

— Gentlemen, it is serious, said another; he is going to faint; have you any smelling salts?

And all burst into laughter. All these interjections, all these railleries crossed around Biscarrat, as cross, amid fire, the balls in a melee.

He recovered his strength under this deluge of questions.

— What would you have me seen? asked he. I was very warm when I entered this grotto, I was seized by the cold there; that is all.

— But the dogs, the dogs, have you seen them again? have you heard tell of them? had news of them?

— One must believe they have taken another way, said Biscarrat.

— Gentlemen, said one of the young men, there is, in what is passing, in the pallor and in the silence of our friend, a mystery that Biscarrat does not wish, or cannot doubtless reveal. Only, and it is a sure thing, Biscarrat has seen something in the grotto. Well! I, I am curious to see what he has seen, were it the devil. To the grotto, gentlemen! to the grotto!

— To the grotto! repeated all the voices.

And the echo of the underground passage went to bear like a threat to Porthos and Aramis these words: "To the grotto! to the grotto!"

Biscarrat threw himself before his companions.

— Gentlemen! gentlemen! cried he, in the name of Heaven do not enter!

— But what is there so frightful in this underground passage? asked several voices.

— Come, speak, Biscarrat.

— Decidedly, it is the devil he has seen, repeated he who had already advanced this hypothesis.

— Well! but, if he has seen him, cried another, let him not be selfish, and let him leave us to see him in our turn.

— Gentlemen! gentlemen! I beseech you! insisted Biscarrat.

— Come, let us pass.

— Gentlemen, I implore you, do not enter!

— But you entered, yourself?

Then, one of the officers who, of a more mature age than the others, had remained behind until then and said nothing, advanced:

— Gentlemen, said he in a calm tone which contrasted with the animation of the young men, there is someone or something in there who is not the devil, but who, whoever he may be, has had enough power to silence our dogs. We must know who is this someone or this something.

Biscarrat made a last effort to stop his friends; but it was a useless effort. Vainly he threw himself before the most reckless; vainly he clung to the rocks to bar the passage, the crowd of young men made irruption into the cavern, on the steps of the officer who had spoken last, but who, first, had sprung forward sword in hand to confront the unknown danger.

Biscarrat, repelled by his friends, unable to accompany them, on pain of passing in the eyes of Porthos and Aramis for a traitor and a perjurer, went, ear strained and hands still supplicating, to lean against the rough sides of a rock, which he judged ought to be exposed to the fire of the musketeers.

As for the guards, they penetrated further and further with cries which weakened as they sank into the underground passage.

Suddenly, a discharge of musketry, rumbling like thunder, burst under the vaults.

Two or three balls came to flatten themselves on the rock against which Biscarrat leaned.

At the same instant, sighs, howlings and imprecations rose up, and this little troop of gentlemen reappeared, some pale, some bleeding, all enveloped in a cloud of smoke that the outer air seemed to draw from the depths of the cavern.

— Biscarrat! Biscarrat! cried the fugitives, you knew there was an ambush in this cavern, and you did not warn us!

— Biscarrat! you are the cause that four of us are killed; woe to you, Biscarrat!

— You are the cause that I am wounded to death, said one of the young men, gathering his blood in his hand, and casting it in the face of Biscarrat; may my blood fall back upon you!

And he rolled, agonizing, at the feet of the young man.

— But, at least, tell us who is there! cried several furious voices.

Biscarrat was silent.

— Say it or die! cried the wounded man, raising himself on one knee, and raising upon his companion an arm armed with a useless iron.

Biscarrat precipitated himself toward him, opening his breast to the blow; but the wounded man fell back to rise no more, uttering a sigh, the last.

Biscarrat, hair bristling, eyes wild, head lost, advanced toward the interior of the cavern, saying:

— You are right, death to me who have let my companions be assassinated! I am a coward!

And, casting his sword far from him, for he wished to die without defending himself, he precipitated himself, head lowered, into the underground passage.

The other young men imitated him.

Eleven, who remained of sixteen, plunged with him into the gulf.

But they went no further than the first: a second discharge laid five of them on the icy sand, and as it was impossible to see whence this mortal thunder issued, the others recoiled with a terror that may better be depicted than expressed.

But, far from fleeing like the others, Biscarrat, remained safe and sound, sat on a block of rock and waited.

There remained no more than six gentlemen.

— Seriously, said one of the survivors, is it the devil?

— My faith! it is much worse, said another.

— Let us ask Biscarrat; he knows, he.

— Where is Biscarrat?

The young men looked around them, and saw that Biscarrat was missing at the roll call.

— He is dead! said two or three voices.

— Not so, replied another, I saw him, I, in the midst of the smoke, sit quietly on a rock; he is in the cavern, he awaits us.

— He must know those who are there.

— And how would he know them?

— He has been prisoner of the rebels.

— That is true. Well! let us call him, and learn from him whom we have to deal with.

And all the voices cried:

— Biscarrat! Biscarrat!

But Biscarrat answered not.

— Good! said the officer who had shown so much coolness in this affair, we have no further need of him, here are reinforcements arriving for us.

Indeed, a company of the guards, left behind by their officers, whom the ardor of the chase had carried away, seventy-five to eighty men about, arrived in good order, guided by the captain and the first lieutenant. The five officers ran to meet their soldiers and, in a language whose eloquence is easy to conceive, they explained the adventure and demanded help.

The captain interrupted them.

— Where are your companions? asked he.

— Dead!

“Stories of the world, in your language.”