Chapter 48

Chapter XLVIII
The Grotto
In spite of the sort of divination which was the remarkable side of the character of Aramis, the event, subject to the chances of things over which uncertainty presides, did not fall out exactly as the Bishop of Vannes had foreseen. Biscarrat, better mounted than his companions, arrived first at the opening of the grotto, and comprehended that the fox and the dogs were all engulfed in it. But, struck by that superstitious terror which every dark and subterraneous way naturally impresses upon the mind of man, he stopped at the outside of the grotto, and waited till his companions should have assembled round him.

“Well?” asked the young men, coming up out of breath, and unable to understand the meaning of his inaction.

“Well, I cannot hear the dogs; they and the fox must be all engulfed in this cavern.”

“They were too close up,” said one of the guards, “to have lost scent all at once; besides, we should hear them from one side or another. They must, as Biscarrat says, be in this grotto.”

“But then,” said one of the young men, “why don’t they give tongue?”

“It is strange!” said another.

“Well, but,” said a fourth, “let us go into this grotto. Is it forbidden that we should enter it?”

“No,” replied Biscarrat; “only, as it looks as dark as a wolf’s mouth, we might break our necks in it.”

“Witness the dogs,” said a guard, “who seem to have broken theirs.”

“What the devil can have become of them?” asked the young men, in chorus; and every master called his dog by his name, whistled to him in his favorite note, without a single reply to either the call or the whistle.

“It is perhaps an enchanted grotto,” said Biscarrat. “Let us see”; and jumping from his horse, he made a step into the grotto.

“Stop! stop! I will accompany you,” said one of the guards, on seeing Biscarrat preparing to disappear in the shade of the cavern’s mouth.

“No,” replied Biscarrat,- “there must be something extraordinary in the place; don’t let us risk ourselves all at once. If in ten minutes you do not hear of me, you can come in,- but then all at once.”

“Be it so,” said the young men, who besides did not see that Biscarrat ran much risk in the enterprise, “we will wait for you”; and without dismounting from their horses, they formed a circle round the grotto.

Biscarrat entered then alone, and advanced through the darkness till he came in contact with the muzzle of Porthos’s musket. The resistance against his breast astonished him; he raised his hand and laid hold of