Chapter 49

Chapter XLIX
An Homeric Song
It is time to pass into the other camp, and to describe at once the combatants and the field of battle. Aramis and Porthos had gone to the grotto of Locmaria with the expectation of finding in that place their canoe, ready moored, as well as the three Bretons, their assistants; and they at first hoped to make the boat pass through the little issue of the cavern, concealing in that fashion both their labors and their flight. The arrival of the fox and the dogs had obliged them to remain concealed. The grotto extended the space of about a hundred toises to a little slope dominating a creek. Formerly a temple of the Celtic divinities when Belle-Isle was still called Calonese, this grotto had seen more than one human sacrifice accomplished in its mysterious depths. The first entrance to the cavern was by a moderate descent, above which heaped up rocks formed a low arcade; the interior, very unequal as to the ground, dangerous from the rocky inequalities of the vault, was subdivided into several compartments which commanded one another and were joined by means of several rough broken steps, fixed right and left in enormous natural pillars. At the third compartment the vault was so low, the passage so narrow, that the boat would scarcely have passed without touching the two sides; nevertheless, in a moment of despair, wood softens and stone becomes compliant under the breath of human will. Such was the thought of Aramis, when, after having fought the fight, he decided upon flight,- a flight certainly dangerous, since all the assailants were not dead, and since admitting the possibility of putting the boat to sea, they would have to fly in open day, before the eyes of the conquered, who, on discovering how few they were, would be eager in pursuit.

When the two discharges had killed ten men, Aramis, habituated to the windings of the cavern, went to reconnoitre them one by one, and counted them, for the smoke prevented seeing on beyond; and he immediately commanded that the canoe should be rolled as far as the great stone, the closure of the liberating issue. Porthos collected all his strength, and took the canoe in his arms and lifted it, while the Bretons made it run rapidly along the rollers. They had descended into the third compartment; they had arrived at the stone which walled up the outlet. Porthos seized this gigantic stone at its base, applied his robust shoulder to it, and gave a heave which made this wall crack. A cloud of dust fell from the vault with the ashes of ten thousand generations of sea-birds, whose nests stuck like cement to the rock. At the third shock the stone gave way; it oscillated for a minute. Porthos, placing his back against the neighboring rock, made an arch with his foot which drove the block out of the calcareous masses which served for hinges and cramps. The stone fell; and daylight was visible, brilliant, radiant, which rushed into the cavern by the opening, and the